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1000 BOOKS: track-by-track by Carl & Barry (see previous post for credits and lyrics)

SPACE IN THE BLUES (CARL MARSH)

Very often - well, almost always, actually - my first step in building a Shriek song is injecting lyric fragments from a notebook into a sympathetic host groovelet. In this case, I had a few lines, including ‘be not afraid of beauty / do not avoid the light’ and ‘I am shimmer and glare / I am vanishing rare’, both of which made it to the final draught, and the over-arching - and, indeed, over-arch - working title, ’the sum of all our follies’, which didn’t, though it kinda tells you where I was at. So I clearly needed something pretty epic, quite downtempo, dramatic - or even melodramatic - and, the lyrics seemed to be suggesting, something in a 6/8 or 3/4 rhythm. Listening through the 20-30 grooves we’d spawned in our 2-day jamming session in October 2020, I think there was only one candidate with the required 6/8 feel, and, luckily, it fit - sometimes it’s great when there’s no choice: it saves so much time.

The improvisation had been given the working title ‘Space Blues’ because it was, well, spacey and bluesy, with a fair bit of Dave Gilmour-esque echoey guitar noodling. That was soon stripped out; I asked Martyn to send me a cleaned-up version of the drum groove and I started structuring the song over that. However, by the time we were in the rehearsal room in May 2021, I still wasn’t sure where the song was going - I had three distinct sections evolving, all quite promising, but not really unified lyrically or melodically: it sounded like there might actually be two separate songs there. It took a few hours in my hotel room in Eastbourne to get the three melodic/lyric parts to sit together as a unified verse/chorus and then expand the lyric to three verses. I ended up with this big, torch-songish thing where each verse surged unstoppably towards a cliff edge where our overwrought narrator would fall off… or through… what, exactly? I had no idea what that would be until I realised - either through desperation, luck, synergy or the benevolence of the Shriekback über-spirit - that, with a minor tweak, ‘Space Blues’ could become ‘the space in the blues’ and I could fall through that. Yippee: demo vocal recorded on phone, job done.

Except… I had no guitar or keyboard with me that night, so I couldn’t hack out the chord progressions. So the next day I sang it to Barry as we sat around the piano, old-school stylee. Which we hadn’t done for a long time… if ever, come to think of it. Barry’s first take on it was full-on Berlin/Paris cabaret, which was a hoot but unfortunately didn’t quite work with my melody, so we got it down to the verse/chorus you hear on the record .Barry wrote the middle eight later.

UNHOLINESS (CM)

Like several tracks on the album, Unholiness began as an improvisation in a writing session at Echo Zoo i October ’20. As is a fairly standard practice for us now, - WFH veterans that we are - I sent Martyn some edited clips from the jam which he used to build a drum track which formed the bedrock to develop the song (no change there, then). I put down a rhythm guitar first, for groove and vibe; the next thing to go on, oddly perhaps, was the multi-tracked ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah’ vocal - it was a clear idea I had in my head and defined a certain part of the character of the song, so it went in early, as did the brassy synth part, which picked the bones out of some of Barry’s keys from the improvisation to make a hook. That was enough to sketch out the core vocal/lyrical ideas; I thought these might have to be extensively revised later, but as it turned out they survived pretty much intact. Finally, I had great fun putting on a nifty bass part - so much fun I even posted a video of it (it’s here, should you be following the trail - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkVTWuOqc3M).

So far, so funky. My only reservation was whether I was too far back in the Shriek-funk comfort zone when we had an intention to explore a new landscape of glitchy loops, unpredictable fx and a plugged-in electro-Mart. Hmmm…

Christoph and Martyn excelled putting the drum track together in the studio - the former obsessively swapping snares, changing mics and tuning the kit between practically every take, Martyn playing with impeccable technique and feel. Bang. Christoph was also particularly smitten with a little bit of rhythm guitar I’d left hanging around on the outro of the demo, for its groove and attitude (whatever, dude): that became the source of the dual rhythm guitar parts. Barry put down fabulous keys, mainly some Hammond that managed to both push up the rhythm and swirl into nooks and crannies in the groove. Apart from my disappointment at having my bassline voted out in favour of Scott playing it (“it’s a no-brainer” - bloody cheek!), all was going well.

So, an easy one, right? Well, not quite. Christoph was on a quest for the secret key to unlock the track, whether it was in a rhythm guitar phrase or a Hammond riff, so there was quite a bit of tidal flow. He requested a guitar solo NOW, so I did one, which I wasn’t allowed to redo, so hey, a one-take wonder. That’s what happens if you give someone a Producer hat - great responsibility is handed over, great trust is required. And we got there in the end, sassy Sids’ vocals an’ all.

The track sits in the album either as a funky outlier or as a sort of link back to Shriekback’s core DNA. Either way, it grooves like a mofo.

PORTOBELLO HEAD (Barry Andrews)

'I'm gonna have to dissect my own head'

Well yeah, I think we've all been there. Heads are good - Celtic heads, Riddley Walker (sorry but I insist) 'hedds on poles and ripe for telling' (also ‘The Head of Orpheus’) and, more geographically apposite - the head of Bran the Blessed who guards London against the oncoming of enemies - now, they say, buried under Pentonville ('pen' in welsh means ‘head’) Road. And, let's not resist the line of least resistance - the squishy hippy mind set of the pre-Julia Roberts inhabitants of Notting Hill - Portobello Head is a real condition, man..

A comic book thing perhaps - anyway, the point is our hero's sheer abjectness: cock block him, infect him, cuff him to the radiator - truly the dude is on his belly, rolling around on the leatherette in the fumes of burning rubber. What a fucking rotter.

The multi-synth/sampled, mad-as-a-balloon ending was my attempt to respond to Christoph playing us a Franz Ferdinand tune (forgot which) where the standard rocky instrumentation morphs into a technology-driven smeltdown.

In our version I like how a gazillion squirming plastic snakes burst out of the guts of the song and slither off into the night. WTF happened there?

Slowly at First Then All At Once (BA)

…was Hemingway’s reply to the question: ‘how did you go bankrupt?’ Then I heard it applied to the HBO show about Nazis taking over America (no, silly, it was a ‘what-if’ thought experiment set in the 40’s) and I thought that this template - a slow ramp up then a swift ascension, followed by a long decline culminating in a rapid plummet, is the pattern for a whole bunch of things.

I guess also I was thinking of the Pareto curve - the savage law (or maybe more of a guideline - a savage guideline) that obtains in the pitiless game of Monopoly and, indeed, Life - it explains why most of the vinyl in the world is used by Adele, for instance.

It struck me as interesting that there can be mathematically coherent laws which govern human behaviour just as they define the parameters of physics. I like maths, I think, because I really, really don’t understand them (qv. ’37’).

So it’s a very intelligible song for us, I think. Nice and clear. The music also is pretty trad: those straightforward chords with their hymn-like progression.

Its first encounter with the band had Mart going full-fat Power Ballad on its ass - massive drum sound wreathed in reverb and tubular bells - was it overegging the old pudding, I wondered? Christoph curated the present version, distressing further the already pretty lived-in loop the song was built on (from the Chase Bliss Mood pedal, since you ask, my new bff) and reducing the drums to Mart’s reined-in, best-behaviour brush/soft-beater combo.

The verses, rather like Nemesis, have a bullet point, issue-based organisation to them:

V1 is Love: falling/not falling in.. I question the metaphor. Isn’t it more that we suddenly notice it’s there and, heartbreakingly, when it’s not anymore? As in all these examples there’s usually a catalytic, propulsive event - the Reichstag Fire of Romance, if you will.

