was great to briefly top bandcamps charts the other day

its very hard to listen to your own record n know what youve done

sometimes it sounds great

othertimes my concentration wanders yearning to start my next new thing

so ive learnt a lot about music and logic and myself while making it

ive learnt more than ever to have faith in my processes

my processes always reveal a song eventually …a good song ….

i dont always write songs the way you would imagine

sometimes a tiny inkling leeds me thru a number of processes i dont understand

in this way under my editorial control i let musical accidents happen

i am very free with accidents much freer than anyone else you probably know

on the other hand my in-built music computer only chooses the best accidental bits for re-assemby

i am a witness to songs writing themselves more and more

i chisel them out of silence or they fall in my lap

i am happy with the technical quality

its much much better than whatever you or i would have expected

yet i like the loose sound of the whole thing

i have strategies for negating the machineyness of things

now i have more than ever

it doesnt have to sound like that

i have quite radical ideas that i apply across the board to my solo records

here you can hear them in the hard left n right panning

i want my music to disorient as well as fulfil…i hope it does that

something else : altho getting old is a real drag believe me

in this one respect its working out for me

some other sense i have mentioned before

so often has taken over and intervenes in my work

i find it in music painting and writing

some easy answers at last for artistic conundrums

i continue to move forward in understanding and trust

i think these songs will bring a big smile to your face

i think they will remind you of other songs

songs by me songs by others

they are supposed to i guess

its a tragicomedy its all mixed up

2 instrumentals to bookend the album

george e the noted conductor said

he admired the way i could play notes out of scale and yet make em fit

altho i dont see it that way of course

in some ways i just play by ear i suppose

i dont know anything about modality

some voice in my head just says yeah thats the right note

i dont appreciate where it fits with music theory

i taught myself everything

i taught myself bass guitar keyboards singing engineering mixing the lot

it was a long long process of trial and error

my mind is so stupid in some things

but so quick on the uptake on others

i perceived quickly the ways a person could make music on their own

i developed my own ways i tested my own theories

i wrote a thousand songs no one will ever hear (again)

i was honing my craft over the years

while other people watched sport or visited friends

i sat alone starting from scratch

i put baby grande behind me n started all over again

i re-learnt and re-appraised it all.

i figured out how my voice worked

i figured out how to make the most of my musical shortcomings

and i started to write the beginnings of the songs that you guys must like

or else why would you be reading this bullshit right now?

so we come to the idyllist

another solo album big deal

dont hold yer breath for the next church album tho

kilbey/kennedy coming atcha in april i hear …(a magnificent beast)

so why the idyllist?

and all i can really say is

i think it may make you smile for awhile

its silly its stupendous its preposterous its…cosmic rock…

its noisy its warm n cosy its out there its in here

how amazing i never succumbed to her-0 in

and i’m still around doing this

fucking enthusiasm…man its there in buckets..its gushing vim…

it aint no tired old lame brain kilbey by numbers

it contains all my obsessions beatle dylan bowie bolan floyd etc

its derivative and original at the same time

i love those contradictions

its messy and accomplished

its everything its nothing

plus theres some good singalong numbers

if you wanna hear someone unwearied by age here i am

at almost sixty i have experience and enthusiasm

that is the idyllist

smart enough to know better you could say….

 

 

if youve already heard it and would like to review it

in the comments please be my guest