The time that this album records is one of losses and letting go. Sometimes a season of life is about ending and separating from what went before. What is left once the higher element has been released becomes a kind of monument to the time that went before.
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Alabaster here is a double entendre (as is my way) with the Visage song and the makeup worn by early Goths – so they got that lovely white stone-dead look. As I walk away (or these things leave), the life fades, and what is left is the statue (or lump of mud).
That all sounds rather glum, but the music itself is cheery. This is me knowing that it is time for change. Things that I hung onto for safety need to be put aside. Time to have another go at the big move that I should have taken ages ago. Time to fly, or flee, or flop down the hill into the future.
- On The Run – sometimes you have to wonder if you are moving to or from something – maybe both at once? Worse, is this avoidance, more than building a new future?
- Fade To Alabaster – is one of those Gothy things I do. Alabaster is the stone used for carving statues, and “fading” is what I feel like doing many days. “Turn To Stone” is already a song, so I had to find another way to say that poetically. This is a period of trying to leave a statue behind that is the past.
- Decompression – coming out of a situation that saw you compress yourself is an interesting experience. Not one anyone should hope for as such, but it does feel better than going the other way. I started this piece as a training video for wannabe (and I use that word far too kindly) songwriters complaining that making music is too hard. All I got back was abuse and even trolling in my private spaces, so “I embraced the noble art of running away”.
- The Answered Question (considered unanswered) – is just so anger-inducing, as some lazy HR women kept asking the same illegal question, demanding things I cannot legally hold over and over, despite having been answered over and over. Needless to say, I lost that job.
- Trouble In Gloucester (watching a dream die) – sounds dramatic. Really, it was not that exciting, but it was like watching a best of Shirley Bassey as the hits just kept coming until the dream (or fantasy) I had built up about this future died one hit at a time over maybe a half-hour as all the things hidden in the photos came to light in the real world as broken.
- Divisionism – was a term I coined around all this creating of division that has come to dominate so much of society, not only in politics, but also in relationships and what Pop songs we can say we like. Division never ends well, but we have dramatically increased our race to rage. The term actually is from the painting world, where instead of painting with many shades, the painter puts dots of primary colors close together so when viewed from further back, the impression of complex colors and depth arrives. We need to step back and work together.
- Rising Above Old Chains – being stuck in the same ole same ole SSDD may seem easy but easy and good never live in the same space. This is about going back to things, but not from within the problems or chains that caused them.
- Viva via VIVO – is related to the Unanswered Question above. The answer – that let me live – was there on the government website, but they refused to accept it.
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Tech Trivia for Trainspotters
As always, all the work was done in my beloved Reason software studio DAW. Version 13.5 to be precise, with R14 looming over the horizon next month.
All the synth sounds are from Europa, Thor, Algoritm, Polytone, Subtractor, and some of my own, like Mini PD.
Effects are again mostly stock Reason devices augmented by some of my specialist echo devices like 4-Lines Later and 6th Dimension.
Cover art was made in Affinity using a photo of the carved alabaster head of the Virgin, likely from a 15th-century Nottingham sculpture workshop in England. The video was made in DaVinci Resolve with panels for a ‘box’ made in Affinity and some particles in the Fusion tab.
Benedict Roff-Marsh 