V2 is Nature - in particular the phenomenon of the Last Tree Standing - usually in November in the UK - one lonely, brave-looking fellow has somehow retained a lot of its leaves when all the others have succumbed to winter - clinging poignantly onto the summer as if to say: ‘nothing’s changed really, look - leaves! It’s still kinda August, right?’ Genetically talented or just aerodynamically lucky, he’s on borrowed time, that tree… Winter is, as they say, coming.

And suddenly, and with one last decisive storm, it’s here.. and all the trees look the same.

V3 - and here come the fascists - I pick a pair of representative tyrants: Ubu Roi - the fictional fat dude with the spiral on his stomach (merdrrrre was his catchphrase (Eng Trans: 'shitttrrr'). And Mu’ammar (Gaddafi).

A pair of right little charmers.

The point, I tried to make in as non-inflammatory way as possible (for after all it is just a pop song) is that - well, you know it by now, if you're ever going to - look after your democracies - they're not, by any means, a given and there are those who are (and how best to say this?) just cunts and we should really try and keep ‘em in check, before they get out of hand.

V4 - this time it's personal - our narrator foetally curled and thumbsucking in the terrible presence of these inexorable laws - contemplates the 'Ultimate Decline': these days very much along the Slowly at First model - you get old, then you get sick, then you go into hospital and you recover but not quite back to where you were before. Repeat for a few times until one day.... it's usually a Fall isn't it? - and then one condition which has tenaciously (albeit precariously) maintained - Being Alive - is instantaneously replaced with... you know - the Other One.

Good Disruption (CM)

This didn’t get its title for a while - it started off as the rather prosaic New Recording 16 - but I did want to try a couple of different things. The twangy, picky, surf-ish guitar tone isn’t one that I use a lot, and I haven’t really pulled out that whiny singing voice since, I dunno, Jam Science? Well, not as a lead vocal, anyway.

I don’t want to go into the lyrics too much here, but I suppose a note would be useful. I had noticed that ‘disruption’ had become a become almost a generic (and generally positive) term for ‘shaking things up’ in almost any context - business, politics, art - and ‘disruptor’ was being self-proclaimed as a title by those fancying themselves as being on the cutting edge of radical change; I’ve even seen it used in peoples’ LinkedIn profiles. However, it also seemed like a lot of real disruptors weren’t working for the general good, ‘disruption’ in these cases meaning ‘wilfully vandalising existing stable paradigms’ through self-interest, ignorance or hey, just for the hell of it. Yes, I’m talking about you, Donald Trump, amongst others.

Then I found the little parable about the ants in the jar which had sprouted on the internet. Essentiall, it goes:

‘If you put 100 black ants and 100 red ants in a jar, they will co-exist peacefully. However, if someone shakes the jar, they will fight to the death, the black ants thinking the red ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in fact the real enemy is whoever shook the jar.’

You can find this trotted out all over the place to illustrate different conflicts - Black/White, Male/Female, Right/Left etc.. It’s such a neat little picture that no-one seems to care whether it’s actually true or where it first originated. I think I first saw it on a website called The Good Republican, which no longer seems to exist (maybe unsurprisingly), but it’s been attributed to all sorts of people, notably David Attenborough (it definitely wasn’t him). I just found it interesting as an example of how things are spread and appropriated and how the dissemination process becomes a kind of disruption in its own right.

Anyway, back to the studio and, in this case, a relatively straightforward build on Martyn’s once again excellent drums. The guitar sound posed some issues for Christoph, however: he loved the sound on my demo version, which was built in Logic, recreating the pedalboard sound I’d created in the writing room, and he in turn recreated it (ish) in the studio for me to play and expand the parts. I think I liked the result, although the sound was harder and brighter, but Christoph elected to use the parts from the demo, favouring sound over performance, arguably. Somewhere in the mixing process we also effectively lost a synth part I’d put on; having now lived without it for a while, I think that was a mistake, as it leaves the chorus vocal somewhat exposed and unsupported. (You just get a taste of it right at the end, pretty much the last thing you hear.) It’s that Producer trust/responsibility thing again…

To make up for that, we get some fabulous keyboards - squiggly synth and groovy, atmospheric organ: Barry’s not a Manzarek fan at all, but he gets his Doors on here. And of course The Sids, gamely chanting along to the, erm, disrupted middle vocal section, straight-faced but flexible. An interesting tangent, then, but worth pursuing further…? We’ll see, I suppose…

EVERYTHING HAPPENS SO MUCH (BA)

'That might as well happen' says Ryan George the Youtube comic as his Hollywood script writer pitches plots at his (thinly disguised doppelganger) movie executive. Every far fetched and arbitrary thing that happens might as well (happen).

https://youtu.be/PrAT_ncXr7M

Reality, of course, does not flinch from arbitrariness or ridiculously impausible content. A commonplace comment over the last few years has come in these variations: 'if this was in a film you'd say it was too over the top/on the nose/ downright unbelievable.'

I mean check this out:

‘The conspiracy theorists behind Frazzledrip believe that Hillary Clinton and former Clinton aide Huma Abedin were filmed ripping off a child’s face and wearing it as a mask before drinking the child’s blood in a Satanic ritual sacrifice. Supposedly, the Hillary Clinton video was later found on the hard drive of Abedin’s former husband, Anthony Weiner, under the code name ‘Frazzledrip’.

So yeah. The wheels have come off on the Crazy Train, people. So, it’s no wonder that our poor narrator is driven to consult (in the bridge section) his spirit guide or an oracle to get a bit of perspective.

The whole tune was extrapolated from the little Mood pedal loop with which it begins - started off as a piano, as I recall. Really is paying for itself, that thing..

Different Story (CM)

This, the most ‘pop’ song on the album, started from Barry’s catchy little piano riff. It’s essentially a boy-meets-girl ditty, about how that’s a timeless story and yet different for everyone. What’s been different during the past couple of years, of course, is that boy couldn’t meet girl. That lack of personal contact has left story arcs hanging, and it’s become apparent that that narrative is not only a description of reality but somehow part of its fabric, so removing it has left a bigger hole than we perhaps would have expected. We have filled it in remotely, by Zoom and social media and by creating our own internal stories, but the lack of human face-to-face interaction has left a huge disconnect for some. In this song it’s the young: I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be so isolated when I was, what, 20-21 - there may not have been a Shriekback, for a start!.So the pop song is followed by a reflective passage about the ways we create and modify our stories and, through those, our realities, with a respectful nod to those we’ve loved and lost in these strange times.

Musically, the initial groove was developed into a loping, rattling thing that for a while clattered along so happily that it was the longest track on the record, until it was reeled in to an appropriate length for its pop status and is now the shortest track on the album. Still, there’s always a remix…

There was some sparring around the bassline - whenever Barry worked on the track he took out my bass guitar and used the keyboard bass; I did the opposite. Eventually we worked out the plot for a hybrid, switching between the two for different sections: a risky strategy, but it works. For the big chorus chord progression I decided not to do my usual Big Chord trick, but went for sharp chords cutting across instead. I sort of wish now that I’d done both: there’s a reason I always use that trick… oh well. The Sids are on point, of course - quite unusual choices, intriguingly dodging the obvious.

Now the story starts again…

1000 Different Books (CM)

This trippy thing emerged from improvisations using loops and atmospherics generated by the battlestar of new hardware that Barry auditioned, accumulated and harnessed during lockdown (quite obsessively, really, but someone’s gotta do it). From the start, it seemed to resist the structuring that we imposed on other tracks, going a different way every time we played it, so much so that we decided to let it be the only one that would continue to be developed through improvisation in the studio. If I may quote myself from a recent interview (indulgent, perhaps, but I think this nails it): “I’m usually fine with this idea, but in this case I sort of lost my nerve, mainly because it was too hard to develop a lyric and vocal over such a random piece… and, unlike the early days, we didn’t have unlimited time to follow ideas through. So it was structured, although there was more improvisation and layering than on some other tracks. At various points we had extensive piano sorties, a fair bit of feedback guitar, then it got reeled into what you hear. I really like the organic shifts in tone and rhythm, and how the drums work in a way you might not immediately think of as a Shriekback groove.”

