This was never going to be one of the main songs on the album. It was only ever filler, a random demo that sort of fit in thematically that I decided to throw in to fill space. Not a big a deal, not a great song, and okay one that I wrote in five minutes. I’d probably find something to replace it with later.

And yet, as it turned out, Set Light to the Sky is one of the best songs on the album, in my not entirely humble opinion.

Thematically this song continues the story straight after Fire Flower Heart. Our protagonist’s lover is dead and the gloves are off. How does he react to that?

I could push the button
Watch the sky fall in
I could wash my hands mercy clean
sink my teeth into this
If I could I’d light the match
If I’d the choice then I’d set light to the sky

Yes, that’s right, it’s a singalong anthem about mass-murder. Our protagonist has decided that with his lover dead there’s littl point to holding back or being cautious. He finds as many explosives as he can, places them where they will do the most damage to the oppressive regime and  sets them alight.

Composition and recording

Here’s the demo.

Can you can hear, the main difference apart from the much better playing on the final version, is the coda. The end of the studio version is much more developed than the demo version.

This is a change that Jordan suggested, and to be honest it transformed the song. I had thought of this as a throwaway song. It had been written very quickly indeed for February album writing month a few years previously in an attempt to get my song total up. So it had very little thought it into it at all. It’s based on a chord progression based on a standard, but with a tiny little twist. G D/F# Em C would be the standard. I changed that to G D/F# Em Ebmaj7. The Eb chord is out of key, but it shares a G and D note with the main key, giving it just enough of a relationship to G to be interesting but not quite what you’d expect.

The rest of the song is based on this progression, with the verses arpeggiated versions of the chords with a C# thrown in for another bit of contrast and the pre-choruses doing something similar but starting on C. The bridge makes use of the Ebmaj7 as a cue to changekey properly, so the bridge and solo section are in Cm.

And what does all this theory stuff mean? It means I thought my way to this song – it was an exerise in craft that I thought was fine but not inspiring. I threw the demo into the mix because I felt I needed another song and this one would do until I thought of something better.

But then Jordan said:

I definitely feel like it’s too short. i wouldn’t repeat the chorus again, though. Maybe have another section as a coda? If you want it to be short and sweet then I’d suggest working on the order of the parts and giving it a more traditional structure. My feeling, so far is that there’s more weight to the first two minutes than the rest of the song.

And I did what he said by extending the solo and coda with a load of extra guitar layers and suddenly we had a proper album. Just sorting out the balance and pacing of the thing transformed Set Light to the Sky into the album’s big singalong anthem. Add in Jordan’s bass playing and great string arragenments and Dan’s inspired production – I particularly like what he’s done with production on my voice in this – and you have one of the central songs on the album.

And a song that leads us to the big epic and final song on the album, All of the Dark…

Happy People Song by Song:

Part 1: Happy People
Part 2: Name in a File
Part 3: Satellites
Part 4: Flow my tears, the policeman said
Part 5: Even then we’re Scared
Part 6: Fire Flower Heart
Part 7: Tracking Signals
Part 8: Set Light To The Sky
Part 9: All Of The Dark

After writing the behemoth Seven Bells Redeemed I joked that I needed to write a riff 25 for every album.

Turns out that wasn’t a joke after all.

Even Then We’re Scared is the voice of the people who wanted the safety an security of the authoritarian government that our protagonist is trying to escape. In the verses they are explaining why they needed big brother to look after them:

The barcodes and scans
The database is safety
And it watches over us
If you’ve nothing to hide
Then why should you be worried?
There’s a price to be free

But in the choruses their true, frightened little selves can’t help but tell the truth:

Even when we go to bed
And hide under our blankets
Safe and warm in arms of sleep
Even then we’re scared

Composition and recording

Here’s the demo:

All right, it has some twisty rhythms in it, but this song was one of the most organically composed on the album. The music was pretty much one sitting – somewhere I have an acoustic sketch of it with me humming the melody but getting the music pretty much spot on.

