The NME within

The NME

For many years I have drafted letters to you in an idle moment, usually associated with some slight concern over the placement of a band or an unfair review. I’ve finally taken the plunge this time- chiefly due to your exclusion of moi once again from your list of top tips for 2011. Now perhaps it would be wise to tackle your immediate responses that this gratuitous omission is because “we’ve never heard your music” “Neither has anyone we know” and perhaps because “in fact you’ve not played anyone your music”. Well to satisfy your concerns here’s a brief description set in the closest the fickle and limited system of language can come to fully encompassing the ethereal majesty of the album, as yet unrecorded, practiced or written, that I have mentally devised.

They are songs which catapult the unassuming listener headlong into the musical equivalent of a Borges novel, where they are diverted on every path by a fresh crescendo- noise solo- spoken word indictment of the hipster scene- percussive interlude- surf-pop riffing- 4 point harmony- cascades of analogue synth wizardry- slap bass solo- doo-wop reinvention-irreverent name drop-minimalist homage- unusual and unpredictable fusion- anthemic chorus (featuring an assortment of motivational phrases ‘hold your head up’ sort of deal) which finally twists towards the majestic climax, a haunting but euphoric finale of rap-orientated math-rock. All of this shrink-wrapped in the kind of production that Eno, Godrich, Martin, Street et al have fruitlessly spent their careers attempting to replicate.

Now I fully appreciate that your allegiance to a band involves a kind of investment in them, and that you've become scarred and made wary by your involvement with many proverbial Northern Rock’s in the past (The Darkness, Twang, Courteneers, Brother, Travis) Therefore I can categorically assure you that a late inclusion of me and my oeuvre to either the Best of 2010 or New List 2011 (i'd settle for a pre-emptive insertion into next years list) would involve only a slight amount of risk. I think you’ll find it prudent to massively market my genius now so as to hasten the predictable clamour of assorted music publicists, blogs and magazines claiming they discovered me, when I actually record or devise some music. Think of it as a musical ‘Ponzi’ scheme in which everybody gets rich and no one gets hurt if it makes you feel more committed?

Kind Regards,

The Face Of Music To Come,

Cornwall.