How can we expect anything but eruption
When we treat you this way?
How can we excuse your decimation
When our provocation is clear?
Indignation spawns indignation, just as much as
Violence breeds violence.
Farmers of doom, we reap what we sow.
Keepers of the loom, we undo all that is known.
The more we turn the screws
The more you ungracefully squirm
The more we grind you down
The more you set to burn
We created you by destroying you.
We lost you when we found you.
You’ve turned being broken
Into a state of functionalism
You’ve defined your constant loss
As the norm of our idealism.

The stars move through the seasons
New constellations emerge from the north east horizon
Winter’s icy air and long nights
Give clarity and darkness to brilliant tract of dusty jewels
Spread out overhead in long freezing nights
We count the satellites and shooting stars
We rise in the early hours hoping to catch a meteor shower
Or the unbelievable tail of distant comet.

When we return to sleep
The stars appear on the back of our eyelids
They float and spiral in the blackness of our dreams
Sometimes we dream of daylight
And we see bright stars glistening against the blue sky
We see nebulae and galaxies floating with beautiful wrongness,
Overly large upon the perfectly blue sky
They beckon weirdly, silently, like the eyes of deities
We do not know why we are attracted
We do not understand the pull.

These odd feelings linger with us while we are awake
The images reappear in the corners of our vision, unexpected
They form again in our moments of imagination
They exist in the melting point of our memory,
Our dreaming, and our creativity.

Their signal is transmitted on the carrier wave of ordinary magic:
Quiet atmospheric music
Moments of calm silence
The echo of a forest
The song of rare birds, free in the wild
The long delicate language of wind through leaves
The murmur of the water sweeping by
The mothering of fog
The slow drama of clouds
The canvas of the desert.

We sometimes forget that the stars are there
Sometimes we spend so long with ceilings above our heads
That we do not remember how to look above.

Then, by accident we notice a point of light at night
And it holds us in silent reminder
It welcomes us back to the weird otherness we do not understand,
But absolutely know is real
We give ourselves and open wide
To receive this subtle transmission
We regain peace and focus
On ordinary magic.

Download mp3: The Stormformer

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.

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”.