1000 Different Books clocks in as the longest track on the record. I thought about shortening it, but again the organism resisted - I tried editing out the second verse (“rolling back the mind…”), the only lyric I considered potentially expendable, but a simple edit damaged the organic development of the track underneath: an actual remix would have been required, and we’d gone beyond the time and budget for that, so we have 5:19 of sonic evolution to live with forever. Nice.

The title, as you may already know by now, comes from a quotation from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Sculpting In Time - “A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books”, which seemed appropriate not only for the alternative realities of our fractured times but for the multiple interpretations that any Shriekback release inevitably attracts (me reading reviews: “oh, so that’s what I was on about”). In this case, it’s a reflection along the lines of ‘what have we done with all this time, why are we still here, what’s next?’, a coda of sorts to Space In The Blues: we cry into the future, but at least there is a future.

WILD WORLD (BA)

Wild World was a bit of a turn-up - right at the end written very quickly with no big struggles (see also: Exquisite Corpse, Bernadette, Hubris) - like it just wanted to burst out. So weird how that happens and yeah, a gift. From.... our boiling interiors, the Universe? She-Ra? Wotan?

We may never know..

The use of the vocoder - completely unplanned - was just from improvising with the Big Rig (the coral reef of quirky musical equipment accreting and mutating constantly in my living room) and the way it lets me sound prettier than I can can usually sound (v much as on 'Evaporation' from Care). It was the prosthetic I needed, clearly.

How it becomes alien and impersonal like Laurie Anderson's answering machine was not really intended - I worry that it's a screen to hide behind but I wasn't about to fuck around with it since it obviously - on one level anyway - 'worked'.

My son Finn's song 'One Piece at a Time' was an influence - that idea of a beneficent, forgiving world - and the Martin Amis notion (from 'The Information') that pretty much everywhere in the Universe would kill you in seconds if you went there but this place doesn't - that's a very elemental kind of love isn't it?

'God's World' by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) should also get a shout-out:

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!

Thy mists, that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag

To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,

But never knew I this;

Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear

Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;

My soul is all but out of me,—let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

(btw does everyone collect pebbles? I reckon they do...)

#1000 Books #shriekback #trackbytrack #christophskirl

1000 BOOKS - LYRICS & CREDITS

Written and performed by Shriekback: Barry Andrews, Martyn Barker and Carl Marsh.

Produced by Christoph Skirl at Echo Zoo Studios, Eastbourne (may-oct 2021)

Backing vocals: Wendy and Sarah Partridge,

Bass on tracks 2,3 & 6: Scott Firth.

cover art: Joe del Tufo (Moonlamp photography)

Space in the Blues

Pick the low-hanging fruit

From the red tree of fluid

Is it substance abuse that’s the cause

Or did love make me do it?

Be not afraid of beauty

Do not avoid the light

Beware the cold stagnation

That comes by surprise like a thief in the night

I am sharp and divine

I am biding my time

Antiseptically clean to the end of the line

At the boundary edge

The infinity net

If there’s a limit I’ve not found it yet

So I’ll fall, fall, fall

Through the space in the blues

Nurse a dark tender bruise

In a hotbed of ruin

Is the margin of error so small

That we cannot hold to it?

Be not seduced by anger

Do not abandon trust

Deny the fragmentation

That drives all we hold dear to fall into dust

I am shimmer and glare

I am vanishing rare

Escaping like steam making love to the air

By the glowering wall

The enabling shade

Some caustic decisions have yet to be made

And I fall, fall, fall

Through the space in the blues

Squeeze the last primal juice

Under mirrors and sequins

Is the whirlpool dragging us down

Or do swimmers burst through it?

Be not in thrall to prophets

Do not regret mistakes

Dismiss the old frustration

Twists body and mind in its grip til they break

I am blessed and cursed

I am fearing the worst

Obsessively charting our last days on Earth

In the luminous dawn

The irrational gleam

With everything coming apart at the seams

I will fall, fall, fall

Through the space in the blues

UNHOLINESS

No summer time

Just winter fear

Unkind, unkind, unkind

The stricken face

The constant stare

Unwind, unwind, unwind

Waiting for an answer

Answer comes there none

Gonna never leave the nether world

Gonna never get you some

Everybody say

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Unholiness, unholiness

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Some perfect mess, some perfect mess

All improvised

There will be tears

It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine

Some savage grace

Is coming here

In time, in time, in time

Waiting for a reason

Reason slipped away

Gonna never leave the netherworld

This or any day

Everybody say

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Unholiness, unholiness

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Some perfect mess, some perfect mess

Talkin’ ‘bout a head shot

Talkin’ ‘bout a crimson flower

Talkin’ ‘bout the underground

Talkin’ ‘bout super powers

The signifier and the signified

The petrified and the petrified

The drones, the bones, the shrunken heads

These are the monsters under the bed

Defamation, the easy lies

The bogeyman ate all the pies

Dissent, disease, the trembling knees

And, oh, your soul is burning

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Unholiness, unholiness

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Some tenderness, some tenderness

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

In loneliness, in loneliness

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Some perfect mess, some perfect mess

PORTOBELLO HEAD

defrock me

windsock me

cock block me

in a limited way

consume me

perfume me

and groom me

wipe the mess away

sincerely..

just merely

Cuff me to the radiator Cuff me to the radiator

inflame me

rename me

mainframe me

in the light of day

it's dirt cheap

one big heap

it won't keep

shovel it away

inject me

inflect me

hook me to the generator hook me to the generator

I get on on my belly

gonna roll around

in the satellites the choirs are singing

Down in the Jelly there's a world unbound

phantasmagoria of virtue clinging

inspect me

dissect me

resurrect me

20 times a day

I hoarded

the sordid

- we all did -

then let it out to play

I went there

got bent there

blessed be the stimulator blessed be the stimulator

I get on on my belly

gonna hit the ground

on the leatherette the tyres are burning

Schiaparelli - don't mess around:

all the pestilence of love returning

(front brain - mainframe,heavier than lead:

you'll never get the better of the Portobello Head)

SLOWLY AT FIRST THEN ALL AT ONCE

Love is where it falls and then it falls away, they say

but this view is sentimental:

I think you'll find, in both directions,

that the gradient's more gentle:

love grows by increments - one day that revelatory kiss

then she's who you spend your nights with -

who you mix your essences with and who you will be the one..

you have the fights with.

And the ways of the world are strange - the steeple-bells they chime

saying: 'history don't repeat itself; it rhymes.'

Slowly it comes at first, then all at the one time

Like the last tree that keeps its leaves on through november

but after the violence of storm has blown the branches bare the winter won't remember

it's surprising how much can change and yet (for now) appear the same

then one spasm and convulsion: after that you'll never see that world again

and the ways of the world are cruel and beautiful sometimes

it seems to be a common paradigm:

slowly it comes at first, then all at the one time

Ubu Roi and Mu'ammar: with all their sadopopular ambitions,

(characterised by many lies

beyond the normal scope of even politicians)

dismantled one by one the democratic institutions of their nations.

Then the knocks at midnight came and the executions, pogroms and deportations.

And everyone ignored the signs:

the gradual crescendo of their crimes.

Slowly it comes at first, then all at the one time

This is an anthem to all the gods and goddesses of growth and demolition

I see it all with my thumb in my mouth from a foetal position.

To break down all the work of years you'd think would take some doing

but after a while I think you'll find there will be a few things that have been... ...brewing.

And one by one the small catastrophes align:

the fails, the falls, the ultimate decline

slowly it comes at first then all at the one time.

