it is indeed hard to know where to begin with this album

it is a totally immodest thing to say

but this a double plus good record my friends

not least coz a frank kearns guitar

sounds like string sections flutes and electric piano

sounds like birds crying and sounds like violins wailing

sounds like indistinct watercolour floods that are sweet and melodic

talk about intricate talk about evocative talk about mystical

talk about layers of rich organic blah blah blah

the last word in magical guitar playing

to induce an enchanted state to imply a familiar celtic faerie thing

childrens stories and Finn McCool and weird happenings

and huge distant birds traversing the skies

and warm moments lost in some glowing autumn afterglow

and desolation and the sound of war machinery echoing in a memory

the guitar playing is so romance laden and dripping in nature sound

this is as good as it gets

no one else has gone so far into the glimmering sonic empire as FXK

this is the result of years of perfecting this sound

and a completely dreamy nature which is ever percolating with music

hes taken the electric guitar and then treating it with his old school harmoniser

which is like the box that goes everywhere with him

a box that in the hands of a dreamer like him lets out dreams into this world

his creations are ephemeral gossamer delicate pearls strung across a universe of space

an absolute master of the guitar right here

not bent his energy towards the usual stuff

instead  found a way to imply such wonderful stuff

emotional joyous both complex and simple

easy to listen to and easy to create

this music oozes out from both of us now

like planets ooze from the mahavishnu out there somewhere

music we have created…i am impressed

the bass and piano i have provided

i am no maestro like FXK

but here i play exactly the right required thing

simple piano parts with emphasis on single lower notes up loud

the bass guitars are fluid supple and elusively fantastic

i am very proud of the keys and bass

the drummers wayne sheehy and barton price are just incredible

subtle and then walloping the skins like a wrathful god

ted howard who mixed with frank the record is a sonic genius

the vocals by me  and backing vocals by frank are strong and clear and tuneful

the melodies are sinuous and insistent

the words are spells oh yeah from who knows where tho

i dont know where these words have come from

i feel frank and i tapped into something

we drilled thru a wall and druidic words and music came to us

voices dictated the words to me

i have no memory of writing most of them

is this album somehow manifested from another realm..?

yes it is i suppose you could say

there is more going on than i can understand

some once famous bards from the olden days have informed our work

ideas flew to us as we cast our nets into the unknown silences

these are my best lyrics

the zenith so far of what i have done

the songs we have created here are a series of brilliant worlds

worlds of warm emotions and blurred memory

yes feelings of other lives other times other lives other voices

as frank is creating his backdrops of orchestral guitar

the words unfurl perfectly matched to the music like husband and wife

the words describe the music which describes the words

the voices the drums the music the words all of them suggest

but suggest what what what what what what what…?

somehow we are conjuring emotions fresh from outta some pagan place

we glimpse through the combination of words and music

the splendour of great houses in decay

the clean salty spray in a secret sea cove maybe painted by Dali

the fresh air that blows out of these songs

the animals that lumber and fly forth

the warm winter evenings of tuscany and eire

in albion the druids who produced their sublime lays

we can really only imagine how truly fucking cool their pieces must have been

somehow and somewhere on this record we have captured echoes of those days

our music just invokes all this fleeting stuff

but really enough is enough

its some of the best stuff ive ever done

this time the hype the wait whatever is all justified

this is one we’ve all been waiting for

the spiritual pastoral natural deep and clean music

after all we have ever done

here is this

its nine and three quarters stars out of ten

i dont see how we could have possibly made a better record

an absolute essential crucial recording

for people who want the strange and the mercurial

here it is!

hope you’ll be listening to this for years

 

 

http://stevekilbey.bandcamp.com/album/speed-of-the-stars