The Turville Collection
Really enjoyed this session – well done for achieving such a huge output in such limited time. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly you produce a ‘complete’ song. I often find that after an initial spurt of enthusiasm that gets me through one verse and a chorus I’m then beginning to run dry, but you’ve got some really great and well-developed lyrics, many of which are loaded with genuine emotion. Some thoughts about specific tracks below:
Cheap Holidays – great start to the session - loved the way the vocal comes in spoken then segues into a melody.
It’s Breaking Down – another great lyric, e.g. rhyming ’serious’ with ‘clear to us’. Liked the reference to The Landscape Below, my pastoral song from last session, except that yours has a malevolent twist – a minefield!
Photograph – another great song. Liked the way about 1 minute there was a slightly unusual chord sequence – reminded me somehow of Nirvana, in their more acoustic moments.
A Place to Be Right – one of my favourites lyrically, especially the refrain ‘feelings come from higher places’ – and then that final line ‘Don’t tell lies and watch their faces’.
Time to Join the Party – quite upbeat and optimistic - even when it has evolved into ‘time to leave the party’ there remains a feeling of contentment rather than sadness. Nice one.
The One Who Curries Favour – every time I play this I’m expecting to hear Debbie Harry come in after a few bars! But it soon goes off in a different direction – and it’s a great lyric that feels to me quite pro-active about making the best of things - “now’s the time to line your pockets while the tide is out”.
Shadows Made By Dreams – nice chorus.
Living In a Game – like the way the melody jumps in and out of the higher octave – well sung too. And those chords descending in semitones are very effective (“Compliments are fine, They happen all the time, But you must not cross the line, they say”)
The Fear Inside – has a very dark feel. Like the re-appearance of the motif of obstacles being in your way, which you used in ‘Time Is An Enemy’ in our joint session last August.
No Limits – disappointed at first to find it wasn’t an acoustic rendering of the dancefloor smash from 2 Unlimited, but it turned out to be much better!
Formative Moments – another of my favourites. Love the chorus “I’m looking for the pure untainted me”.
Part of This Faction – this would be well worth working up with some heavy guitar and drums.
Something in the Atmosphere – like the way this gently slows down at the end to round off the session.
Great stuff. I would be hard pushed to choose just 3 to listen again to, but the contenders would probably be Cheap holidays in other people’s misery, A Place to be Right, Time to join the party, The one who curries favour, Living in a Game and Formative Moments.
Brother Buffalo
December 7th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I just wanted to second da Buffalo - this was a great session. Highlights:
Cheap Holidays… - perhaps the weirdest Pistols cover of all time. Liked it.
Breaking Down - reminded me of the basic hard-rock approach of John Cale for some reason
Through Fading Eyes - I liked the chord changes here - quite unusual
A Place To Be Right - this was one of my favourites. I like the way it is just on one chord in the verse and then changes.
The One Who Curries Favour - this is just brilliant. The lyric is superbly sardonic, and the music is like one of the great late 70s new wave bands - Buzzcocks et al.
This Could Be Hell - really liked this one too. Music is quite upbeat but the lyric extremely sinister - an interesting juxtaposition.
Living In A Game - as BB said, unusual octave jumps in the vocal melody line - very effective.
I See It All - Interesting surveillance/higher power theme coming out of a lot of these lyrics. Another good tune.
No Limits - quite slippery rhythmically here, reminded me a lot of the solo LPs by Syd Barrett. Which is a very good place to be indeed (Syd wasn’t in a good place, but his music was).
Formative moments - I always like to see 3:33. Nice slower tempo. This was a really good one. Very good lyrics (in fact the session overall had amazing lyrics - it would be high quality for a fully worked-up release, let alone ICS).
Sideways - great movie. Chord sequence reminded me of fairly early Cure - say 1980 or so. Extra beat in verse for 9/4 time signature was extremely innovative. This would be very interesting fully arranged. One of my favourites.
Part of this Faction - title sounds like Gang of Four or something - great basic rock’n'roll feel. Good end bit “roundandroundandroundandround…”
Something in the Atmosphere - nice round off, good muted guitar work.
Very good session indeed. My pick of the crop would be Breaking Down, , The One Who Curries Favour, No Limits, Sideways, but there were several others up there as well.
Best
BT