GOOD DISRUPTION

Down here where the facts decline

And the market falls

Start seeing the aura shine

Or see nothing at all

We are riding a wave of time

Get onto it, get onto it

We are changing a paradigm

Get over it, get over it

Gotta get some good disruption in your life

Gotta see who shakes the jar and set them right

When the the nights are long and the days are hard and bright

Gotta get some good disruption in your life

Down here where the robots dream

And the gears engage

Start feeling a silver gleam

Or feel nothing but rage

We are seeking a frequency

Lock on to it, lock on to it

We are scratching at secrecy

Locked out of it, locked out of it

Gotta get some good disruption in your life

Tell the ants inside the jar before they fight

When the the nights are long and the days are hard and bright

Gotta get some good disruption in your life

Shoobie doobie dot-dash

Tickertape and wah-wah

Ramalama bebop

Go doolally la-la

Hanky panky mish-mash

Chemicals and ya ya

Ai caramba flip-flop

Go rat-a-tat ta ta

Gotta get some good disruption in your life

Gotta see who shakes the jar and set them right

When the the nights are long and the days are hard and bright

Gotta get some good disruption in your life

EVERYTHING HAPPENS SO MUCH

There's too many shits and giggles

too many flaming swords

so many ripped on the Frazzledrip

(see the quality finish of the waterboards!)

So much is drained of virtue

So much has jumped the shark

Going to seed, trying to to find the feed:

way downriver with the oligarch.

I will interrogate my spirit guide -

Ask her why the world is amplified:

How it happens

why everything happens so much?

Why Everything Happens

Everything Happens So Much

There's too many schticks and scandals -

too many dicks in the cake -

too many licks from the crazy stick,

all too terrible to contemplate.

Too much enshrined to passion

- the ramifications sprawl.

See the fever dreams of the welfare queens

coming red-handed from the sad-sack ball.

I'm going out to brace the oracle

Find out how much is metaphorical

How it happens

why everything happens so much?

Why Everything Happens

Everything Happens So Much

too many shits and giggles

too many waterboards

all of the 'stop at nothing'

all of the flaming swords

too much enshrined to passion

(see how the passions sprawl)

too many schticks and scandals

we fear the shopping mall

so much is drained of virtue

so much has jumped a shark

so many paths to Glory

(follow the Oligarch)

so many lives that shatter

so many hearts that break

so little left to worry

so very much at stake

I will interrogate my spirit guide -

Ask her why the world is amplified

How it happens

why everything happens so much?

Why Everything Happens

Everything Happens So Much

DIFFERENT STORY

That boy seems nice enough

It’s a shame he ain’t bright enough

Just not wrapped tight enough

On his way to death or glory

That girl seems fine to me

Seems to know her own mind to me

Kinda walks the line for me

In between some different stories

A different story written on the wind

A symphony of noise and beauty

Fill ourselves with wonder and speak of senseless things

And the song that tomorrow sings

Means the story starts again

A different story never ends

That girl might break ‘em up

Or that boy could make it up

Either way they’re waking up

Tell tall tales, shake some action

The city is a book for them

Everybody there looks like them

They know it’s up to them

To make themselves the main attraction

A different story written on the years

A testament of sound and fury

Keep it in the sunshine and water it with tears

And the fruit that the future brings

Means the story starts again

A different story never ends

The things we’ve seen, the hands we’ve held

Marks on the map and notes in the margin

Small print, tall tales, fables and faded flowers

The stuff of legend? Ha! - pure invention

The rumour mill, lies, fact and fiction

Sideways looks, secret glances

Whispers, yelps and news reports

The strangers met and the friends we’ve lost

The little kids watched Jackanory

The grown-ups have a different story

1000 DIFFERENT BOOKS

Stealing all the years

Not gaining time

Hold the moment standing still

Under a stranger sky

Cry into the future

Rolling back the mind

Let reason slide

Buildings raised on shifting sands

Commence a slow decline

Cry into the future

Guided now by instinct

Negotiate disguise

The pedigrees are mongrels, eagles rooks

A book read by a thousand people is a thousand different books

Seeing through new eyes

What’s left to know?

Bound by logic’s ordered line

Pulled by the undertow

Cry into the future

The painting has more layers

X-rayed and peeled away

The camera blurred the picture when it shook

A book read by a thousand people is a thousand different books

Pass these memories on

These things survive

A forest turning into words

Or falling to the fire

Cry into the future

The path of least resistance

Delegate the ride

Set free from all reality’s cruel hooks

A book read by a thousand people is a thousand different books

WILD WORLD

Well the days are slipping past now:

days of calibrated sorrow.

This is our little piece of history

(maybe we get some tomorrow?).

There's still the trouble with the off-switch

and still the struggle with the satyr

but there's nothing much to see here now;

not a lot that really matters.

And the Wild World listens as you sing

and the Wild World wants you for a sunbeam

..although the light is fading

there's still enough to read by

and the world will hold a candle for you

as the hallucinations speed by

and you'd better make your peace with

all the things you know are true now

and all the things you didn't do

..that you're never gonna do now

For the Wild World shines in the rain

and the Wild World slips through your fingers

You can try and sum it up

- to tell somebody how you found it

well the best of luck with that

You won't get your arms around it

because the falling of the sparrows

because the rising of the larks

because the little boats a' sailing (on the Wine Dark Sea)

because the drinkers in the parks...

and the making of the mountains

the stones you kept as souvenirs:

the fragments you have gathered up

through the distortion of the years

And the Wild World spins you into space

and the Wild World wishes you the best now

because it loves you very much

it made a place for you to live in

complicated to the touch:

and neither vengeful nor forgiving

embrace your torments now:

your many lacerations,

your lamentations,

your thirst for adoration ...

and at the bottom of it all

there may be nothing there at all

..and Oh! to this accomodation

and to this grand delusion -

I can be true

and everything is humming;

World, I cannot hold you close enough

this I leave with you

.... I leave with you

#shriekbackmusic #1000books

Collaborations #1 (’Shriekback are Seeing Other People’)

Well, collaboration is everything really innit? No man is an island, not even the ones who pretend they are. That’s what I reckon. Merging somebodys’ talents and energies with yours. What a thing. The very stuff of life.

Still, it can be a fractious business: politics will come into it. LIke: who’s in charge here? Who gets to say whether your bit is better than my bit? And how do we work that shit out? A microcosm of the world or what?

Undeterred, we seem to do it (collaborate) quite a lot. And these are some pretty successful tunes, I would say. Good for us. Bold and resolute Shriekback!

So there’s Hope, right?

(BA)

MART’S TRACKS:

DROP BY DROP Barker/Burridge

Taken from my Album" Water and Stone." Exploring my rolling Gtr and groove in 7 with the wonderfully talented musician cellist Emily Burridge.

Inspired by the miracle of water, its rhythm, its music, its journey, its myths, its poetry and beauty

FLYING SAUCER Barker/ Roedelius/Noah1

Lovely to have met and worked with the master of Ambience, Hans Joachim Roedelius for the Album Fibre.

Recorded up in the hills of Shropshire with George Taylor (Noah1) and Jez coed

This piece was inspired by my riff Im playing on the Hang Drum, hence the title "Flying Saucer"

GOLDEN MOON Barker/Young

Taken from my mini Album” Blue” Talitha Rise.

This was my first big endeavour into the musical spiritual world and collaboration with Jo beth young.

We are joined on the Riti by Juldeh Camara.

PILGRIM`S WAY Barker/Adams

My new project/collaboration still ongoing with the mighty talent of Justin Adams .

This first piece inspired by ancient walks.

This new whole album partly inspired by the writing of Robert Macfarlane "the old ways"

SANDLINES. Barker/ Adams

Second piece inspired the Ancient paths of the desert.