Recording it was interesting. I think of these kind of rhythms as additive – I count the smallest sensible unit, in this case the semi-quavers (sixteenth to any weirdos/Americans listening). it therefore seemed sensible to record to a click track of these, and not bother working out all the time signatures. What became apparent when we were recording the vocals however was that Dan and Jordan were counting the riff completely differently, to the point where we didn’t agree where the downbeats were. Which was weird. Jordan had suggested changing one of the verse vocal lines slightly and we spent what seemed like hours trying to get an alternative right, which was totally scuppered by the fact that we were hearing the rhythm wrong.

In the end I took an executive decision and we stuck with the verse as originally written, but the rhythms did throw us for a time.

We got there in the end, thanks in large part to Michael’s one take drum part. yes that’s right, Michael played the most difficult piece on the album in one take. I still can’t get over that.

Here are Jordan’s notes:

• Love the riff! Almost Tool – esque.
• Somehow the flow of the second verse (vocals) is ever so slightly more fluid than the first one (It’s probably a question of number of syllables, haven’t investigated closely yet). Lovely interlude after the second chorus with a nice modulation.
• It seems to me that the transition between the verse and the chorus is a bit abrupt. Is there a way to make it more flowing? maybe a short transitional part?

As you can hear, for this song I pretty much ignored all his advice.

Serendipity and other people

There is whistling in the song. It was not planned.

I was just whistling along in the studio, as I tend to do, and Dan decided we should record it. I thought this was a barmy idea, but in creative things you don’t say no (at least not until you’ve heard the idea). He was right. I really like the middle section to this song, with the backing vocals courtesy of Dan and Suzette and the guitar counter melody.

Another thing I said yes to was trying a load of vocal ad libs. They did not make it through to the album. I’m not much of a vocal improviser anyway, I much prefer having a written part and really dislike gospel-style adlibs, but the verses of this song are a bit choral in nature. After several attempts though, that was an idea we sensibly ditched.

What is left is one of the rockier tracks on the album. The lyrics were written back in 2014/15 well before the current political climate had developed and I had no intention of writing something allegorical. Any similarity between the people in this song and the sort of scared people currently voting for authoritarian politicians in various places around the world is entirely coincidental.

Happy People Song by Song:

Part 1: Happy People
Part 2: Name in a File
Part 3: Satellites
Part 4: Flow my tears, the policeman said
Part 5: Even then we’re Scared
Part 6: Fire Flower Heart
Part 7: Tracking Signals
Part 8: Set Light To The Sky
Part 9: All Of The Dark

Flow my tears, the policeman said takes it’s title from a book by Philip K Dick. The story is about a TV presenter and singer Jason Taverner who wakes up one morning to find himself apparently erased from history. No-one remembers who he is. He has become a non-person.

The book is set in an alternative America of government control and work-camps so thematically it fits with the concept of Happy People even if it doesn’t carry on the story directly. While it isn’t a perfect novel it does create an atmosphere of confusion and bewilderment as only Philip K Dick can. I liked it so much I wrote a whole song about it.

Composition and recording

Musically I think this was an attempt to emulate some of my favourite David Bowie ballads, particularly big mid-paced numbers like Word on a Wing or Slip Away. It’s based around a D lydian feel with the raised 4th giving a mood that’s slightly eerie and bittersweet.

The original demo is pretty bare, just chords a simple drum beat and the vocal. Jordan and Dan made the thing sing. Here are Jordan’s notes:

• Great tune – we need to make those atonal moment in the nooks and crannies pop out better.
• It could be a good idea to have an extended coda after the “policeman said” bit in the end, akin to Radiohead’s Karma Police. It’s too good of a moment to not build upon it.
• First listen, something bothered me and then I realised what it was. The asymmetrical structure of the tune. Drumbeat – verse – interlude and then verse bridge chorus verse bridge chorus. To “isolate” better the symmetrical part of the song how about no conventional drum beat until the end of the interlude?

I went along with Jordan’s suggestions, taking the drum beat out of the intro and extending the end with a guitar solo. We went through various iterations of that solo, from an initial guitar sketch played by me to synth solos by Jordan and finally what we have on the record which is Dan playing a fantastic guitar part. It’s my favourite guitar moment on the album simply because it’s nothing like a solo I would play.

