new boyfriend e.p.

is there anyone who is reading this who's not going to get the cd? you can download the songs now, or wait for the cd to arrive, but here's the rundown

1: gold top
this was written ages ago. well, the music was. before/during dovedale joints. when i was compiling my thoughts for 'go home and be a family man!' this was going to be there, but it was cut out in the excision process. then i was going to put it on purple milk e.p., but that happened so fast, and felt so complete in it's four tracks that i didn't want to bother starting to record it, especially as i didn't even have any verses or structure written (they were going to be about how much i hate the nme and music industry in general). but yesterday, after recording the synth/guitar melody instrumental for on benefit, i decided to give this a go, just as a one-minute interlude. i recorded one guitar bright and chorused, and the other mellow and clean (right and left channels respectively), two vocal takes and a bit of reverb and delay - voila. not sure of it's place in 'on benefit' yet, but i don't have to be.

update: so now i decided that it didn't fit on 'on benefit', what with the planned acoustic version of 'purple milk' going on there. so it takes up it's rightful place on 'new boyfriend ep' as first track. i experimented with a mix extended by 8 bars, but it just didn't feel right. this version is as complete as i will make it. any extention would simply be dilution.

here i am
pushing a hash brown up my arse
music isn't milk
it's a hard water kettle
and the scum floats to the top.

2: new boyfriend (part one)
this song was inspired by.. i can't say it. those who know, know and they know it was inspired by a person and not written about them. but it's important not to decontextualise that feeling. so i won't.

the origins of the song go to my year out, way back to 'dovedale joints' territory, enjoying the structure of pink floyd's 'atom heart mother', although i've now bolted on some of the post-core of bands like cult of luna and mogwai. this little snippet is old guitar with impromptu keyboards, tin whistle and percussion. i'm going to use a lot more live percussion in the future, what it lacks in perfect timing it more than makes up for in spontineity and sound quality.

i was told
that while some streets are paved with gold
some are paved with good intentions

and i know he really wanted you
but wanter is only one letter away from wanker

i think your new boyfriend's a wanker
i think your new boyfriend's a fraud
he's always ken and never blanka
iand i just want to be adored.

3: haarvark (take one)
my first release of a synthesis experiment. i've got a square lfo on a full octave, to give the funky bass effect, while i'm using frequency modulation to create an odd harmony over the top, a different note depending on what note is played. resonance and low pass filter are also used. the synth is on a monophonic setting, which for my synth means the envelopes and the lfo are not triggered anew with every keypress, but because every new key over writes the old one, it contiues with the same pattern, meaning it is completely rhythmical, allowing me to record percussion over the top as well.

4: dooce the mf already
er.. i don't wanna get dooced.

the music happened very quickly out of a guitar playing session that resulted in the catchy melody over the chords i was coxoning up.. i'm really happy with the synth sounds on this track - that's me actually playing the keyboard live (okay, it's a loop but if it wasn't for drop-outs, and stilted, unimprovisable tracking and i've have done it live) and a tone i created to go with the melody, similarly with the chords. the synths are on the left and the guitars on the right, so fiddle with the balance to listen more attentively. sorry i can't scream. i should have looped the really grating chorus lines but that's unethical. but it would have sounded better, so i still should have done it. but i can't go back now. not now that you know.
btw, the intro strings/harp are fruity loops, not live.

lyrics not fit to print

5: we fit together like two 'halves' of a badly cut bagel:
to contrast with the punk-pop of the last song, what better than some psychedelic janschian folk? well, the tune is in 7/8 and the lyrics are all but improvised, but they're never *that* improvised are they? no, this is a very honest song, expressing the kind of love for someone that can only happen after someone else has dumped you. and it felt so genuine at the time. i like the sequenced sounds, piano and modified pulse wave in respective stereo channels, although they over power the guitars a little (can you hear them reversed near the end? ah..), and the delayed vocal reverb - i hadn't planned on using any vocal reverb any longer, but on this track it's partly removed from the actual vocal line and just gives a big sound to the song without being attributibal to my voice.

i love the title - i love how no matter how badly you slice a bagel in half, the two 'misfits' always match together into one complete whole. it kind of gives me hope.

ad lib
~we're two lonely people
we should be shagging~

6: haardvark (take two)
the track fades in later of the same recording as part one, but by this point, the lfo speed has gone up a lot (it now feels like we're operating in 1/8 time), the note is almost constant, and the modulation is being tweaked, leading to an effect not dissimilar to fret tapping, but as the high pitch goes up, so the low pitch goes down. you're welcome to the raw 8-minute recording of haardvark for remix purposes, people.

general notes:
this has to be my shortest average song time for a release ever (6 tracks in under 12 minutes, and if it hadn't been for newboyfriend's guitar parts being a few years old (i reckon about as old as 'kinky friedman crime club', maybe more), it'd have been almost on a par with 'purple milk ep' for short recording times - gold top in an hour, haardvark one and two in 8 minutes, 'dooced' and bagel in a weekend.

especially strange for me, i've just noticed the amount of dishonesty on this release - i'm refusing to tell you the subject matter of three out of the four vocal tracks, and yet, to balance, those songs themselves are remarkably, lyrically, honest. i feel really bad about that, but this shit can't just fly about with names attached. relevant people are within reading distance. that's all i can say. i hope this at least gives it that instant and immediate and open feel i like, and as andy says, i'm just singing my blog, including those deleted posts you had to be on your toes to read.

this release is really another apology for the tardiness of 'on benefit', and it's piece of resistance, new boyfriend. this release refers to sfa's ice hockey hair e.p., with it's title track as the second song; to mansun's 'being a girl' ep, for it's use of the first two minutes of an epic song as a single; to the jazz greats, for their use of multiple takes with a cryptic common theme. this release is a way to get gold top (sitting around) and a weekend's work (not strong enough to survive on it's own) out into the public domain, while giving an interesting perspective on a song fragment which you will soon hear in a completely different light.