The first of three albums featuring the lyrics of Ian Moss performed in a spoken word setting with ambient music being provided by Space Museum.
Proceeds from the sale of this album will be donated to FC United of Manchester to help with the development of the club and its new ground at Moston.
For this first album groups of lyrics have been brought together in segments
Notes for the words
WELCOME HUMANITY
Acetone - written at the turn of the 90s for the Stepbrothers album ' Switched At Birth ' (available on German Shepherd Records). Given a rebirth in early Kill Pretty sets and recorded on ' in 80 days '
SEGMENT ONE
Baby Talk , proposed song for Kill Pretty , collapsed in a bad tempered rehearsal.
Pigkicker - a lyric without a home.
I Blaspheme , Gods Gift a great Salfordian band from the early 80s had a song called ' There is no God' this was basically an update of that , recorded by Kill pretty for album ' Bubblegum Now'.
Streets of London - a day trip to the capital left me feeling saddened and repulsed , wrote this on the train home as a possible single for Kill Pretty that never came to pass.
Crazy Paving - a jaundiced observation.
SEGMENT TWO
Why Must I Rhyme - self chastising
Devils Music , always fascinated by the friendship rivalry between Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis , I have long wanted to scream this over a rock n roll band having a ball.
SEGMENT THREE
Season in Hell - tribute to Arthur Rimbaud , rehearsed with unsatisfactory results.
SEGMENT FOUR
What About Me? - Kill Pretty song released on the album Snake Sheds Skins still available from All The Madmen records.
Musicians Are Scum - I knew Pere Ubu had a song with this title which I thought was genius , I avoided hearing their song so I could write my own
Lotus Eaters - Kill Pretty version on album ' Bubblegum Now'
Heads Will Roll - a KP2 piece that was lost in the gold rush.
Iceland - written on the Kill Pretty trip to iceland , performed once in Sheffield and then retired.
Madcap- for Syd and myself, both out of kilter with the drones
SEGMENT FIVE
Propshaft - version by Kill Pretty on album ' Bubblegum Now', self indulgent crap according to some people.
SEGMENT SIX
Dadrock - my answer to the people mentioned above
Meat Grinder , KP2 , one that got away
Historical Allegations - another homeless KP2 piece about the top level whitewash and cover up of sex abuse cases perpetrated by the powerful against the vulnerable
The Scenic Route - a possible lyric for an Ion Morph recording.
I like this noise - written after a night watching ' Klaus Kinski! , ILL and 2 Koi Karp, a celebration ! Rehearsed several times with Kill Pretty , never remotely the way I envisaged it.
The Horror - a cautionary tale
SEGMENT SEVEN
The rat the cat dragged in , possible Hamster song
IKM March 2015
Notes for the background sounds
The overall brief for the background sounds was fairly open, there would be some dub, some jazz. some noise and some electronica but I was pretty much left to my own devices. Knowing some of the recorded songs very well I had to disassociate myself from what I expected to hear when those lyrics were uttered.
A major aim was to try and capture the raw emotion of the delivery.
As usual I work very quickly ( the Nick Lowe method) - I had a broad idea to segment the first album into groups and make this selection more theatrical. Acetone was recorded later in the process and was developed when a lot of the dub aligned music was being created.
Segment One was about the use of tonalities (the soundtrack to This Island Earth is a big influence on my work in this area - so you will hear sounds in that context). The words demanded their own space so the ambient sounds are meant to be just out of earshot. The words are processed with echo and reverb as appropriate.
Segment Two is mostly underpinned by an old Passage of Time tune which was inspired by early Tangerine Dream.
Segment Three is derived from some of the standard chill wave and drum & bass samples that come with Ableton broken up with some arpeggiators and sweeps.
Segment Four having worked on at least one of these tracks for several weeks (trying to rescue some of the studio stems from oblivion) I need to both reflect on what I had previously done. In the end I used an as yet unused tune which had been planned for another project for the first section and created a new piece of electronica for the second part.
Segment 5 - having spent some time on putting this, for want of a better phrase "sound collage" together a couple of years back - the brief Steve Reich with bits on the top - I was pleased to resurrect it. This is a slightly different version to the one eventually used on the Bubblegum Now album. The original stages of the development of the Reich inspired elements final piece can be found on the Passage of Time album Dreaming -
passageoftime.bandcamp.com/album/dreaming
Segment 6 - it was important to get atonal/experimental at some stage in the proceedings - inspirations for this section come from Tortoise, Test Department, Foetus, Biota and AMM. It was also important to challenge the listener to seek out the lyrics.
Segment 7 - more of the same as segment 6.
SM March 2015