THE LAKE Barker/Young taken from the album" Abandoned Orchid House” Talitha Rise

Another collaboration with Jo beth Young and another piece in 7!

Intense, energetic and rich with riddles.

THE SELKIE. Barker / Pynn

Second Piece taken from my Album "Water and Stone”

Inspired by the Myths and stories of the Selkie. With the magical multi instrumentalist Nick Pynn on Violin.

CARL’S TRACKS:

Words Fail Me

with AMANDA KRAVIT

(Barratt/Marsh)

David Barratt and I were introduced to Amanda by John Mrvos, one of the A&R team at EastWest Atlantic in New York (Happyhead’s label) - she was his girlfriend and he wanted to get her recorded, basically, so we came up with this. Dave had done some kind of publishing deal that allowed him to sample the company catalogue, hence Ravi Shankar playing sitar all over it. Backing vocals by Bill Clift; some of the drums sound like Jim Kimberley, sampled from HH sessions (1992ish.)

The Longest Goodbye

with BILL CLIFT

(Clift/Marsh)

I’ve written loads with Bill under various banners, of course. This is a mid-90s demo recorded in Bill’s flat in Greenwich. BVs by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle, bass (I think) by Gary Brady… not sure who did the wibbly organ. This song was later recorded by Bill’s band Fuzzbuddy, re-titled Killing Me Now - it’s just been re-released as part of their Complete Studio Recordings compilation.

THE PALACE DOGS

with GEOFF WOOLEY

I’ve collaborated with Geoff Woolley since Out On Blue Six, and in school bands even before that. These two tracks, from around 1995, are both built from sampled TV shows (and therefore subject to all sorts of potential copyright issues…).

Queen of Peoples’ Hearts

(Marsh/Woolley)

The self-styled QOPH’s Panorama special, cut up and pumped up with added Dario Argento and a spot of Jeremy Paxman. The Original is all-electronic; the Guitar Version has not only mine and Geoff’s rhythm bits but some wildfire lead from Steve Bolton (Atomic Rooster, Paul Young, The Who etc. and currently fronting the mighty Dead Man’s Corner). Take yer pick.

Crazy Dames

(Marsh/Woolley)

The main voice and piano on here are from a 1961 Twilight Zone episode called The Midnight Sun, in which the Earth is knocked out of orbit and is spiralling towards the Sun… it gets hot. Other vocals by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle.

GASWERKS

The Ying Tong Song

(Milligan)

Basically the same format as The Palace Dogs with the addition of Bill Clift, whose idea it was to knock out a dance version of The Goons’, er, classic. Dig that crazy rhythm, indeed. We were told the novelty song market was a hard one to crack… by the singer of Black Lace, who should know, I suppose…

WOOLLEY/MARSH

The Girlfriends Of Dorian Gray

(Barratt/Marsh/Woolley)

David Barratt came up with the conceit of a modern Dorian Gray who preserves his youth (or immaturity) not by having a grotesquely ageing portrait in the attic but by having an ever-changing string of girlfriends who absorb the consequences of his many flaws and are discarded one after another. Dave sketched out the chorus and then proposed that he, I and Deni Bonet (NY-based violinist and writer that we’ve worked with on various projects) should write our own versions of the story, possibly with the idea of creating some kind of meta-version combining them all. That never happened, but I like the track Geoff and I came up with and the lyric is nice and tricksy - shades of Costello, maybe, if I say so myself.

You’re The Only One

(Marsh/Woolley)

A re-write of a Happyhead demo, switching New York electronica for some 90s Britpop vibes, it sounds like. Bit of a kinky ménage à trois scenario with reasonably loud guitars. Nice.

BARRY’S TRACKS

The Frances & Martine poems, with Hilda Sheehan (2014)

part 1: GLOW, GOOSE, CORN-REMOVER

part 2: COAT, ARM, KNOB OF BUTTER

I met Hilda Sheehan - through the (surprisingly vibey) Swindon poetry scene when I was stationed back there for 10 years in '04. She was often the star turn at their spoken word events and, I thought, had the mark of a real artist in that she came with her own self-contained world (’magical realist Northern UK kitchen sink’, if I had to describe it).

I thought it would be fun to 'set' (as they say) some of her poems to music and so I did. From Hilda's considerable oeuvre, I picked the Frances and Martine series - I liked F&M's mutually abrasive dependence - the key ingredient in any sitcom - and the succinct and sometimes brutal nature of each of their adventures.

Dame Hilda Sheehan

The Anaxaton6 EP with Mike Tournier (2013)

I first worked with Mike Tournier (Big Mike as opposed to Little Mike - these were Flukes' Contrasting Mikes at the time) as producer on their OTO album c.94. Techno outfit Fluke apparently liked them some Olde Shriekback (they had worked previously with Wendy and Sarah) and thought I might add something to the project.

It turned out that producing a techno band is every bit as awkward as you might imagine (there’s only one computer screen for a start) and we abandoned the collaboration after I'd failed to insert myself into Fluke's process in any useful way (sandwich run doesn't count).

Anyway, we stayed in touch and collaborated rather more successfully on a Fluke/Shriekback tune and performance for MTV.

It was the redoubtable Julian Nugent, Fluke's manager, who got in touch - in 2013 to suggest that Mike and I might like to try knocking up a tune together.

I liked the idea of this straightaway. Mike can produce huge, hi-torque productions and I had an idea of a songwriting approach which I though might complement this. The vocalist would be recognisably the bloke out of Shriekback but CG’d with florid new appendages. I fancied some mad-as-a-rat lyrics (Welcome to their secret sign: Boola Stack! Haunted Lego of the Mind! Boola Stack!) but the music would be slick and vivid and solidly crafted because that's always how Mike rolls. Thus you get something quite absurd being taken very seriously which is, to my mind, the best thing you can possibly have.

extract from the sleeve notes:

BONE MARAUDER tells of a pure love, painful engorgement and hog sorcery.

JUJUGRID (GO LIVE!) wrangles with hedonic guilt, ecclesiastical turpitude and leaves everything else the fuck alone.

BOOLA STACK! - There are so many things to say of Boola Stack that to ennumerate them insults us both.

NO FOOL BOLETUS... let's just be clear about this: you got nothing to hide, there's no need to worry. Be lucky.

Michaele don Turino and Bleary Android are the naked mortals chained to the husky obelisk of ANAXATON6

Anaxaton6 has some videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anaxaton6

Mike Tournier

Some Kinds of Light LYRICS

AGONY BOX

I had a shonky kind of weekend I have a number of regrets There is a haze across a number of days I haven’t seen through it yet

It’s not the bug it is the feature like many monsters we recall there is quite a range of things that are strange and many things that will apall…

Gotta keep the lid on the Agony Box (we all saw what you did in the Agony Box) there is nothing inside you can hide - the confusion is no longer funny The tribulations are all in the Agony Box bouncing off the walls of the Agony Box it’s a battle of faith with a wraith for the love and the money

Pandora and her boyfriend they sent a postcard from the place where joy and sorrow meet down on the street and all the echoes of disgrace. I had a sermon at the ready: ‘the metamorphosis of pain’ i saw them yawn at the back at my obvious lack and I would not do that again

If i were you I’d not shake the Agony Box There is too much at stake in the Agony Box are you just a blob in the mob in this bucket of Crazy? There is nothing but time in the Agony Box all of your crimes are in the Agony Box If you can bear the despair all the rest will be gravy

a swarm of military secrets - a million nutters in a jar- the pilgrims I’ve met they all try to forget the stuff that made them what they are I finished burying the bunny the thought of it still makes me weep It was all over - I thought I had closure: now I see her in my sleep

agony’s your friend it’s hope that gets you in the end...

