‘Tom Slatter is a quintessentially British eccentric with a quirky imagination who has produced some of the most innovative progressive music in recent years.’ – Prog Magazine
I can’t deny the Radiohead influence on this one, particularly in the subject matter, but also in the composition – building up to a climax, in this case the pitch-shifted harmony vocals, is quite a Radioheadesque thing to do. The slow build-up of layers and the high pitched vocals are quite Radiohead as well I suppose.
Do I ever write anything original?
I have all the time you need
I have all you want
My arms are always here
To make you feel complete
Even when you’re crying, I still smile.
My face is fixed in a permanent grin
My latex skin never frowns
You bought me, to make you feel complete
And I’ll always be here
Even when you’re crying, I still smile.
And your last touch of real skin hurt too much.
But I have all the time you need
My love never dies
I thought it might be fun to do a blog post about each of the songs on Spinning the Compass
This song is a little naughty. It began life as a song about the antikythera mechanism but as so many things do, eventually ended up about sex.
This mechanism it’s driving us apart,
It shines a prism on the kind of love we share
This mechanism is making passion spoil
It tastes of something the cloying tang of wine and oil
Our love relies on clockwork
The careful use of gears and wheels
More specifically, it’s about a love affair that has been corrupted by toys, cogs and machinery, to the point where genuine human contact seems impossible.
Of course, such despairing and bleak lyrics have to be set to a jaunty tune.
You and me in the gaslight with our machinery
Our artificial steam powered hearts will never set us free
This mecanism isn’t you or me
The song was written for February Album Writing Month, and began as a couple of largely wordless improvisations (Warning, what follows are very rough demo recordings of a work in progress).
This is the first improvisation I recorded. At this point I had one line of lyrics, some chords, a vague idea of the groove/bass line and little else.
You can hear me trying out ideas, and playing little bits of melody on the guitar to make clear to myself what I was singing.
This is how I usually improvise – guitar and voice at the same time and little idea of what the eventual lyrics will be – though I usually do have at least one line to give me an idea of mood.
Here you can hear me improvising to try and figure out a chorus – some of the original chords from this survived, as did the ‘way you get to me’ arpeggio.
One difference you can hear is that I’ve a much clearer idea of how the verses will sound. In between these improvs I wrote a few lines down.
Both of these sound files, as rough and ready as they are, illustrate how the song began to develop. Here’s the demo I posted for FAWM09 – the finished song, albeit not recorded as well as the version on Spinning the Compass.
The full lyrics are:
This mechanism it’s driving us apart,
It shines a prism on the kind of love we share
This mechanism is making passion spoil
It tastes of something the cloying tang of wine and oil
Our love relies on clockwork
The careful use of gears and wheel
This mechanism it isn’t how we feel
You and me in the gaslight with our machinery
Our artificial steam powered hearts will never set us free
This mecanism isn’t you or me
The games we’re playing type writers for our hearts
The rules and rhythms
The limits of a steam powered love
It started somewhere lighter
Somehow we got lost somewhre
This mechanism won’t get us anywhere
You and me in the gaslight with our machinery
Our artificial steam powered hearts will never set us free
This mechanism isn’t you or me
Oil is the wine
Roses in the chains
Burning a pilot light
Isn’t carrying a flame
You and me in the gaslight with our machinery
Our artificial steam powered hearts will never set us free
This mechanism isn’t you or me
Mr. Slatter’s music evokes images of ill-lit workshops, dark libraries in mansions where spirits are contacted, cabaret in run-down theaters and the taste of absinthe.
How’s that for a quote? Read the rest by clicking here.
Spinning the Compass technically isn’t finished. I still have to sort out a final cover and redo a few little details in the recordings. Neverthless, it’s getting the occasional mention online. Here are two of ’em:
…Another artist, one of our favorites from a couple years ago, Tom Slatter, of the since metamorphosed We’ll Write (now called Comrad Robot), has released a solo album with a steampunk theme called Spinning the Compass. If you liked We’ll Write, Slatter has kept a lot of the same feel from that group with the same nerdish themes of machines and humanity…
Tom Slatter’s Spinning the Compass is best described, I think, as acoustic prog-rock. From alternating measures of 5/4 to wildly chromatic key changes to rowdy (acoustic) guitar solos, all of the prog-rock elements are there. As a fan of Yes and ELP, these elements drew me in immediately.
It might have been written by a very good friend of mine, but I didn’t know he was going to write it, or even that he’d started his (rather good) blog.
(Interestingly Pete singles out Lines Overheard At A Séance for special mention, a song that I included as an after-thought to get the numbers up. I mean, I’m very proud of the song, it’s one of my favourites, but it almost wasn’t on there…)
Spinning The Compass is almost a metal album. All Tom would need to do is swap acoustic for electric guitar and the keyboard parts for more electric guitars and he’d be there. The fact that it’s not a metal album does allow the songcraft to shine, though, and it’s a treat to hear such deft fretwork without layers of distortion.
Tom’s dedication to theory means these songs are often almost too clever for their own good; he likes time signatures, and don’t get him started on the lydian mode. However, the unexpected quirks and lunges in strange directions never get in the way of a melody or a strong chorus, particularly on the excellent title song and the opener, Mechanism. Buzzing at the centre of this album is Lines Overheard At A Séance, all fuzzy keys and crackling drums. It’s a dark and hypnotic piece,easily one of the best things I think Tom has recorded.
