The imagery my mind creates when I work on a song becomes embedded in verse and chorus. When I think of the song,
I can see it. When I think of "Bedouin", I see naked tree lines, burning fields. Fake Miami's remix took those
original images to a rare and surreal landscape.
If you haven't heard the track yet, the video is below.
If you've followed my music over the past decade, you'll know the name John Burke. We met in 2014 when he engineered a drum session
for 'Roger White', and he went on to mix my last two albums, 'Where I Sleep at Your Door' and 'Sunshine Remorse'. Beyond that, John
produces his own material under the moniker 'Fake Miami', often in collaboration with other artists.
While recording 'Bedouin' last year, the idea of a remix began to take shape. The song felt like a natural candidate — its wavelike motion, the repetition of phrases, the way the verse bleeds into the chorus — and I asked John if he'd be interested.
What he's done with the track is less a remix than a full reconstruction — pulling it apart and putting it back together. My breath and sibilance are cut up and scattered throughout. Guitar plucks and runs that once belonged to the chorus are woven into a lattice that gives the song an entirely new sense of urgency. If my version is waiting for darkness to descend, in John's you're already running from it.
While recording 'Bedouin' last year, the idea of a remix began to take shape. The song felt like a natural candidate — its wavelike motion, the repetition of phrases, the way the verse bleeds into the chorus — and I asked John if he'd be interested.
What he's done with the track is less a remix than a full reconstruction — pulling it apart and putting it back together. My breath and sibilance are cut up and scattered throughout. Guitar plucks and runs that once belonged to the chorus are woven into a lattice that gives the song an entirely new sense of urgency. If my version is waiting for darkness to descend, in John's you're already running from it.
Take a listen to "Bedouin (Fake Miami Remix)"" on Bandcamp — and while you're there, explore the rest of John's work too.
I rarely start an album with a theme. Even on my previous album 'Roger White', where the concept was pretty central, I wasn't sure what I was going to find until I started writing through it.
The first song I wrote for The Altered Records was 'Bedouin' — about misinformation, fear, and false narrative. As other songs developed, I found myself less interested in misinformation imposed from outside, and more in the private version of it — the stories people construct around grief, loneliness, lost time, and the fear of being forgotten. A father imagining a place beyond this life where he can still meet his children. Someone tending an imagined memory of a loved one because the real one is too hard to hold. The performance of a life on social media, and the person on the outside looking in, feeling the loss of it.
All of the songs live in that space — between the story someone needs and the truth it quietly revises. The altered records we leave behind, and the ones left behind for us.
Drums by Vince Power, recorded at Clay Castle Studios by John Burke. Strings arranged and recorded by Michael Chang.
The first song I wrote for The Altered Records was 'Bedouin' — about misinformation, fear, and false narrative. As other songs developed, I found myself less interested in misinformation imposed from outside, and more in the private version of it — the stories people construct around grief, loneliness, lost time, and the fear of being forgotten. A father imagining a place beyond this life where he can still meet his children. Someone tending an imagined memory of a loved one because the real one is too hard to hold. The performance of a life on social media, and the person on the outside looking in, feeling the loss of it.
All of the songs live in that space — between the story someone needs and the truth it quietly revises. The altered records we leave behind, and the ones left behind for us.
Drums by Vince Power, recorded at Clay Castle Studios by John Burke. Strings arranged and recorded by Michael Chang.
This song started with a dream—a coming together. When all was said and done, it felt inevitable that it should end with a falling apart.
I initially set out with something more ambitious in scope, but ended up with something much more pared down. Best listened to through headphones in a dark aquarium.
Beautiful string arrangement by Michael Chang again on this one. Stick it out to the 3 minute mark or you might miss it.
Anesthetized
In some familiar womb
I ventured forth
Into that crowded room
Room to room
Womb to womb
I saw the shadow of myself
Standing next to you
From darkened staircase
To where the light let in
To a hall full of banjos
Dressed in exotic skins
The startled starling
In the bleeding tree
Through the scalene window
In this fever dream.
We wake to fall,
Exploding glass,
We bend our limbs to stars above
In ashen seas,
The coelacanth
Will tunnel through our sunken schemes
Going down, going down.
In some familiar womb
I ventured forth
Into that crowded room
Room to room
Womb to womb
I saw the shadow of myself
Standing next to you
From darkened staircase
To where the light let in
To a hall full of banjos
Dressed in exotic skins
The startled starling
In the bleeding tree
Through the scalene window
In this fever dream.
We wake to fall,
Exploding glass,
We bend our limbs to stars above
In ashen seas,
The coelacanth
Will tunnel through our sunken schemes
Going down, going down.
If all your zen ideals tend to get muddled in a wash of cynicism and doubt, this one might speak to you 🙂
Here's a video from my recent track, Spoken, Not Meant filmed on a cold winter evening in Bandon, West Cork.
I wrote the bones of this song about 5 years ago and abandoned it. I came back to it last year, and wasn't quite sure why I almost let it slip away as some songs do. It features the excellent drumming of Vince Power and string playing of Michael Chang.
More on the way soon!