No Sound? What does that sound Like?
We wrote no sound probably in 2018/19. It was a kind of statement about how we would make the next album – drum machines and simple, short, pop structures. Well that didn’t pan out did it?
The idea was that we didn’t have access to a drummer to jam with because Mike had moved to Berlin so we just thought we should work with what we had got and lean into the strength of drum machines. I really like drum machine tracks and I think a lot of creativity is born out of limitations. So the plan was to do all the songs in a similar way, but then Mike said he would come back and play on tracks if we wanted, so we just did some drummy songs too.
The Kids choir was a “fun” day recording my children and then multi tracking them. I wish I had filmed it but unfortunately they spent the whole time arguing and I didn’t have the strength to try and capture social media content at the same time as reprimanding them and splitting them up so I go get to the end of the session.
This is one of my favourite songs on the album I think. I mean I like them all but this one I am really pleased that we did something like this. Plus I did the bass and get to play the bass live on it which is a really nice change.
And of course it is probably our first song with absolutely no guitar on it . so that’s nice….
See you tomozza
Henry x
You know when middle aged white guys talk with absolute confidence on things that they don’t really understand…
Here is a Spotify playlist of some of the songs that informed Cause & Effect. Also just a few tracks that we think go nicely with the others. We know that not everyone has Spotify so here is a list of the songs and there are some Youtube videos of tracks below too.
Have I become the thing I thought so trivial?
Do I belong in this sun-bleached world?
But it’s not for long
These heartbeats can’t last forever
Right in front of the crowd I expire
Brought down in a tangle of wires
It’s clear I go down now
No sound
No sound
Forever
No sound
No sound
At all
And I get why your here
Because they are calling your name
The faces are new
but the feelings are the same
Its amplified
and it’s all way too loud
Drowning out
Drowning out
Drowning out
All this now
No sound
No sound
Forever
No sound
Well, we don’t want it
We don’t want it
We don’t want it
We’ve got too much at stake upon it
So, we don’t see it
we don’t see it
We don’t see it
We don’t see it at all
Well, we don’t want it
We don’t want it
We don’t want it
We’ve got too much at stake upon it
So, we don’t see it
we don’t see it
We don’t see it
We don’t see it
We don’t see it
For the Tape – Landfill Recycled, we rerecorded all of the songs as stripped back or alternate versions. For No Sound we went back to the original keyboard and used it as the main instrument for the track – you can hear a bit here
No Sound definitely has a whiff of me questioning what the end game is for the band. Do we just carry on until we drop dead on the stage? A mate of mine went to the Ian Cognito gig where he had a heart attack and died on stage. He said it was a good joke.
I do often question the trivial nature of making pop music. But I always come to the conclusion that we are at least trying to spread joy and most other jobs have the same problem in that they aren’t really achieving anything, and when you die it all goes away anyway. That’s supposed to be a positive thought but sounds a bit bleak. What i mean is it doesn’t matter what you do, just do it good.OK?
As i said yesterday we keep finding stuff. Here is Mike Monaghan, our long time drumming companion, recording takes for Ugly House