How I wrote Spinning the Compass

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<a href="http://tomslatter.bandcamp.com/track/spinning-the-compass">Spinning the Compass by Tom Slatter</a>

Spinning the Compass is the title track from my first solo album. It’s another song that’s been very long in the making – the chorus has been hanging around in my head and on scraps of paper for years. The demo below, recorded for FAWM, was the first time I realised the thing and got some verses together.

The lyrics I won’t explain, except to mention that there is an oblique reference to the end of The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester in the verses. The structure of the song is mildly unusual, having two verse together near the beginning of the song and nowhere else. The basic structure of the song goes something like:

Intro Melody
Verse
Verse
Chorus
Melody (But a longer version)
Guitar Solo
Melody (An even longer version)
Chorus
Outro

Each time that instrumental melody comes back you get to hear some more of it – that was the idea anyway.

Musically, the time signatures are all over the place (well, there are three different ones anyway) and the harmony is mostly centred around the E Lydian scale. The title and one of the counter melodies near the end recall material earlier heard in Bad Dreams. The two songs are related in tone and I think are the centrepieces of the album, although other people have had their own ideas about that.

Here’s the demo:

Spinning the Compass Demo

And here are the lyrics:


Been spinning the compass again
Changing the rules while I was looking away
5 paths in the same dial

Like living in a world of your own
all the time shrinking till all the roads meet
white lines dashing past at speed
And up is left, east is west and no-one cares

Spinning the compass again
16 down isn’t making sense
cross purpose and silent days
Like living in a mind not your own
thinking thoughts you don’t understand
white lights shining in the dark

Do you get the feeling we’re running out time?
Have you heard the rumours of war planes in the skies?

With this spinning the end is surely nigh?
Do you get the feeling we’re running.

White lines dashing at speed the windows
They’ve been spinning this compass again.

Musings on the nature of Physicality as it applies to the Commercial Release of Recorded Musical Artforms

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A Physical Thing, of a steampunky nature

How should a steampunk album be released? What would you like to get your hands on when buying a physical object? A boring old CD case or something a bit more interesting?

I’ve been reading a blog post on BLDGBLG about the fictional worlds of protocol architecture.

The idea of creating entire fictional worlds has long held a fascination for me (so much so that I have two manuscripts for awful fantasy novels sitting in cupboards, gathering dust) and the artefacts Protocol Architecture created – maps,photographs and notebooks -are a wonderful way of providing windows into those worlds.

This morning I wrote a song: The Miser’s Will II: What the Orderly saw. Here’s a rough demo:

What the Orderly Saw

It’s the second of what will be five narrative songs, and tells the story of the last moments of a hospital orderly who witnessed something he shouldn’t have seen and dies for it.

The first song is about a cartographer who meets a similar fate after following the bizarre instructions he recieves, scrawled onto one of his maps.

The Cartographer’s Tale

There’s a definite narrative here, and there’s the possibility of all sorts of artefacts existing to accompany the story – the map the cartographer recieved, the Miser’s Will itself, and objects the cartographer dug up.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the different ways I could represent my music – CD cases are a little boring after all, and more than a little old hat. There are wonderful steampunk USB cases out there, and more interesting things could be constructed to hold boring old CDs. At some point in the near future I’ll want to start making my music available in a physical format and given the narrative nature of so much of my music, it seems reasonable for it to explore some of these ideas.

After all, Steampunk people do seem to have a real affinity for beautiful things and well made physical objects and it seems appropriate to acknowledge that, even in music.

What do you reckon? Handmade copper CD cases, handmade leather bound CD booklets, maps and metal artefacts. Are those the things that should accompany a Steampunk CD?

I’m not sure yet, but I do know that boring old plastic CD cases are not on the cards.

How I Wrote ‘Ingenious Devices’

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<a href="http://tomslatter.bandcamp.com/track/ingenious-devices">Ingenious Devices by Tom Slatter</a>

Ingenious Devices was almost entirely improvised. I was coming to the end of Spinning the Compass, and realised the pacing of the album didn’t quite work – I needed another upbeat song near the beginning. So I sat down one day with a guitar and started to improvise:

Ingenious Devices draft 1

The improv began as a little vamp on an Aminor chord and the title ‘Ingenious Devices’. As you can hear, it’s very very rough. All I’m doing in the recording is playing around with the chords, trying out A minor, C minor, F major, getting a feel for the mood of the song. I’m also using la and ooh sounds, and nonsense half words to try and find melodic ideas.

Ingenious Devices draft 2

This, the end of my little improv jam is a little more refined – I’ve got a verse riff and a descending melody, the F chord, A minor vamp and title have worked themselves into a potential chorus.

This turned itself into the finished verse and chorus. The middle section is actually the verse and chorus from another song I wrote years ago but never used.

Interesting fact – the middle section contains a melody played on a stylophone.

The section before the final chorus has lots of loops, both instrumental and vocal that build on one another. The basic idea here is that the 9 beat bar is broken up in different ways – there are loops based on 3s and 2s cutting across the bar like cogs of different sizes fitting together in interesting ways until it becomes so complex it has to break – which it does by returning to the chorus.

Lyrics:

I’ve seen them, with cracking skin,
Greying hair, yellow teeth
And haunted eyes.

I’ll not be one of them
I’ll fill my lungs with oil and steam
And never die

Ingenious devices
keep me alive in perpetual motion these
Ingenious devices
filled the steam from a thousand pistons

Ingenious Devices Turn

My heart beats by pendulum
I’ve filled grave with cogs and wheels
so there’s no room.

