October 11, 2016
Sometimes you're lucky enough to visit a place that leaves a permanent imprint of happiness on your memory. Reyjavik is such a place. The song Midnight in the Afternoon from the Bones EP is my attempt to translate feeling into music and words.
There's not a lot of metaphor in this song, more a retelling of the three days I spent in the city and the feeling I had of wanting to spend it with my wife (lucky herself to be in South America at the time). The same density of clouds in a London sky would have been depressing but from the moment the plane touched down (a rough flight by the way, that stayed with me for a few years...) I was overtaken by a feeling of wonder, not least the infatuation I had with the almost permanent sunlight - I'd always wanted to visit a place where the sun didn't go down - it was amazing in a draining kind of way...
The kick drum that I heard and followed came echoing down the street at around 11pm (in broad daylight!). At the end of that sonic rainbow was a local metal gig, just usual for a Wednesday I suspect, and they let me in 'cause the last band was on stage. It was such a sensory shock walking from full sunlight into pitch blackness and having it soundtracked by an Icelandic growl and downtuned riffs... still I couldn't help but smile... something I do every time I play this song.
Sometimes you're lucky enough to visit a place that leaves a permanent imprint of happiness on your memory. Reyjavik is such a place. The song Midnight in the Afternoon from the Bones EP is my attempt to translate feeling into music and words.
There's not a lot of metaphor in this song, more a retelling of the three days I spent in the city and the feeling I had of wanting to spend it with my wife (lucky herself to be in South America at the time). The same density of clouds in a London sky would have been depressing but from the moment the plane touched down (a rough flight by the way, that stayed with me for a few years...) I was overtaken by a feeling of wonder, not least the infatuation I had with the almost permanent sunlight - I'd always wanted to visit a place where the sun didn't go down - it was amazing in a draining kind of way...
The kick drum that I heard and followed came echoing down the street at around 11pm (in broad daylight!). At the end of that sonic rainbow was a local metal gig, just usual for a Wednesday I suspect, and they let me in 'cause the last band was on stage. It was such a sensory shock walking from full sunlight into pitch blackness and having it soundtracked by an Icelandic growl and downtuned riffs... still I couldn't help but smile... something I do every time I play this song.