coming soon
from london
on bubble records
THE MELODIA
STORY
by Sara
Grey
One day (quite
possibly a Blue Monday), Sara was sitting in a small mauve
bedroom not-thinking-about-work and doing not-much, but the
little she was doing involved playing the guitar, and all of a
sudden she i
nvented the world's most geeeeeeeeenius
chord progression. Such was the geeeeeeeeenius of the chord
progression that she wished not to sully it with her own woeful
attempts at writing lyrics.
So she saith unto Alasdair, "will you verily write some
lyrics?"
A request to which he, being a nice and also a prolific sort of
lyricist, agreed, adding furthermore that he had had a song come
into his head, as songs do from time to time for such is their
manner, on the way to the Notting Hill carnival. And it was Sort
Of New Order-ish. With synthesisers. Yeaaaaah.
"We shall put out an EP!" they declared.
And so it came to pass one Thursday afternoon that Sara and
Alasdair were drinking vino de verano and attempting to empty
their heads of electronic haze and turn it into something useful
and productive with the help of guitars, pens and paper. Sara was
monopolising the lovely Epiphone Casino and relegating Alasdair
to the
acoustic-which-has-strings-like-a-mile-away-from-the-frets. For
Alasdair was and is a bloody genius at playing the guitar, and
furthermore, he could sing in tune.
"What shall we call ourselves?" said Sara to Alasdair.
"Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... Portcullis." said Alasdair to
Sara.
A purely temporary title.
Not counting the fact that they were momentarily distracted
attempting to amuse themselves by taking the neck off a Strat (a
much maligned pasttime), songs flowed from their combined
geeeeeeeeeniusness as mellifluously as the vodka which they were
trying to finish off. The EP became an album. And there would be
singles. Sara and Alasdair looked upon what they had created, and
they saw that it was damn cool, and would be even damn cooler
with the addition of synthy keyboards. For Sara was and is verily
the best synthy keyboardist ever to walk the streets of W5. And
so she listened intently to Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and the
Stranglers, and the great and venerable New Order, and thought
"Yes. There shall be synths." And she pondered some
more and brought out a motley selection of bits of brass and
assembled them in the desired configuration, and added "And
a saxophone!"
"There shall be synths! And a saxophone!" declared Sara
and Alasdair with squeaks of delight. "We shall bring synths
to the masses!"
And then there was a guy on a flaming pie saying "And ye
shalt be called Melodia... with a Z!"
Which was a damn sight better than Portcullis.
THE MELODIA
SOUND
by Alasdair
Tudhope
What can you say to
those who forget all their yesterdays?
'Move on'? / 'Advance'? Or advise to simply cry? Tears might
cleanse, but that all depends on the silent shimmer of whatever
oceans they form I suppose.
There's that. And then there's the mindless oblivion to be found
in quasi-joyful cacophony. A spirit of music that can be traced
back through the ages / that found lighting loudening it by the
mid 50s / and BEING it some 20-30 years later. To today... where
we are in an age of a technological oblivion. Of course such
oblivion is generally quite mindful, quite requiring of expertise
in operation... yet those who can transform these things to lose
the mind may surely gain the soul.
And with gaining (or regaining?) the soul, one has no need to
remember yesterdays.
No, no.
THEN advance... into electronic haze.
© 2004 Melodia