And my lovers have passed me by,
I’ve seen towers pierce the sky
with crystal eyes

Ingenious devices
keep me alive in perpetual motion these
Ingenious devices
filled the steam from a thousand pistons

Ingenious devices turn

My daughters died,
My sons all met their fate
Wouldn’t join me
Couldn’t see till far too late.
The clockwork beating
of my polished heart
Reassures me that I haven’t gone too far

Ingenious devices keep me from the grave
Piston as the master, tendon as the slave

Tick tock tick tick this heart beats
Tick tick tock tock this heart beats

Ingenious devices
keep me alive in perpetual motion these
Ingenious devices
filled the steam from a thousand pistons

A New Song – The Steam Engine Murder and the Trial of Seven Bells John

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The Trial of Seven Bells John

1. The Prosecutor:

We’ve heard the accusations,
We’ve heard the counter claims
I say you’re guilty sir,
The evidence is plain

The blood upon your clothing,
The powder in your hair,
The looking glass smashed to shards,
And no-one else was there,

Tell the truth,
Say it plain,
There’s not a jury in the land would clear your name

We’ve heard the accusations,
We’ve heard the counter claims
No matter what you say, your guilt is plain

2. Seven Bells defends himself:

Your honour what you’ve heard here
It makes a saucy tale
The truth is I’m not a saint
My good intentions fail,

On the night in question,
I was on the train it’s true,
But not in the ladies cabin,
Past the hour of two,

Don’t believe the things they say
Don’t believe the deeds attached to my good name

You’re honour what you’ve heard here
A travesty, a joke
I’m honest as a summer day is long.
I’m honest as a summer day is long.

3. The Newspapers

Come read the latest news of the villain Seven Bells,
Murder on the locomotive, a journey straight through hell,
Three shots fired and one shot struck, pistol to the head,
The only alibi that could get him off free from a witness who has fled

A criminal who claims that he has changed the way he lives,
Previous convictions of the kind you don’t forgive
Says he met the lady for an honest tete tete
Left her in her rooms before the hideous event.

Come read the latest tale of a twisted murderer
Innocent girl shot to death just because she turned him down
Pay no mind to his stories or his wicked lies,
The only path to justice is to see that the villain Seven Bells Dies

4. Seven Bells Contemplates his Fate (Instrumental)

5. Summing up

You’ve the sordid details,
You’ve heard the saga through,
The evidence presented
The verdict’s up to you

A woman left for dead
on crowded midnight train
the killer fled into the night
But we all know who’s to blame

So say it right and say it true,
Guilty is the verdict you must choose

We’ve heard the accusations,
We’ve heard the counter claims
Now Seven Bells has got a price to pay.
Seven bells has got a price to pay.

Why Pay What You Want?

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I’ve just made a few changes to my bandcamp.com site.

As well as adding some new quotes from some of the lovely people who’ve reviewed the album, I’ve changed the payment scheme from ‘free’ to ‘pay what you want’.

What does this mean? It means anyone who wants to download my music can choose to pay what they can afford/ judge it to be worth. I’ve left the free option, as I want people to hear the music and to have a copy on their mp3 player of choice, but I’ve also given the option of paying actual real money for people who want to do that.

Why?

I love composing and recording music, and would like to be able to do so full time in a few years time. My bills aren’t going to vanish though, so this is the first step in working towards supporting myself through my art.

Several other artists I admire already do this. There’s the famous Radiohead example, but as well as that Matt Stevens and Steve Lawson also offer their music in the same manner. Amanda Palmer does this too, though I’d be hard pressed to say I admire her.

So it seemed the way to go – we shall see if it works out.

In the meantime, here’s my current favourite song of Spinning the Compass, Lines overheard at a Séance:

<a href="http://tomslatter.bandcamp.com/track/lines-overheard-at-a-s-ance">Lines Overheard At A Séance by Tom Slatter</a>

It Ain’t Steampunk If There Ain’t No Goggles

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The rather talented older Slatter brother who can be found at www.thedarkpower.com has been making some steampunky goggles.

I’m making some steampunk goggles for my brother. This was kind of going to be a secret but the desire to tell people was getting too strong and he emailed me earlier and suggested doing a steampunk music video for one of his songs, so it seemed like a good opportunity to mention it to him.

They’re made of various bits of junk: the main body is a set of plastic welding goggles covered in leather effect material from a table mat that I got from a pound shop. The main eye extension thing is one half of an old set of binoculars that I got off ebay and there’s half a pair of old glasses attached to a medical probe on the other eye…


Read more by clicking here!

How I wrote ‘Lines Overheard at a Séance’

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    Lines Overheard at a Séance began life as an improvisation for last year’s 50/90 songwriting challenge. I turned on the keyboard, sat down and began to play. The only decision I made beforehand was that I was going to start on a slightly unusual chord: D/C#

    Before long I had the rising bassline and out of kilter chords. The lyrics came to me at the same time, exactly as you hear them on the recording – in fact I’ve only ever played and sung this song once: everything you hear from vocals to piano to bass is all one take and semi-improvised.

    Lyrically its what the title suggests – I’m not too sure any more explanation is needed.

    Here’s the original demo:

    Lines Overheard (Demo)

    There’s a red red room that I can remember
    With a clawing branch right outside the window
    And I’m not breaking down

    On a cold cold night I saw something evil
    Turned the red red walls a deep shade of grey
    And I’m not breaking down

    Won’t you tell me where the last one is?
    There are ghosts in my dreams,
    But I can’t hear them