When you see a spider in your house, what do you do? Glass and paper method? Shout for the nearest available non-bug-phobic inhabitant? Or, do you admit to a well placed slipper? A good nine times out of ten, I’ll call for the man of the house (very anti-feminist of me, I know) to discard the arachnid through a window or door.
However, I have to admit I’ve gone to war with one or two. Most recently a monster of an eight-legged beast who was too bloody big for the glass method, had evaded the vacuum, and even the dog took a look at it – wearing its Dr Marten boots – and thought better of it.
It’s a crisis of conscience we’ve all found ourselves in at one time or another, and one that inspired Staffordshire Moorlands based Morning’s Thief’s latest single, Bug Song.
The artist is known for writing songs based ostensibly around things such as town planners, the castration of domestic animals, wedding rituals, the golden age of railway, neighbourhood watch schemes, and in their latest release – the seemingly accidental murder of a helpless insect by way of vacuum cleaner.
George, the big-haired singer-songwriter behind the alias, explained: “In marrying these themes with sometimes bittersweet, often menacing, always off-kilter songwriting they have tried to give voice to the disquiet which slowly gnaws at the collective unconscious.
“Based on a true story, Bug Song was recorded mostly in the dead of night over the course of roughly four years, and probes at the gaps in a flawed conscience – building from frail lament to a rapturous conclusion.”
After releasing a modest archive of solo songs over the past couple of years, this is their first featuring a full band arrangement, still mostly played and produced as a solo effort with help from Michael Walsh (Owte, Average Joe) behind the drum kit.
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Mastered by Sam Bloor at Lower Lane Studios, the sombre arrangement showcases soft vocals and impressive vibrato with sliding notes and a melancholic melody. There’s something incredibly mindful and present about George’s music, which details moments that others would allow to pass them by and be forgotten about in seconds. It’s a real skill to be able to evoke that still small voice of moral sense and translate that into a combination of beats and notes that stretch the four minute mark.
But looking at the bigger picture, that Incy Wincy may well just be a metaphor for our own existence, in that, sometimes we find ourselves in events and situations that are entirely out of our control. Sometimes the plans we have for ourselves don’t turn out as we’d hoped, our legs unable to ‘outrun the life you want to have’ as something bigger than us has other things in mind. I often like to believe in the expression that ‘everything happens for a reason’, and that’s what Bug Song represents for me.
While it may not be the track you find yourself mouthing the lyrics to while you wash the dishes or draw the bath, the melody you may well hum. It’s certainly got a very beautiful quality about it that feels quite grounding, and one you might do well to just sit, for five minutes, close your eyes and soak up.
You can listen to Bug Song on Spotify here.
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