The little fills, piano, trumpet and keys really make this song for me too. I love the mood we’ve ended up creating, from the very first chord to the final fretless bass fill.

Maybe this song really is my favourite on the album. What it says to me is that what we think of as real is a thin veil of opinion and biology. At any moment you might come to your senses and see things as they really are. Nothing means anything, nothing is real, and that’s scary, bewildering, cruel and wonderful.

Or something. Good innit?

Happy People Song by song:

Part 1: Happy People
Part 2: Name in a File
Part 3: Satellites
Part 4: Flow my tears, the policeman said
Part 5: Even then we’re Scared
Part 6: Fire Flower Heart
Part 7: Tracking Signals
Part 8: Set Light To The Sky
Part 9: All Of The Dark

Satellites is a love song. Except in the world of Happy People love is difficult as there are are spy satellites that will get in the way if the authorities disapprove.

They say eyes are watching down on all the lovers
Ironclad watchers in star-bitten skies
They’re keeping a record of all our romances
They’ll pull us apart if they don’t approve

It was written for FAWM, as much the album was, though not in the same year as the first two tracks.

Composition and Production

I love the coda in Satellites. The keys, the backing vocals, the 12 string guitar melody. I think it sounds great and it’s all Dan Bowles`s idea. The original demo has none of that, as you`ll hear. I think it really makes the song.

I didn’t think that about the coda idea when I first heard it. It took a few listens to persuade me that Dan’s idea was the right one.

The other main change between the demo and the final version is the key. The original is in C# minor, and the final in F# minor. This was in line with Jordan’s notes:

• Because of the subject matter I’d use A LOT of electronic textures a la Royskopp, along with the rock instrumentation.
• I’m in two minds whether the key is too low or not but then again I have the idea that if you have to double the chorus an octave higher because the verse sounds more powerful, it probably needs a kick up a couple semitones.

We didn’t go all out with the electronic textures, but he was right abut the key. I think it sounds much better like this.

They say you have to kill your babies on any creative endeavour, ie get rid of the ideas you absolutely love if they don’t fit. One baby I had to kill was part of the backing vocal in the final chorus. In the demo there’s a line that reads:

They can’t police our thoughts, can’t police our hearts, won’t ever pull us apart again.

In the final version that’s truncated and far less significant. I liked the original to sing, but the rest of the team were of the opinion that just because you can write a counter melody doesn’t mean you should. I can’t argue, they were correct.

Satellites. A 4 minute love song on a prog album.

Happy People Song by Song:

Part 1: Happy People
Part 2: Name in a File
Part 3: Satellites
Part 4: Flow my tears, the policeman said
Part 5: Even then we’re Scared
Part 6: Fire Flower Heart
Part 7: Tracking Signals
Part 8: Set Light To The Sky
Part 9: All Of The Dark

Name in a File is the second track from Happy People. As the second track its job is to keep the pace and theme of the album going – now isn’t the time for a massive change in direction – while still giving us something to get our teeth into.

The first track was about our protagonist escaping the clutches of the totalitarian government he found himself living under. In this song he’s searching for his lost love, a woman he knew from before everything went wrong. but everyone keeps telling him that it is impossible, that once you’re gone you will stay disappeared.

They’re never gonna come back
No matter how hard I shout and I cry
They’re never gonna come back
Now they’re nothing but a name in a file

Composition

Like Happy People, this song was composed in one sitting in 2012 with a guitar and a click track in less than half an hour. As a consequence the structure is a bit odd. We start with a verse built around a six bar sequence with the chords B minor B major and G major. The B major chord there is a bit of an anomaly, but i do often use major chords a major third apart, and those chords aren’t a billion miles away from Creep by Radiohead either which might be why I chose them.

Then a chorus in E minor that changes time signature a little bit and uses similar chords to happy people. Then we get an instrumental section followed by a build up with monks.

After the build up with monks there’s a solo over the chorus, a vocal chorus, and an outro based on the previous instrumental section.

