Being deployed to occupied territory

This is a very exciting part of the IML process (which many of us have now been through five times already). Once we've all written and submitted our backing tracks, the commanding officer (Jules this time round) has a good old listen, and decides who to assign each track to. The decision making process involved with this is intriguing. I've had the privilege of calling the shots during this phase on two previous albums (Superheroes of Science, and, Ancien Greeks and Circus Freaks). The first time round, it being our first ever album and all, was largely a process of reuniting musicians who I felt should make more music together, or mixing up friends who hadn't necessarily worked with each other before. Subsequent albums coordinated by other people, I guess, followed different processes. Maybe people have assigned musical styles to vocalists they felt would suit the, or maybe the commanders have challenged lyricists with genres, picked to push them?

I wonder what Jules' tactic is going to be. As an artist working in this album rather than someone help run it, it's intriguing to wait and hear where I'm going to be deployed:

• The badlands of the avant garde, a lyrical warzone where, finding a melody, let alone writing lyrics can drive a soldier mad?
• A civil war where different musical styles have risen up to fight against their alterative musical style oppressors? In this land, would I side with the rebels (folk-rock) or the government (hippity-hop).
• An easy war, where the musical style, structure of the song, is very accommodating. A land where as vocalist/lyricist you are welcomed by the populous and encouraged to help achieve stability.

Jules will no doubt be looking at the psychological profiles of the soldiers in our squad and deciding which zones are a best fit. I just hope that wherever he deploys me, I get to see some action, and come back alive.

Wow, sounds like we've got some heavy material this time around. Not me!

I'm doing a jazzy spy theme for Anna Chapman, one of the Russian spies that got busted in the US earlier this year. Hopefully this still qualifies as "war," especially since the US concluded that the spies accomplished absolutely nothing.

Anna herself is about as close as you can get to a real-life cartoon character. She's a sexy Russian spy, but she doesn't have a whole lot going on upstairs. She registered a cell phone under the address "99 Fake St." and, despite a thick Russian accent, tried to convince neighbors she was from Canada.

Here's more about Anna and her dastardly crew: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/06/russian_spies_seem_to_have_bee.html

I'm excited for this one.

The Glorious Dead

Hi all. I've been working on a backing track that is inspired by the idea of glorifying the dead who fought to secure victory. This seems fitting with Remembrance Day coming very soon. When I started scratching out ideas for my very first IML track I had been thinking about a rather more tense and energetic composition that was more along the lines of the thrill of battle. I couldn't manage to make that work though, and before long this idea took over. It is a layered guitar ballad in a major key (E) and could probably work as a love song (eyuck). But no. It's not a love song, okay? It's about dead soldiers. It's somewhat triumphant without (I hope) sounding pompous or pretentious. It is a work in progress, but the basic elements are there. Working title, The Glorious Dead.

Kelly and I have been working on a rather moody piece for 'Goes To War' - and after much deliberation have chosen THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD as our backing-track subject. This was one of the bloodiest battles in history, and the turning point for the Allies in WWII. The Russian movie epic 'Stalingrad' is well worth a watch if you're researching, and a microcosmos of the campaign is stylishly portrayed in 'Enemy At The Gates' - despite lisping pretty-boy Jude Law.

A USEFUL SITE?

Here is a link to a site I rumbled over in my Cat Tank yesterday.

http://www.oddee.com/item_96610.aspx

Quite an interesting read and may provide the adrenaline shot you need if, like me, you are thinking about themes etc.

Going over the top

I'm a pacifist at heart, so writing about war without wimping out is a difficult proposition. So I've dashed off a composition I'm happy with which hopefully which is sounding like a casualty of war. Not decided on the specific theme yet, but I think this will be necessary to help the lyricist. I've written it on a piano, a knackered piano, and am hoping to record it as such. Much as it's tempting to use a virtual instrument again there's something about a REAL shonky upright piano which I love. Perhaps it would be to cliched to link this to the scene from The Pianist where Adrien Brody sits in that chateau plinking away but there you go.

I've attached a photo of my knackered piano for inspiration. What you can't SEE in the photo is the noise the pedals make when I use them. If anyone has any tips for recordging knackered pianos, please leave them as comments against this post. Tally ho!