at last my stars
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
