Spurge the Sun (‘best of’ 1999–2004)
Phantasmagoria MELINDA 806
Released: September 2004
Tracklisting: Intimate—Cherished • Anubis (new recording) • Helllfire (remix) • Lucullus • Intimate—Cadence • Germane two (edited) • Dead bird • Peterson’s seat (new recording) • Virgin in the green (new recording) • Love’s promise • Hello from the children of planet earth (remix) • Quantum fluctuations (remix) • Ship money (new recording) • The law (new recording) • Crimson clover
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This album came out on the German label Phantasmagoria in 2004.
This album is available via my mailorder [ADD LINK], or for digital download via iTunes. It’s nearly sold out, and I doubt I’ll ever re-release it in solid form…
Here’s what I wrote about it back then:
I did consider calling this album ‘Is that it?—surely not’ as ‘best of’ albums tend to make me think of artists who have run out of new material or ideas. Or are dead. I feel like I’m just getting into my stride, and am much more able to express what I want how I want to—in a more relaxed and natural way. As a consequence I approached choosing, remixing and re-recording this retrospective album cautiously. I wasn’t sure how the early tracks would sit with the new ones, and was also unsure how they would sound to me after years away from them. I started with my first real release Intimate and Obstinate. I’d been making (and releasing) music before this point, but never in the same way. I&O was my first album where I just wrote what wanted to come out. I’m a practical person, and had always had in mind writing something that I thought a record company would like and want to release—and therefore be able to make a living (ha ha ha, young and naive!) and continue doing what I do. I even considered giving up music at this point in my life as I was getting nowhere (slowly) with it. Although very sceptical, I let a friend do the i-ching for me. It basically told me to ‘stop whining, forget what you think other people might want to hear, and go away and just get good at what you do’ which I have tried to do ever since. So I wrote I&O, a nice clean blank page to fill. I’ve included four tracks from the album, as they were on the original redroom (my label and studio) release.
Next I pilfered from my Hellfires album. What that album lacks in production values it sure makes up for in guts and spirit! The second of the two tracks, ‘Hellfire’, is a remix that I did at the time (2000) and you can hear the rough and ready nature of the recording. That’s part of its charm. Re-recording the other track, ‘Anubis’, gave me a chance to add some ‘hifi’, but it was hard to capture the freshness and energy of the original. Strange how this works sometimes. I have always adopted the view that I should record ‘warts and all’, and accept that down the line I would write better songs, perform them better and have better equipment to produce them with, with more techniques and experience to hand. So I accept that what I do is a ‘snapshot in time’ of where I am at that point. It’s a strange feeling to come back to tracks when you have changed as a person and as an artist since last hearing them. And it’s nice to know, as with Hellfires, that you captured something in time that can’t be caught again… in the same way at least.
The two tracks from Our Solitary Confinement are the first Sieben tracks on this album. Sieben is the moniker I go under for my song-based material. (I release my instrumental music under my own name). ‘Dead bird’ is an original track from the album; it seemed to be most people’s favourite from that album. ‘Peterson’s seat’ is a completely new recording. I rewrote the song so that it could be played as a loop—the Sieben live shows are performed solo, with just violin, voice and loop pedal. I layer up the song part by part, and I like this to be able to be heard in the recordings—even to the point of keeping the click of foot on pedal at the loop points. At concerts people can see this layering happening in front of them, so I like to emphasise this in the recordings. And doing the live-looping has really changed the way that I write songs, and helps hold the energy and freshness of the music. It’s really fun to play the last section of ‘Peterson’s seat’ live, when I flip the loop into reverse and play free over the top. Hopefully the exhilaration I feel playing this cuts through onto the recording.
Next up is Sex and Wildflowers, my latest album at the time of writing this. It’s my baby; I’m really proud of this one. Everything seemed to pull together nicely with this release; using the loops, the themes, and the style of the music. As with ‘Our Solitary Confinement’ the songs were accompanied by pictures from photographer Kristine Haffgaard, some of which are included in the artwork to this album. I used these, and growing and tending the wildflowers in my garden, as great inspiration and visual stimuli when working on the songs. ‘Love’s promise’ is an original mix from ‘Sex and Wildflowers’; my favourite track from the album. ‘Virgin in the green’ is a new recording. This one seems to be most people’s favourite from this album. I kept it simple here, more or less recording the song as I play it live in concert.
The two tracks from Voyager are remixes, taking parts and melodies from different passages on the original album and weaving them into something new. I wrote the ‘Voyager’ album over the space of four years, doing little passages of music occasionally—in between writing material for Sieben, playing live and doing session and production work with other bands and artists. It was quite strange to actually finish the album as I had been nibbling away at it for years. It follows the flight path of the Voyager space probe, out past Jupiter to the outermost reaches of the heliopause. Some of the sounds and songs that Voyager itself transmits were included. I spent quite a bit of time in Sheffield public library looking at the large picture plates of Voyager images, which are truly stunning. And a hell of a long time programming those electronic quarter tones in ‘Quantum fluctuations’, carefully weaving them in with the monkey noises!
Two tracks that I wrote for my HaWthorn project with Tony Wakeford are next. I recorded them again for this album, shortly after finishing The Murky Brine. The dark sea is the main theme here, although I think ‘Ship money’ is actually quite jolly… for me. And it’s really satisfying to play the plucky violin loop that starts it off. ‘The law’ follows the plight of those setting off for a New World; staid ideas, and the power of the ocean.
Finally, ‘Crimson clover’ is a new track, written for this album, and as a sister track to the wildflower songs. Apologies to those of you for whom English is not your first language—I made up and compacted lots of words for these wildflower songs, and turned English common wildflower names into verbs and adjectives. But I hope that the music and the feelings that the words evoke help transmit the emotions and thoughts that I am trying to express. And I hope you like this album, and the trawl through the archives of my warped mind. This album could also have been titled ‘Plenty More to Come Yet’—because there is!
Reviews
“Violin: for rock music is still a strangely alien instrument. Not only since Nigel Kennedy and Apocalyptica, but even as Jimmy Page stroked his electric guitar with the violin bow and John Cale drew from his violin sounds strange, the fantastic possibilities of stringed instruments became known to rock fans. Matt Howden, a violinist with Sol Invictus and the Raindogs, has published several completely undervalued solo albums, from which, ‘Spurge the Sun’ offers us a splendid choice. While instrumental pieces appeared under his name, he also released Sieben, song-oriented albums, where he also sings. Both are of great atmospheric density and shaped musical genius. Dark, lonely and exhilarating music with a somewhat more exotic-looking touch. I can think of nothing absolutely comparable to this – and this is a piece of rock music in today's time, perhaps the highest praise of all.”
Lars Fischer, review on Amazon