BOLLO REX I can feel the air is shaking and the sky begins to burn and the lonesome claxons sing to me - and ‘the Crazy is loose’ and the tide’s on the turn The aparatchiks bluster for the gen’ralissimo. All this is true, but if i were you I would not SEEK to know

GORILLA SITS ANYWHERE HE WANTS HE’S GOT A SHOTGUN BABY…. SHOTGUN BABY BOLLO TANKS THE GRID GORILLA SITS ANYWHERE HE WANTS HE’S GOT A SHOTGUN BABY…. SHOTGUN BABY AND THE WILD SHALL WILD REMAIN…

with an enormous effort of the will one quells… …the cultural logic of late capitalism the enormous anti-natural power of dead human labour stored up in our machinery.. The physical impossibility of death in the mind of anyone living.. … The implosion of the real in a hyper-real nebula in which even the action of the medium can no longer be determined The inexorable decline of liberal humanism… the structural possibilities of steel and aluminium.

I’LL JUST SAY - ANYTHING AT ALL I’LL BE YOUR SHOCK JOCK BABY …SHOCK JOCK BABY …AND THE WILD SHALL WILD REMAIN I’LL JUST SAY ANYTHING AT ALL I’LL BE YOUR SHOCK JOCK BABY FATBERG RISING …BOLLO SPIKES THE MOOD

here come History, with the caps lock on WITH THE CAPS LOCK ON

when the hypothermic shudders in the final throes he gets the urge to dig a hole and rip off all his clothes while this is not effective - indeed it seals his fate - it yet will keep him occupied and busy while he waits

WE CAN ALL DO ANYTHING WE LIKE IT’S ALL A CRAP SHOOT BABY, CRAP SHOOT BABY BOLLO’S SPIKED THE MOOD AND THE WILD SHALL WILD REMAIN

And when we struck the fatberg there was a long pause …. And when we struck the fatberg there was a long pause ….

(………)

…and a rampant surge as the facts emerge… and what sinks will not converge - what sinks will not converge…

what’s my Safe Word, baby? what’s my Safe Word, baby?

bring me safe to harbour.. safe to harbour

(And I have asked to be Where no storms come) Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea)

(last stanza by Gerard Manley Hopkins)

PUTTING ALL THE LIGHTS OUT

Coming from the back room

Looking for a positive sign

Angle and line

Circles, ellipses, shadows and eclipses

A meditation on a different time

Watching all the flowers bloom

Breathing in the scent of a rose

Strange how it grows

A whim and a notion, moving like the ocean

Up she rises and there she blows

It’s alright if you jump when the moment comes

It’s alright that what’s done can be still undone

It’s alright to be lit by a setting sun

Putting all the lights out

Driving with your eyes closed

Listen to the crash boom

Feeding on the fear in the dark

The eyes of a shark

Spices and citrus, acid over litmus

All aboard on a drifting ark

It’s alright when the wind blows dust and dirt

It’s alright when the day brings harm and hurt

It’s alright to be there when the last comes first

Putting all the lights out

Driving with your eyes closed

Putting all the lights out

Driving with your eyes closed

Underneath a full moon

Living in the light from the stars

A glow from afar

No sooner no later, burning all the data

Until the next time au revoir

It’s alright when the trip gets too surreal

It’s alright when the end is not revealed

It’s alright when the future stays concealed

Putting all the lights out

Plug into the mainline

Driving with your eyes closed

Habits for a lifetime

Putting all the lights out

Swimming for the shoreline

Driving with your eyes closed

Making up for lost time

WEATHERMAN

Cease fire – he’s at liberty

Running around like a man of mystery

Bring it on, bring it on, bring it on

Cross wire liability

Blowing around in the wind of history

It’s all gone wrong, all gone wrong, all gone wrong

The weatherman

Will hang you out to dry

Yeah hang you out to dry

You’ll be sorry you messed with the weatherman

The weatherman

Don’t need a reason why

He’ll just change, change, change with the weather

In the absence of civility

Fill a vacuum with brutality

What comes around, comes around, comes around

Can’t ringfence gullibility

With a voice groomed for neutrality

A dead-end sound, a dead-end sound, a dead-end sound

The weatherman

Will hang you out to dry

Yeah hang you out to dry

You’ll be sorry you messed with the weatherman

The weatherman

Don’t need a reason why

He’ll just change, change, change with the weather

Too much, never enough

Brace up – here come tougher days

For avenging snowflake renegades

Overload, overload, overload

Heads up – so many ways

Feel the energy on the barricades

Hit the road, hit the road, hit the road

The weatherman

Will hang you out to dry

Yeah hang you out to dry

You’ll be sorry you messed with the weatherman

Too much, never enough

The weatherman

Don’t need a reason why

He’ll just change, change, change with the weather

Too much, never enough

The weatherman

Will hang you out to dry

Yeah hang you out to dry

You’ll be sorry you messed with the weatherman

Too much, never enough

The weatherman

Don’t need a reason why

He’ll just change, change, change with the weather

Too much, never enough

ALL ABOUT NOTHING

We got some backwards evolution

Got some attrition coming down

Old-fashioned aggro and pollution

Can’t recognise your own home town

In the race to the bottom

Who’s on top and who’s forgotten?

Lose your friends, lose your marbles

Are you digging this farrago? ‘cos

Here come the boys

All puffed up and all about nothing

Into the void

Eyes down and all about nothing

Just smoke and noise

C’mon, c’mon it’s all about nothing

Inside out and upside down

What comes around is all about nothing

We got some shameless intervention

Got some deep dealing underhand

Anaesthetising good intention

All helps to reinforce the brand

It’s the will of the people

Some very angry sheeple

Truth is out, truth is over

Shot with a gold revolver now

Here come the boys

All puffed up and all about nothing

Into the void

C’mon, it’s all about nothing

Just smoke and noise

C’mon, c’mon it’s all about nothing

Inside out and upside down

What comes around is all about nothing

I hear complaints about the neighbours

I know they take their own sweet time

I don’t mind their bad behaviour

Any friends of theirs are friends of mine

So take it out to the city

Fire up anger and not pity

Kick it out, kick it over

Get your arse up off the sofa ‘cos

Here come the boys

All puffed up and all about nothing

Into the void

Eyes down and all about nothing

Just smoke and noise

C’mon, c’mon it’s all about nothing

Inside out and upside down

What comes around is all about nothing

It’s all about nothing

All about nothing

It’s all about nothing

All about nothing

THIS IS THE SCIENCE

I tried my hand at some sacred geometry

There were some things I didn’t understand

I crossed the line and I messed up the symmetry

What happened then kinda got out of hand

Down in the basement when the window slammed

Next thing I know cyclonic disturbance

The heavens opened and the sky turned round

Now I’m waiting for a plague of serpents

Coming up from the underground well

Hide in the shop with the shutters down

This is the science of idiot thinking

This is the science of too much fun

This is the science of heavy drinking

This is the science of really dumb

Fabulating in a state of hysteria

The only way to keep the panic at bay

It’s getting harder to divine the mysterious

Lock the door throw the key away

Out on the pavement in the light of day

This is the science of all books burning

This is the science of not much sense

This is the science of backwards learning

This is the science of the present tense

I take the blame for the sordid experiment

A little knowledge and a dangerous thing

I’m really sorry that I busted the firmament

It ain’t over til the archangel sings

Up on the corner with a broken wing

This is the science of fire and famine

This is the science of wayward plans

This is the science of hacks and spamming

This is the science of science be damned

This is the science

HYPERACTUAL

Blastwave Susan in the heaving night (she will not survive the gale) Deep confusion with no end in sight (like a lizard loves a whale - like a lizard loves a whale)

We all molegrip tight (you know it) (just flow with it) there’s a golem in the mall Head into the Light aglow with it it is epically banal it’s all Hyperctual

