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A brand new song for you all, off the yet-to-be-finished album The Paradox. Introducing, “The Stormformer”:

Download mp3: The Stormformer

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Wires, electrical equipment, soldering iron,
Cables, metal, antennae, wall connections.

Stormformer
I’m the stormformer.

Windows open, computer, AM radio static, batteries,
Heat shrink, solder smoke, cutters, meter.

Stomformer
I’m the stormformer.

Swallowed sun, humid tension, insects quieten,
Wind builds, heavy clouds, head up, arms out.

Stormformer
I’m the stormformer.

A fantasy of a child
An illusion fed by technological obsession
And a media dazed in scientific futurism
The boy scans the outdoor horizons
Late November brings the humidity
Those anvil super-cells building in the afternoon
He’s looking for a front; a force all powerful
A storm to surpass all others
His dreaming he keeps to himself
Clouds are not mere meteorological phenomenon
But are inconceivable starships
Mustering all their collective might for assault
Upon a far off and obscured foe
They attack with lightening and thunder
And recharge from the heat and electricity
Of the land they they pass over.
The boy knows no one will understand this
No one will understand his role in all this
He is the commander, the grand conductor
Of the entire fleet
He pretends that his will is that of the storm
The honour and importance he has in his role
Is unmatched by anything in his life
His knowing smirk is ignorant of the horrors of real war
His intent is for simple atmospheric glory
But the storms are not enough
Reality threatens his magical fancy
He needs something more, a deeper connection
He longs for transcendence via inductive force
His connection is the lightening
His resonance is with the thunder
He is the small coil that transforms the energy of the storm
Scanning north to where the bolts strike the high escapement
He astrally projects his readiness to that position
They say lightening never strikes twice in the same place
But with arms outstretched he awaits enduring connectivity
A complete circuit of absolution.
But reality beckons and he has to wait
All he can do is prepare for his moment
By the study of electronics
A union with future technology
Like a transformer in a power supply
He must become the stormformer.

Download: First Impressions Always Count

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I hide in warm clothes
You hide in your briefcase
I guess we can call off
Our little battle of truth (game set match!)
We sit here and hope
That the birds don’t come down, down
And pick apart our stale bread offerings
We of the infantile narratives

Slay people with lasers of truth
Yet cower in the soft warm glow of TV.
Worry about the garden -
Don’t worry about the lasers!

I’m snug and warm
And you’re financially sound
Don’t push it.

First Impressions Always Count was first composed in Renoise during late 2004. Therefore, it has taken nearly 5 years of chipping away to finally get this song finished – all for a measly three and a half minutes of music! Talk about inefficiency! The reality of the situation was more to do with being very fussy about the quality of the vocal takes, and working the strength of my voice up to a point where I could easily do what the melody required of me. It’s still not perfect, but it’s at a level where I can walk away from it and live with the result. I don’t regard myself as much of a singer, but hopefully the musical ideas here are strong enough to hold the whole experience together and pass as good music. That’s for you to decide.

This song is the first track off an album I am working on called The Paradox. The songs off this work in progress are in a much similar stasis that First Impressions was in for a long time – the music is complete but the vocals have yet to be set in stone. With some luck, the whole project will be finished off sometime in 2010. The music will be much the same style as this piece, dramatic dark pop with a whole range of electronica influences. These songs have been some of my most personal and introspective music I’ve ever done, but done with the aim of being ‘open’ enough for people to have their own interpretation. Explaining the words anymore than that would miss the point and would hamper your imagination conjuring up all sorts of cool images and stories for the music.

So, download and listen to First Impressions Always Count, and let me know your impressions!

EDIT 09-10-28:

After some feedback and reflection I decided that my mastering approach to this song was way, way off and too clouded in digital exciters and saturation. I’ve went for a more organic approach and eventually ended up with results I’m most happy with. If you’ve downloaded the file previous to this for your collection I recommend that you download the file again to get the new version, the best version. Sorry for not getting it right in the first place! I hope you find, like I do, that this version is “correctly devastating”.

Your massive simple spheres
All red, green, blue and yellow
Roll across the land
Sponging everything up
No secret is safe, not one part of nature unscanned
And you return this to your masters
Without even knowing why
And they tell you how to hold it
How to show it, and what to withhold
And slowly your mouth speaks lies
That keeps us all watching, feeding, sucking
Until we have no lives unless we buy
Buy into endless slices of cake
That keeps us simple and keeps us slow
And there’s no time for thinking
Or causing things to improve
Because sooner or later those balls
Will come and roll over us and keep us small
And while we buy mute
Greed burns all the remaining green
We fall asleep, thirsty, hungry and blank
With the vague thought that sometime before
We must have created you
We must be getting what we deserve
The stars come out, look down upon us
And that last connection… It just hangs there…
It just hangs…