Brother

(The other one)

It all begins with the sibling. 

Not the real one. 

The other one. 

This is the story of a song. 

I realised quite late into the making of this album that I had yet to write and feature a straightforward punk rock song. For the first full project that I’m putting into the world, the first portfolio of myself, my art and my music, leaving out this integral facet of my personal and musical identity didn’t feel like the right thing to do. So, I opened Logic, wrote some drums, wrote some guitar, and soon the skeleton and the muscle of this song began to form.

This wasn’t the kind of song that I sat down to write lyrics for, though that’s not something I often do, really. More often than not, lyrics find their way out of my fingers late at night, when the writhing of some phantom feeling begs to be put out of its misery and I put pen to paper (or, sadly more realistically, thumb to screen).

Around the time that I was putting this song together in September of last year, I was going through a regression of sorts, as you’ve probably read in one of my earliest letters here. It has been one of the most difficult periods so far for me, feeling retrojected, not only from Uni to Home, but from feeling stable, held-together and confident to feeling almost none of those things at all. The riotous, desperate energy of this little scream of a song matched the tempestuous state my head and body were in. The internal war between body and mind is ongoing, as I believe it has been almost my entire conscious life, in different ways, in different degrees of violence. 

There’s a song I wrote and partially recorded called ‘Alone Time’ in my month at Uni. I left it half formed and abandoned, probably for the greater good. As with most songs left in this state, I often return to them, for there are a few sounds or ideas that end up working better in other songs. I’ve since lifted a few things from the song, not wanting to completely leave it for dead, or, in other words, the ever-growing folder of unfinished projects on my laptop. One of those things was the first verse;

I’ve got whispers of blue flame,

Dormant earthquakes,

Forming always in my chest

I won’t be the sacrifice for my mind,

Instead I hold the knife,

Poised in down my gaze 

It’s a blessing and a curse,

To be within this maze

… and the first half of the second verse:

I go over and over 

Day into night,

Keeping up this incessant fight,

Just to feel alright and I think I forget 

Who’s sailing where and why 

Early images of sacrifice, of the power structure within that dynamic: the ability to be both knife-bearer and Lamb. You cannot, you should not, succumb to the knife of your thoughts, because you have thoughts, they do not have you. There are, in fact, blessings to be received in this state of inner turmoil, but they are often retrospectively found, after the thunder of the curse has passed. 

The second half of the second verse and the rest of the song was written after I lifted the lyrics from Alone Time, to fill in the gaps. 

Who’s this boy with the pretty blue eyes?

One way glasses,

Barefoot dances,

I throw myself upon the earth

To ground myself on something that isn’t my body!

Where have I fallen? 

What was that pain? 

Vital check, I can still breathe

Rock my mind into harmony 

Pray it won’t keep harming me. 

How close am I to the rubicon?

How sturdy is this roof I’m standing on? 

Hand inside my hand, all mine 

Backing into the pulse until I’m fine

Again

Oh, take me out

Else I’ll stay in forever

Love me or kill me 

Kiss me goodnight

Hold my middle 

Centre my sleeping vertigo 

He’s gone but ever so near 

Oh, lay with me beneath the water of the sun 

It’s quiet here 

Love can live here 

Stay here with me now 

Stay here with me now 

Stay here. With me. Now. 

‘Rock my mind into harmony’ being both a genre nod and a physical comfort. It is important to hold and to be with yourself throughout the storm and the still. I won’t prac crit the lines too much. That’s your job!

 

Being largely absent from the lyrics themselves, the concept of Brother came from this idea that there is this perpetually inaccessible other version of yourself that you want to be, especially in torrid times. They are stable, sexy, still, joyful and free – completely. They are everything you want to be. You are attached to this person beyond the mirror, by a ribbon – an umbilical cord between each navel. It’s a tumultuous relationship. You’re separate, but interconnected. Thus came the flesh of the song. 

I always like to start with something loud. I want to get your attention. My approach on the production with this one was to try and keep it relatively as simple as possible; just a few layers of drums, a few amps and pedals, and one vocal track (yes, one take, more or less: I wanted it all to be as real and spontaneous as possible). I was so in love with the violent sound of the guitars on Mitski’s ‘My Body’s Made of Little Crushed Stars’, so I recorded my plain old acoustic guitars and added a load of crush and distortion to warp their sound into this abrasive, rhythmic and metallic sound. 

Mixing is always a nightmare. It’s a love-hate relationship, sometimes I feel like it’s a skill I’m always fighting, never improving, but with this one it was moderately straight forward. A welcome change. 

This idea of duality and wanting to attain the seemingly unattainable felt like the perfect introduction to this album. I love the outfit I wore for the single cover art. You’ll have seen plenty other images from this shoot by now, but again, I wanted it to be in keeping with the sibling concept, so, as always in my imagery/photoshoots, I’m in a dress, trying to mix up the masculine and the feminine, toiling with both sides of myself, forever, for everyone else to see. 

I’m so excited for you to hear and see it all. 

I’ve spent three years working on this album. 

After so much grief and death, 

It is time for birth. 

The line between each is so fragile.

The desperation and the divine. 

The magic. 

Here it comes