Fright-Night Gladys has no stated goal (they will drag her out in chains - they will drag her out in chains) She enjoined a battle for the soul (she is funky like a train - she is funky like a train)

We’re all glow-stick bright (all sold on it) (pure gold on it) You can pixellate it all Whiter now than white (with mould on it) It’s all: ‘fuck the protocol - It’s all Hyperactual’

Shakti Cromlech has a Disneyland display (she is quite replaceable - she is quite replaceable) putting on the Pluto head and going all the way (she has bought the rights and all - she has bought the rights and all)

We got balls of light (no doubt of it) (so proud of it) it’s a tricky one to call Counterfeit Delight! (no clout to it) - got its bags there in the hall It’s all Hyperactual…

The Fire Has Brought Us Together (with chords)

(Am)Keep the engine running and I’ll sing you a song: it all goes right until it all goes wrong (F)Everything sugary and fuelled with science. (Am)There was a man and he was me: all as vivid as it could be (D)back in the American Century (Am)(with a rigorous programme of defiance) (F) (Am)All quite factually banal and (Bm) stimulating as a root canal (C) incurable as some diseases (Am) When we all discovered how weird things are all the (F) skeletons singing in the Dalloway bar with the ‘ying-tong ying tong’ ‘oom-pah-pah’ (Am)(and the wild wind blows wherever it pleases)

C1 (Am - F) all of this mercy has fallen away And if it was up to me the fire has brought us together there would be something special where there used to be no more than this.. the fire has brought us together

(B) well Romcom Robinson the ghost and me we all went out on the terrible sea and - (D) as we gazed at the primitive ocean - to a (C) muscular rhythm on the barreling oars - I wondered why my spirit soared and was (B) I was feeling a pure emotion?

for the (Am) ocean’s meaningless and immense and, it was clear that these events had (F) overwhelmed our usual praxis I said: (Am) ‘shantih shantih - praise the Lord’ but the paralysing rattle on the slippery boards (F) had neutralised my prophylaxis

C2 (B - G) all of this mercy has fallen away And if it was up to me the fire has brought us together there would be something ringing where the bells should be no more than this.. the fire has brought us together brought us together…

mid 8: (F B Dm Am C)

(Am) Well there it is, I don’t know why there’s a fearsome clarity I can’t deny - I’m (F) contemplating what its face is…

In (Am)Tracy’s desecrated bed or in the disused Wexford shed, (D)down in the Valley of the Dead … ..and (Am)many of those kinds of places… (F) (Am)..and this cluster of events (Bm) as we watch they all condense (C) into something quietly tragic (Am)

gazing up at the fathomless stars: (F) (that one’s Venus, which one’s Mars?) Om-Mani-Padmi - Ooh La La! (Am)- got no use for that kind of Magic..

all of this mercy has fallen away (Am - F etc) And if it was up to me there would be something beautiful and clean and free no more than this the fire has brought us together

The Fire has brought us together and if i had my way - I would save this nonsense for another day no more than this.. The Fire has brought us together no more than this.. no more than this.. no more than this

THE ELATED WORLD (Cornell Boxes)

the stubble, the rubble you roll with it but it never fits in the Broken World

the love nest, the warm breast, the all-desiring, intensifying, unsated world

the heartbreak, the arse ache, the pawnshop ring and the broken wing in the Raindog world

delighted unblighted the shining gaze, all the untouched days in the newborn world

the elated world, the elated world, the elated world..

the burst thing the worst thing the trauma blow that will never go in the violent world

the fake claw the chainsaw the infra red and the Evil Dead the Horrific World

gated sedated the liquid cosh antiseptic wash in the Locked-down world

the first strike the MAD spike the fizzle yield in the farmer’s field in the fissile world

The Elated World …The Elated World The Elated World

the shapers, the scrapers the fast eroding, the kind of stroking, the haptic world

So massive impassive the concrete beam and the soviet dream in the Brutal world

dissectors and vectors the clipboard rules the precision tools the schematic world

the starfish the moon dish the lunar seas and the lunar cheese in the astral world

The Elated World …The Elated World The Elated World

GALILEO

Shaken gently, never stirred

Spoken quietly, always heard

And a one and a two and a three… analysing

Taken over, looking round

Broken cycles locking down

And a one and a two and a three… analysing

Thirty eyes in a constellation

Ten dozen clocks in a strict rotation

Four moons rising observation

Starry messenger exhortation

Hold up the sun, hold up the sun

Throw the coins in the fountain

Bring down the moon, bring down the moon

Galileo counting

Spyglass skyward, secrets found

Time and distance ever bound

And a one and a two and a three… analysing

Spinning softly round a distant sun

Tracing motion, numbers run

And a one and a two and a three… analysing

Seven psalms in contemplation

Two pendulums in oscillation

One heretical disputation

Starry messenger inspiration

Hold up the sun, hold up the sun

Throw the coins in the fountain

Bring down the moon, bring down the moon

Galileo counting

Hold up the sun, hold up the sun

Satellites in the night sky

Bring down the moon, bring down the moon

Galileo Galilei

shriekbackmusic

‘Contaminated Pop’ - Lyrics Barry Andrews’ 2019 Solo Album

PUT ME TO WORK

I’ve been a groom I‘ve worked the room I’ve wrapped myself around a broom back in my prime I shaved the rats I fixed the stats Brought litter for the Thundercats - so many times (I’ve been a jerk)

PUT ME TO WORK!

O mighty plume! O suffering moon! O weasles in the drawing room! (please make it fast) enklastify my words right now unruly gods will show me how I’ll get the mule behind the plough until the last I will not shirk PUT ME TO WORK!

I’ll get the weight upon on my back I’ll eat my body weight in thrak I’ll holler by the railway track (and holler loud!) This Plasma-shift i cannot stop Plumescence intra bellytop Merch is flying out the shop. and in the crowd, are many perks…

PUT ME TO WORK!

O master fruit so tried and true O solemn plague-rat kangaroo Something to get my teeth into is all I pray now linear ducks have just arrived the bullshit has metastasized i am intensely exercised O mood display! Let’s go beserk…

PUT ME TO WORK!

SHIT-PIXIE Don’t you feel in the spring the sickening overkill of everything? can’t help it it’s all hard-wired now All these earthly delights Looking as silly as a bag of lights Ah come on now It’s gotta feel real tired now…

Hey Mary! Get Lairy! You’re still off with the fairies But you know what the whizz and the gelignite can do.. Don’t tangle, just jangle Bring on the crimes and the scandals I’m the Shit Pixie - I’m gonna dance for you.

Nothing real will impinge on the fierce exertions of your perma-binge. Working for you? Got it in hand now? But you won’t draw the sting with your classical allusions and your broken wing. I’m gonna draw you a line in the sand now

So shabby! Gabby! Get yourself back to the abbey you can tell the enqiuiry what and when you knew They concluded what you did was totally scuppered and scoobied I’m the Shit Pixie and I’m gonna tell you true

All the gears grind for you but the light still shines on Column 32 It’s an idea (might make it worse now) Nothing glows in the night and you feel sexy as an ammonite all your virtues are a kind of curse now

Ah Mimi! It’s dreamy! if you shut your eyes you can see me I’m a horse of a different colour boiled to glue. Ignore it; just floor it. It’s so shot-away-in-the-war it’s just the Shit Pixie who’s got a thing for you..

Virgin of the Ladder

I really dig your chiaroscuro it gives me something I can misconstrue these sickly martyrs make me feel alright: they give me something I can live up to

I guess this is where the magic happens: an epiphany of stone and light? Blue-collar… of the Madonna to bring in something from the building site.

