Mzylkypop - "Threnodies And Adhocs"

A few years ago I was made aware of an album by Michael Ward's band Mzylkypop, I wrote about it here.

Some years later, and I've been made aware of a new selection of music under the same banner, known as Threnodies And Adhocs. As with When Will The Wolves Howl, this is a full sensory experience. Stylistically, it moves quickly - one moment Soviet Bloc roc, the next MC5 and Beefheart. Ward has quietly been behind a number of mainstream pop hits, and this is far removed from the language and expectations of the contemporary scene, but he seems to have absorbed some kind of maxim of "keep your melodies close, and your harmonies closer."

I haven't had long with the music to delve in to who plays what, but as with the previous outing, this is music performed with all the strident bombast of Link Wray, across lyrics delving into Biblical metaphors, and feeling like the apocalypse was happening as the studio light went red.

Ward has clearly been making the most of his investments in ancient gear, and it all sounds fabulous. The depth of sound is remarkable, one cannot help but feel pulled into the mix. The level of invention in the production recalls Godley And Creme era 10cc (to me, at least, this is no bad thing!).

Given the early Cold War era the music conjures, it feels that all that's missing is the needle drop and surface noise, or tape hiss, depending on your playback preferences.

Speaking of which, it appears an EP of some of this music will be released as a limited edition vinyl pressing via Sheffield's marv'lus doitthissen records..

Perspectives

There are cartoons to be found around a similar theme regarding how differing perspectives on a situation can lead to radically different conclusions, these will often centre around two people arguing whether a pair of numbers on the ground between them reads '16' or '91' or some other variation involving numbers with rotational symmetry. Oddly, one never sees it with '88'..

I think it a useful image, but it lacks the nuance of real life situations.

Years ago I used to give my children the illustration of two people facing each other across a table. Placed between them is a Rubik's cube, angled with an vertical edge closest to each of them. For ease, we'll say it's completed.

When asked to describe what they see, both parties will be able to agree on the colour of the top most surface.

Perhaps it is Yellow.

However, their stories will then diverge. One may say the other faces are Red and Blue, but the other will be emphatic that the faces are Orange and Green.

They then have a choice.

They may decide to continue to argue. Indeed, both of them are right from their viewpoints, and there is no reason to accept any alternative description of the situation.

Or they may choose to co-operate, to accept that alternative perspectives on a situation can help provide a wider understanding of the environment.

hmmm.. This is coming across as needlessly didactic. ("I had to teach myself to be auto-didactic..")

Anyone with a scintilla of understanding of perspectives and narratives would have worked out pretty quickly where this was going!

However, there is one last part of this scenario that I think is worth pointing out.

A cube has six sides.

Whether or not these two people decide to argue or accept alternative points of view, there will always be the truth of the side of the cube on the table that neither can see. But is still there. No matter how many perspectives or narratives may describe a situation, there will often be more that is hidden, or at least not easily accessed.

I have no idea if my children remember this illustration; but I hope that others might find it a useful thing, especially in teaching children about perspectives, understanding people, and the narratives they carry with them.

Common Sense Dancing: Epilogue

Three weeks have passed, and we've journeyed through 20 pieces of music covering nearly 100 minutes of audio in the process. I thought that to close, I'd give a little background to the title..

The album's name, as explained on the CD artwork, is drawn from a quote in an essay by Clive James,

Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing.

I first came across the quote attributed to Jon Snow (the UK Channel 4 journalist) as merely "A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing" sometime around 2008/9 and was really drawn to the idea. In 2011 it returned to mind and I sought to find out more about the context of the quote, finding it was actually Clive James from an essay he wrote in 1979 about television. Helpfully, the full text of the writing was available on www.clivejames.com. Sadly, since then the website has been restructured several times and the essay is no longer present (and I can't remember it's name to find it on The Internet Archive!); and even more sadly, Clive died on the 24th November 2019.