The whole thing is:

• Verse
• Chorus
• Instrumental
• Solo
• Chorus
• Instrumental

To me it feels quite improvisatory, with the second chorus a different length to the first for no reason at all.

Lyrically it’s very different to the original demo, though much of the music has changed. Here’s the earliest version of the song I could find, from back when it was called ‘Augur and Scry’ and was a song about the idiocy of superstition.

***It’s a rushed songwriting demo, please forgive any performance fluffs of which there are many***

As you can hear, quite a lot changed. The lyrics were completely rewritten to make it fit with the album’s themes and the intro was completely removed. Of course much of the instrumentation is different, there are no monks in the demo or real drums. Interestingly the guitar solo is basically the same in the demo, though I think I played it a little better in the final version.

Most of those changes I made myself for a second draft so by the time it came to Jordan there wasn’t much for him to add in terms of basic songwriting. What Dan and Jordan did add was all the great little details that make this a great track. The monks you can hear in the instrumental section were Jordan’s idea. Originally I wasn’t convinced but the guys stuck to their guns and they were right to do so.

Similarly the phrasing of the verse melody was worked out collectively in the studio and the slide guitar in the instrumental section is Dan’s playing. That section went through a few different versions too with several different string parts being tried before we settled on the final version.

As we were recording I found myself saying ‘this is probably my favourite song.’ I’ve said it about every track at one time or another, but as I write, this really is my favourite song on the album.

Happy People Song by Song:

Part 1: Happy People
Part 2: Name in a File
Part 3: Satellites
Part 4: Flow my tears, the policeman said
Part 5: Even then we’re Scared
Part 6: Fire Flower Heart
Part 7: Tracking Signals
Part 8: Set Light To The Sky
Part 9: All Of The Dark

Happy People has been out for one month. How on earth did that happen? I have no idea where the last few weeks have gone.

Here’s what’s happened in that month:

Reviews!

The reviews that have come in so far have been really positive.

“I get the feeling that all Tom’s previous works were a flexing of musical muscles, practising for the real thing. This album is the real thing.” – Prog Radar

“This feels like the quirky Tom Slatter that I have come to know and fear.” Progressive Music Planet

“Tom has probably made the best album that I have personally heard from him. It’s consistent, melodic, psychedelic, and well written. This could very well be the album that really breaks Tom into the vast, lucrative world of progressive rock. ” – Prog Mind

“Slick as a buttered cormorant…riddled with ear-worms” – The Progressive Aspect

There will hopefully be a few more reviews in the next month or so. It’s really nice to see that all our work has paid off in terms of other people liking the thing!

Gigs

Will there be gigs? Yes there will. One of the things about having to fit music around a full time job is that it is a bit tricky getting things organised. In an ideal world I’d have gigs in the calendar as the album came out, but I wasn’t able to get that sorted.

So the next gig in the calendar is an acoustic set at Airship Northstar, a Steampunk festival in Berwick upon Tweed on 8th July. I’m also in talks about another acoustic gig in the north East that same weekend, more on that when it’s definite.

I’m intending to play more gigs, both acoustic and hopefully full band over the next 12 months. If there’s somewhere you’d like me to play, please do let me know.

Mubla?

Have you found the three Mublas? There are three ‘mubla’s hidden in the artwork and audio of the album. The first person to let me know they’ve found all three gets a prize (I haven’t decided what yet).

Why are they there? This video explains it:

What’s next?

As well as the gigs I’m currently working on my ‘secret’ instrumental album (the one I’d been not-so-secretly talking about for a couple of years) and a little EP of vocal stuff. Both of those should be about in the next 12 months. Probably.

Thanks for listening!

My brand new album Happy People is out today!

I’m really proud of this one. It’s more rocky, more serious and far less steampunk and it sounds amazing.

You can find it at this link.

Don’t take my word for it. The first reviews have said:

“I get the feeling that all Tom’s previous works were a flexing of musical muscles, practising for the real thing. This album is the real thing.” – Prog Radar

“Tom has probably made the best album that I have personally heard from him. It’s consistent, melodic, psychedelic, and well written. This could very well be the album that really breaks Tom into the vast, lucrative world of progressive rock. ” – Prog Mind