O my Virgin of the Ladder will you be with me when I start to climb? Gravity I’m overcoming Nothing doing when it comes to Time

in this year without a summer when I lost everything I thought was mine all the pain and the sheeting rain and I’m sorry baby that was the last of the wine

and I know I can change but there’s only so much a ladder will do D’you want an acolyte that is so scared of heights? rung by rung I’m climbing up to you O virgin of the ladder grant me only that I do not fall towards the centre of the earth Ah keep that ladder up against the wall Oh Virgin of the Ladder what a pretty gal you are maybe a slow climbdown into the squalid town Light a candle on the way to the bar

it’s laboured as an image overused as a metaphor for spiritual ascension (Blake and Jacob did it long before)

but you are Mother of the Word Incarnate but what good are words when you want deeds? - you need practical KIT when you’re deep in the shit and that ladder’s gonna meet my needs O my Virgin of the Ladder will you be with me when I start to climb? Gravity I’m overcoming Nothing doing when it comes to Time

ABDOMEN JONES she will never understand all the tragic flaws of man and has not the slightest sympathy for anyone who can she disdains all protocol (she finds much distainable) still she has nothing in the quiver she’s unable to deliver

Calling Abdomen Jones I love Abdomen Jones and her animus is tidal Paging Abdomen Jones - with her 3 mobile phones - she says: ‘work is the blackmail of survival’

Honey badger isn’t fussed he has transcended disgust ….and it’s known that Jones atones for anything she must Doesn’t claim to be profound never takes the Higher Ground She is fully hypostatic - you should hear her in the attic…

Calling Abdomen Jones Strength to Abdomen Jones! with all her subtle modulations Paging Abdomen Jones with her libido made of chrome she says: ‘pain is a kind of information’

And in any case she sees she is queen of all the bees (as she has some fun and stuns us with her fluent Javanese). And who tunes the concert grand? who will now conduct the band? Her case is prima facie (takes the Beethoven quite pacy)

Calling Abdomen Jones Lovely Abdomen Jones she makes the sound of steam escaping Paging Abdomen Jones she does just fine on her own says: ‘caresses are a form of scraping..’

LOLLIPOP BOMB

Darling monster, sweety-pie.. my mind is wandering sadly I must walk into the reeds` terribly corroded and the saints have crumbled into sand they will not intercede

And I carress the velvet hand grenade my part is played and yes- the windows are steamy so no-one can see me

I lick the Lollipop Bomb I lick the Lollipop Bomb

hark the hot valkyries cry their flaxen hair and crazy eyes they come at last for me honey angel baby lamb I am not what you think I am and i will never be

and I will dally in the sullen glade I’m not afraid of al that I will be streaming at twilight’s last gleaming

I lick the Lollipop Bomb I lick the Lollipop Bomb

tho I was galloping along I read all the portents wrong the Golden Age could never last that long

we are not brave we are not free and yet somehow, remarkably, are able to apall this thinning crowd here in this place the baffled looks upon their faces really says it all

and I will freak out when the time arrives it’s very clear to me that life is a long song and I sang the wrong one

I lick the Lollipop Bomb I lick the Lollipop Bomb

FILTHY WONDERLAND

Come with me if you will - my imaginary friends - I have a tale to tell of phosphors and vapour. Upon a tiny screen i saw a magic realm though i was overwhelmed I got it down on paper.

there’s a scenario: a woman and a wasp not everybody’s thing but no doubt it’s someone’s tumescent butterflies are spurting everywhere: to get the full effect you can even become one

there is a land of wonders and a lot are for hire where all pay homage to the glories of the gland. Do it with Dumbo’s mummy if that is your desire there’s nothing you can’t do in Filthy Wonderland

Some legendary beasts preposterously endowed throw down a fairy girl with wings and tiara. The hobbit looking on is visibly aroused to see these monsters ride the lovely Titania

…and Things with tentacles - that penetrate the bum, A massive squirrel with a fearsome erection the whole environment inclusive as they come, pushing the envelope of natural selection…

There is a brave new vision that machines have designed (the old pornographers will never understand) such complicated pleasures for the liberal mind this is the way of things in Filthy Wonderland

a rampant unicorn; a goblin in a thong: sexual complexity well beyond triangular little Red Riding Hood encountering the wolf in ways (you have to say) are specifically glandular

Phantasmagoria: the Japanese Depraved My Little Pony is away on a hack there. Some mythic masterplan - the lion fellates the lamb - (I need to think this through before I go back there)

There’s an enchanted garden with a final frontier: a blessed Shangri-La to greet with your left hand. they put the magic in you in a new ecosphere a brave and weird new worldc in Filthy Wonderland

There is a land of wonders (and a lot you can buy) where all pay homage to the glories of the gland. Make it with all the cast and crew of Family Guy nothing’s denied to you in Filthy Wonderland..

CONSOLATION

Christ, here comes the storm again that lacerates the heart: the savage wind of ‘really nothing doing’. Pray for us the blighted: all the failed in love and art, who question everything they were pursuing. When the black dogs come for you well, what else can you do, but downwardly revise your expectations? Just kiss the sickly little rose and hold her steady as she goes as you light out for those lands of Consolation

All the aching moments when it didn’t go your way (we saw it all and none of it was pretty) Now you hear their voices in the gruesome light of day, with the wheezing, cheap harmonium of self pity. And there’s some sad things known to man - and quite a few are sadder than the sodden Paggliacci’s ruminations - but still you’d have a heart of stone to leave the poor clown on his own with half a bottle left of Consolation.

When you’ve failed to consummate the wedding of the soul or any other union you may yearn for Let the baby demons come and stretch you on the coals There’s nothing else you’d really care to burn for. Well it really isn’t fun and it comes for everyone It soils the sheets /hauls you off despite your protestations. But all the Saints of Legoland; the Poundshop Martyrs hand in hand Will wash you in the seas of Consolation.

Satan in a monster truck Jesus on a bike all these things are sent to test your mettle Half-mast flags in Whitehall or your head upon a spike? Depends on where the dust is when it settles. All the things you struggled for you can check em at the door get ready for a dubious sedation. It’s all designed to reassure: the bingo and the talking cure, as they walk you round the grounds of Consolation

Feel the Need (lyric by Abrim Timon - Detroit Emeralds)

See how I’m walking See how I’m talking Notice everything in me Feel the need, oh Feel, feel the need in me

I need you by my side To be my guide Can’t you see my arms Are open wide? Feel the need, oh Feel, feel the need in me

Every day, I need every day, I want, without your sweet Sweet love, I’d rather die

I need it constantly your love takes care of me your love is better To me than apple/cherry pie

Your love is tuff and I can’t get enough Girl, your love is So important to me Feel the need, feel the need in me

Just put your hand in mine Love me all the time The proof you will Plainly see, Feel the need, oh Feel, feel the need in me

I need you on the case To keep my heart in place You make me what I need to be Feel the need, Feel the need in me

I need you by my side To be my guide Can’t you see my arms Are open wide? Feel the need, oh Feel it, feel the need in me

‘Contaminated Pop’ - Lyrics Barry Andrews’ 2019 Solo Album

PUT ME TO WORK

I’ve been a groom I‘ve worked the room I’ve wrapped myself around a broom back in my prime

I fixed the stats

I shaved the rats

Brought litter for the Thundercats

- so many times

(I’ve been a jerk)

PUT ME TO WORK!

O mighty plume! O suffering moon! O weasles in the drawing room! (please make it fast) enklastify my words right now unruly gods will show me how I’ll get the mule before the plough until the last I will not shirk PUT ME TO WORK!

I’ll get the weight upon on my back I’ll eat my body weight in thrak I’ll holler by the railway track (and holler loud!) This Plasma-shift i cannot stop Tumescence intra bellytop Merch is flying out the shop. and in the crowd, are many perks...