Flim Flam EP

I’ve written an EP. It took me some time: I had to develop a lot of new skills and the work was competing for my time with other commissions and with Filthy Lucre. But I’m pleased with what I’ve produced.

To me, this record is about desire at a remove. A hot summer through a haze, a search for flow through mental obstacles, a desire for calm and clarity against a more proximate desire for stimulation and novelty. The idea of second-order desire, its associated emotional states and its conflicts, has been at the centre of my thoughts for some time.
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To me, this interest has produced a sound that is both somehow flat, slightly distant, and yet filled with energy and motion. In a previous post I likened this to rain on a hot day or fog in a rich landscape. Jesse gave me a further analogy with the Laban Effort Actions: it is indirect, sustained, and bound, and can be either light or heavy. (Laban categorises these actions as Flick, when light, and Wring, when heavy.)

A pair of couplets from Fiona Apple’s Valentine perhaps best summarise this still-life remove from intense emotion:
“I'm amorous but out of reach
A still life drawing of a peach​

I'm a tulip in a cup
I stand no chance of growing up.”

I’m not going to be pushing this very hard for now. I’m going to focus on the live set and finding places to perform. If that’s something you can help with, do let me know.