18 years in and I’m going to have to change that tagline at the top. Outdated Music For Outdated People, it apologises, a phrase heavy in inference and suggestibility; if you’re an old and set in your ways sort who seeks comfort in the familiar, this might just be the place for you. If however, you came here to find the latest in box-fresh new sounds, you might leave disappointed.
Not today though.
In the words of the perennial Billy Sloan, I can exclusively reveal that Fellow Mortals have a debut album on the way…an album that for its originality and uniqueness, sonic qualities and unfurling melodies will quickly become one of your favourites of the year. And Plain Or Pan is the only place on this planet where you can hear it for now.
Fellow whit? Fellow who? Fellow huh?
Hang on, hang on. We’ll come to that in a minute.
Albums, as you well know, come in all varieties. There are those that are rush-released on the back of a surprise hit single, a hastily put-together studio version of the group’s live set then sold as the hot new thing. Yeah, Wet Leg, I’m looking at you (wherever you are these days).
There are those that arrive from nowhere, so fully realised and still perfect all these years down the line. Hello, The Stone Roses. Take a bow, Blue Lines.
There are those that come as complete packages, spinning, like life, with ebbs and flows and ups and downs, each play pulling the mask back and pulling the listener in. That’s you, OK Computer. And you too, Rumours. These are the albums that tend to stick. ‘Classic albums’, to use a well-worn phrase. With real depth and substance (and substance misuse in some cases), they have proper gravitas.
Then there are the albums that hang teasingly in the air, slow-burning beauties waiting to be discovered by generations of switched-on ears long after conception and release. Talk Talk’s The Colour Of Spring would be one of those records. John Grant’s Pale Green Ghosts another. Midlake’s Van Occupanther album… Ultramarine’s Every Man And Woman Is A Star… XTC’s Skylarking… brilliantly cohesive records from start to finish. Organic, proggy, and conceptual in vision and execution, these too are albums with depth, substance and gravitas; modern-day classics to all in the know.
Fellow Mortals take their cue from such records, as well they should. Conceived aeons ago before even lockdown was the year-zero thing by which we mark our lives, and tectonically jigsawed together through transatlantic file sharing, that forthcoming album of theirs, ‘Stella’s Birth-day‘, thrums with electronica, hums with melody and comes, like all the best albums before it, as a complete package (in every sense).
Born in the busy mind of Noonday Underground’s Simon Dine, Stella’s Birth-day takes its inspiration from a series of poems written by Jonathan Swift 300 years ago. The poems map out the relationship between the poet and Stella, his muse many years his junior – a loving relationship certainly, perhaps bordering on clandestine and romantic…or even marriage (it’s a grey area that’s kept Swiftly scholars debating for years). For seven years, from 1719 until her death in 1727, Swift would write Stella a poem and send it to her on her birthday. The album focuses on the final two poems.
Swift would write to Stella of her intellect and astuteness, her qualities as a human being. He confides his innermost thoughts and worries in her. And this he does with a sharp Anglo-Irish wit that’s prevalent, from Behan and Beckett to Wilde and Morrissey, in many corners of Irish-bred literature to this day. As he and Stella age, the tone of Swift’s writing changes. The poet looks back on times gone by, becoming more reflective with each passing stanza, one eye trained on the horizon and looking towards the inevitability of death.
Not your usual sort of source material for an album, then. You don’t need me to tell you that musicians have often drawn on literature for stimulus – there’s Wuthering Heights, for starters. Bowie’s 1984. Venus In Furs. Much of Morrissey, obviously. There’re plenty more when you stop and think about it (even more if you cheat and Google), but what sets Stella’s Birth-day apart is the way in which Swift’s poetry is used.
Focusing on those poems from 1725-1726, Swift’s words are sonically brought to life through the voice of Francis Reader, a long-term collaborator of Dine and most likely known to you as the vocalist in the Trashcan Sinatras. Reader has a terrific voice; part croon, part swoon, and he delivers his lines with total respect to Swift’s words. The poetry is lifted, line by line, stanza by stanza and tailored to form the songs’ verses and choruses. It’s quite the skill to twist and shape someone else’s ancient and studied words into new forms…and Fellow Mortals have done this brilliantly.
The album flows across 14 short ‘n sweet tracks; tracks that flash past in the time it takes you to read the poems, yet tracks that are rich in melody and idea and sheer scope. The voice and the words are centre stage, but all sorts of wizardry is happening in the background. There are nods, perhaps, to the string work on some of Scott Walker’s ’60s material. There are soft shoe waltz-time heartbreakers. There are rippling harps and fairground melodies and never-ending tapestries of rich instrumental backing. There are even electric guitar-furnished pop songs of the sort that would have your average Trashcans fan foaming at the mouth.
Indeed, released today, March 13th, (on what would’ve been Stella’s 344th birthday – how’s that for slick marketing?!), the first teaser for the album, A Better State, features Trashcan guitarist Paul Livingston to great effect. All shimmer ‘n twang, looping piano and synthetic, shuffling backbeat, it’s a very good signifier of what to expect from the album in full. I think you’ll like it.
Fellow Mortals – A Better State
Another single will follow in May, by which time Stella’s Birth-day will be available for pre-order. As befits such a project, initial pressings will see a 10″ record bound by a book of the poetry. This, if you didn’t know, is the version you’ll want.
Arcane and archaic in source, yet modern and now in execution, the album package promises to be a sort of grown-up Disney read-while-you-listen page turner for the more discerning and cultured listener out there – Updated Poetry For Outdated People, even.
Plain Or Pan 