As mentioned in the post about Play's Cool, the album is dedicated to the memory of Mr James (as well as that of Mr Cant). Clive brought an underlying humour and understanding to often complicated issues surrounding the media, politics, relationships; and with the structure and form of this album I wanted to echo something of that outlook.

The sequencing of the tracks, when heard as intended on the album rather than the order presented in these posts, was designed to bring light and shade; to lift, inform, ponder, and bring relief; to have tensions and releases. Whether it's successful in that intent, really, is for the listener to decide.

I hope you've enjoyed this stroll through the album. It was very enjoyable to draw together music from the earliest days of my writing in 1989 and more recent pieces, and moreso to work with some fabulous people who brought the words and music alive.

Thank you for coming with me these passed three weeks. I now have three projects of my own starting up, and there is talk of another John Hackett Band album - hope to see you all again as they go public!

Common Sense Dancing: Take Me By The Hand

And so we come to the end of Common Sense Dancing with the last track on disc one of the album, Take Me By The Hand.

It's a simple song that I wrote in around 2016 as a way to end my gigs. Up to that point I had generally finished with a cover of The Moody Blues song, "The Day We Meet Again", and much as I both love the song, and love performing it, I wanted to have something that was

• my own, and
• was imbued with little less melancholia.

So I wrote something about the nervous emotions of the end of a date. And it's proved to be remarkably popular, which is nice! There used to be an open mic night in Sheffield called HOLY ROBOTS, which sadly no longer meets, and the cafe in which it was held has since closed. But at one such evening in the late Autumn of 2017, I recorded all those gathered at HOLY ROBOTS singing the response part of the refrain, and they make up the choir at the end of the song - and what a marvellous sound they made!

The lady's reply is sung by Judith Silver, in whose folk-rock band I played in the mid 90s.

I realise that putting out a song about holding hands in the middle of the Coronavirus Lockdown may not be the greatest bit of marketing I've ever indulged, but it is what it is!

Though the walk through the music has finished, I'll conclude with an epilogue tomorrow, so stay safe, and I'll see you then!

Common Sense Dancing: Mellotron Suite: Long Summer Days

This piece of music was written quite quickly after I realised that I was going to need a third theme in Where Shall We Go, rather than just repeat another variation of what have become called Ambling Excitedly and Caught In The Rain.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Quite by accident it seems to evoke exactly what its title suggests. Its mood reminds me of some of the incidental music of my favourite film, Watership Down**.

Extra points if you can smell the dry grass and feel the sun on your face.

Tomorrow we end our journey through Common Sense Dancing - see you then!

** A film that, bizarrely, links Hancock's Half Hour and Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds..

Common Sense Dancing: Clare's Dance

I was house/cat-sitting for a friend in January 2004. One morning I sat down at their piano while the kettle was on, and my hands fell into the pattern that underpins this tune. I became interested in how small movements of the fingers to adjacent piano keys changed the harmony.

Of course I knew it would, but there was something about the movements of the suggested distant chords/keys that reminded me of an old friend with whom I had lost touch a couple of decades prior.

I ended up naming the piece after her. I thought, were she to hear it, that she would probably like the first half, but probably not the second. While Minimalism appealed to her, Jazz-rock never really floated her boat..

The work of artists such as Bill Bruford, Brand X, Weather Report, Quantum Jump, etc. have had a huge influence on me through the years, alongside composers such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Michael Nyman. All these elements get stirred together, and I end up writing things like Clare's Dance.

Flute by John Hackett, ambient and lead guitars by Nick Fletcher.

See you tomorrow!

Common Sense Dancing: My Robot

The last of the pieces with a connexion to KvR monthly competitions. In June 2004 the theme was SciFi Movie Theme, and with most of the entries being fairly bleak dystopian affairs (as was mine, The Amoeba Variations), I wrote this ditty about 'your plastic pal who's fun to be with' as a companion piece for some levity.

I rather like it. And it goes down surprisingly well at gigs with just me, an acoustic guitar, and a glass of water.

Robot voice provided by some text to speech freeware from the early 2000's..!

See you tomorrow for some harmonic adventure!