Hometime 

I've uploaded a new track to my soundcloud, named Hometime. Though the recording is new (the music, at least; the voice was recorded - along with a bunch of other recordings I'll be posting with music in the future - a few years back), the text was written in 2008, and is about being very drunk in afterhours London.

 

Aptly perhaps, I have no recollection of writing this. It was one of several pieces I uploaded to my then blog on myspace on the night of 28th March 2008. I was absurdly drunk then, too, and know I wrote it that evening because it was there the next day and didn't exist the day before. The text hasn't changed at all since. I'm very glad I don't drink like that any more.

This is one of a number of miscellaneous recordings, some of which I've not made public yet, which I'm collecting together for a new spoken word album. It'll be ready once I've got enough tracks. Tentative working title is All Things Left On Earth. I was considering doing a spoken-with-music Spell a few years back, and you may have heard the version of Binary I did. There are also unreleased versions of Circulating and Red Room from this period. I'll reshape these tracks, too (Circulating and Red Room didn't get much further than demo form) and some of them may make their way to the new album.

Currently reading: William Hope Hodgson, The House On The Borderland (re-reading)

Currently listening: Akira Yamaoka, Silent Hill 3 soundtrack

Logos Remixes 

My good friend  Jason Oliver has remixed two further Logos tracks, this time Shamania and Bipolar Binary from the third Logos album Shamania. I'm very pleased with both mixes; they compliment the originals while taking them in a very different direction. I plan to work further with Jason on music projects in future.

 

Shamania

 Bipolar Binary

 

Currently reading: Daniel Defoe, A Journal Of The Plague Year

Currently listening: Marilyn Manson, Portrait Of An American Family

He Knows The Use Of Ashes 

Yesterday I finished a very rough (45,000 words) first draft of a new novel. Now for the hard part, wrestling with all those words and putting it into shape.

 

The novel - currently untitled - grew out of a jumble of material I wrote back in 2009. I later recorded one section as a spoken word track, He Knows The Use Of Ashes. That title, of course, is borrowed from Pearls Before Swine (via This Mortal Coil) and the track The Jeweller, which is one of those rare tracks in that I equally adore both versions. This text has changed since I wrote and recorded it, and the version in the novel is somewhat different, but here it is:-

I created the first version of this in 2010, with completely different music, re-working it in 2012 and adding the new backing track. The multilayered voice was a happy accident; I'd done a rough guide voice, which I later re-recorded, and had the original playing very soft in the mix to aid me in adding the new voice. I liked the effect it created, and decided to keep it. Listening closely, you may also notice that the text differs slightly at some points between the two vocal tracks, due to mistakes I made when reading, which again I liked and opted to keep.

 

Here also, for the curious, are scans of pages from my notebook, showing the original text as I first wrote it back in September 2009.

Here's the full text, for those of you having difficulty with my handwriting:

 

hello darkness, my old friend. i slide back in so easily. the pill-markers, the circadian cycle of up and down. the drift through okay, anticipating the next dizzying spin into staring out the degenerate black hole that lurks at the core of the universe; how i opt to spend my time at 6.17 on a sunday evening. i wouldn't say that i see through it enough to presume that it stares back at me, but i like to think that it does.

 

if there is a god, he was set there purely to fuck with you.' i don't remember who said that to me, know it was on a street corner in bloomsbury and the city's sodium buzz made a mockery of starlight; i think it was a tuesday, about 3am, me hailing a cab and the speaker of those words splashing vomit into the gutter.

 

i sip my beer, and tis says 'i liked him enough, but... what can i say? you either click or you don't, and... i heard no click.'

 

'his loss,' i shrug; if only he knew what he was missing.'

 

she laughs, and we knock glasses. i slide away then, into the cruel molecular spin of memory. meg, stepping a floor that is alternate black and white tiles, pulling a packet of cigarettes from the hip pocket of her leather trousers. flicks her blue bob, stands by the sink and downs a glass of water. 'so, how about it?' she says. ten years ago, i'd have told her i loved her. ten years ago she wouldn't have worn my name.

