"raw mesh" - daniel prendiville
Let Daniel tell us about his album for 2008, RAW MESH...
"The last two albums I'd done (TREE RING CIRCUS and HAND ACTOR PART) had very much been planned as complete pop albums. And while they were both very challenging and enjoyable to do, I got the sense that I was missing out on something - the freedom to create tracks that were fun to do, but that probably wouldn't make much sense within the context of a pop album per se.
"I'd been toying with using the phrase 'raw mesh' as an album title for some time. My justification for using that title was that 'raw mesh' sounds like an Anglicisation of the Gaelic term 'ráiméis', which means nonsense. I felt that if I used a word meaning 'nonsense' as an album title, then that would give me the freedom and ability to produce an album that was rather nonsensical, and that could include tracks that would be more experimental than a lot of the pieces I'd released in recent years.
"Having set up the context for the album, I did my usual trick of compiling a list of potential song titles which would indicate the mood of the tracks and the album as a whole. Some of the titles had been rattling around in my empty noggin for a number of years (e.g. Ball Control..., Burst Me Stitches, Shoelace Factory) while other titles came to me as part of the production process.
"Once the titles were pretty much in place, I set to work composing songs or pieces of music that would tie in with those titles. 22 months later, RAW MESH was finished and ready to show to the world."
So tell us about some of the tracks, then...
"'FLY IN ME CHABLIS' is a nice slab of middle-class, middle-aged angst and was almost perfectly timed to coincide with the global banking crisis and all the collateral damage arising therefrom.
"'CUBIST MISSILE CRISIS' was a song title that I'd had for years and I had no idea what to do with it. One inspired evening, I was messing about with my acoustic bass guitar and come up with the bass line which anchors the song. The lyrics are nonsensical and are unlikely to win me an Ivor Novello, but hey, a guy can have a bit of fun now and then, can't he?
"'THE SURVIVALISTS' GUIDE TO HARDWOOD FLOORING' is an odd combination of acoustic instruments, tabla loops and hand tools, all chucked into a dub mixer. The tune evokes an image of a bunch of survivalists sitting around a forest campfire playing music while their colleagues build a log cabin - a fortress against the New World Order, perhaps...
"'RUBBISH BECOMES GOSPEL' was inspired by a track ("Impulse") from my album TREE RING CIRCUS. It was originally called 'The Last Temptation Of Chris', but then Chris Difford brought out an album of the same name, so I reckoned he was more entitled to use the name than I was. The track sounds like the backing track to a song that was never composed, which is not so preposterous an idea when you think about all the albums that are considered soundtracks to films that were never made. What's the difference, really?
"'DEATH TOLL TRAINEE' was inspired by a spam e-mail of the same title that I received a few years ago. The e-mail had a paragraph of random phrases which when edited together had a certain Burroughs-like quality about them. I ran the phrases through a voice synthesiser and set them to an ambient backing track that I'd already composed using software.
And is it hard work doing everything yourself?
"I'm used to it by now. Sometimes I have a very complete idea for a track and other times I'm really just making it up as I go along. It would take a very understanding and patient musician to put up with me during the process of creating an album. I need to be able to work exactly when I want to, and I need to have the freedom to either pursue ideas relentlessly or to abandon them arbitrarily if the mood takes me. All without explanations!
Final comments?
"The funny thing about RAW MESH is that no matter how experimental and nonsensical I tried to make it, I still couldn't resist writing a few pop songs. It's just unavoidable - the urge to create pop music. "
And that's not a bad thing at all, is it friends?
Fly In Me Chablis - Driving Into The City At Dawn - Ball Control Let Me Down - Cloudy Night At The Observatory - Burst Me Stitches - Cubist Missile Crisis - Do Not Go Barefoot Into The Garage - Shoelace Factory - Salt Lick City - The Survivalists' Guide To Hardwood Flooring - Surfaces - How Long Have I Got, Doc? - Rubbish Becomes Gospel - Death Toll Trainee
(c) & (p) 2008 Reincheque Recordings