 

''what could i tell the guy?' tis says. 'you're nice enough, but... not enough?'

 

'so what did you do?'

 

'i did what any of us would have done. i didn't call him back.'

 

we're on the dance floor then. chrome glides in every direction. i feel good. every star that will outshine me is a silver translucent liquid sliding down my spine. a bass spin in tune with the machines in the sky that churn and make snowflakes. the machines that churn in turn behind and make galaxies mate. every star is dead. i only think it isn't dead because i haven't yet seen the light that marked its demise.

 

'where did you go?' tis says, and we dance more. god is done with this place, all his business finalised.

 

Currently reading: Bram Stoker, Dracula

Currently listening: Garden Of Delight, Dawn (2013 version)

New Drawings 

I've added a whole bunch of new drawings to my deviantart page. See them here. Here's one, Source XVI, a biro sketch from September 2013. At some point I'll update the gallery on this site, too.

Unknown Pleasures # 1 

[Note: This is a re-post from November 2012 of an entry from the previous incarnation of my website; I'm posting it again here as I intend to continue the series in future].

 

I know I have a bit of a reputation - in terms of music taste - for loving dodgy goth shite, wayward industrial dins, self-hacking soundtracks, and guitar-based songs with vocals the depths of which you need a bathysphere to penetrate, so herewith the first in an occasional series presenting music I love very much despite what you may expect.

 

This song, in its many incarnations (I have numerous covers) was - along with Patti Smith's track Spell - the inspiration for the title of my first book. There's a story, perhaps apocryphal, that this was intended to be a gentle ballad until the studio session descended into hard drinking. I can relate to that. Logos was orignally a power funk trio until somebody spiked our pina coladas. "Hang on", you say, "trio? The Logos bios list only two members." Let's just say that my garden has been remarkably fecund this last two years. Out, damn'd spot!

 

Everybody Gets Elves 

My good friend Jason Oliver has done an excellent remix of my Logos track Everybody Gets Elves, from the 2010 album Gehenna Now. Listen below; to find out more about Logos, go direct to their website. I hope to work further on music with Jason in the future.

 

The Sound 

New poem; I wrote the first draft of this in Pewsey, Wiltshire, in late July, and reshaped and finished it this evening. I expect I'll do a with-music audio version at some point.

Jack Palmer & The Unspeakable Thing 

Jack Palmer And The Unspeakable Thing, a pulp teen horror book I co-wrote with my friend Simon Lewis, is now available to download for Kindle.

 

Set in contemporary London, it's a horror adventure story featuring magic, madness and mutants, feuding Elizabethan sorcerers, and the dread being known only as The Unspeakable Thing.

 

Note that this book is very different in style to my other writing. Click on the link to download, and to read a sample section.

 

Download

Others XIII 

Somebody told me today that my drawings reminded them of Massive Attack, so I listened to Mezzanine while sitting in the sun sketching this evening. I can't see the link, but appreciated the chance to reacquaint myself with an 'old friend' album I've not heard in far too long.

Here's the drawing, Others XIII.

Exhibition Of My Photos & Drawings 

Those of you in the UK can see an exhibition of my photos and drawings at The Keystone in Guildford (3 Portsmouth Road, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 4BL), starting today and running for the next four weeks. For a while The Keystone have been showcasing the work of local artists, and I was very pleased to be invited to participate. The show features a wide selection of my images, primarily photographs but also some drawings. All prints are also available for sale.

 

See The Keystone website for map and directions. If you're in the area and plan on stopping by, let me know and I'll drop in. Any other questions or queries, just ask.

 

Herewith a couple of shots of the images that will be on display, taken last weekend as I was getting them together in my flat. First the drawings:

Some photos:

More photos; these ones are smaller prints: