Welcome to HeartSongs, our regularly scheduled (probably) look at songs and the people who write them. We spoke to Tyler from California’s Cloud about their recent single ‘Wildfire’.

"This track is a study of the forces of life. I listen to it now with a interesting sense of irony as the state I live in, California, has been engulfed by some of the largest fires to date. My good friend’s home was burnt down entirely, a chimney remained and the outlines of a bathroom. 

“Every flame wants to be a wildfire,” sums up my views on life as a sheer force of wild intentionality and the consequences that come with these forces “untamed”.  Greed is an easy parallel. I wanted the song to be as chaotic as a flame’s dance and as pulsating as an orgasm which is a big point of focus in the album; looking at this sensation we live with from a distance and with much skepticism, bewilderment, and awe. 

The music video is one that I conceived, produced and directed myself. I used a fairly large pool of actors that I’d worked with on a number of short films. The piece was actually developed with quite a narrative which to me still shines through but I found through the collaboration of a fantastic editor, Carson Lund that the story is best told via fractals.  A story about weariness for “the third home,” meaning the place you consider home that isn’t your house or workplace.  I’ve studied this area in our culture and it fascinates me. 

To me, it seems like a total opportunity of commiseration and community.  But in my hometown and many many other places I’ve traveled in the U.S., I find that our third homes are in danger of being tarnished by ill-intention not too dissimilar to the greed I spoke of earlier.  That’s how this video came to be.”

Wildfire lyrics;

Every flame wants to be a wildfire

Every day needs to lead to something says my mind

Looking back to when it all was better

Hard to see photos of my smiles

I know if I want to live

Something’s got to give

Every night goes on as I’m mindless in it

Every light’s racing towards the ends of everything

Hard to hold photos of the one’s who left us

Every orgasm makes you wonder oh, “is this it?”

This is it

Welcome to HeartSongs, our regularly scheduled (probably) look at songs and the people who write them. We spoke to Rory from Belfast spacerockers Mons Olympus about their new single ‘Android Bop’.

You can hear their stoner groove here

“After we released our debut album Vampyroteuthis, back in May, the band has been on a kind of hiatus, so this one was actually me recording every instrument. During the recording process for the album, we built a booth around my amp, and together with my octave pedal and bass synth pedal got a really crazy, alien sounding guitar sound. I asked for a moment to play around with it, turned on the voice recorder on my phone, and set it down. The basis of this song and the majority of the riffs came from a minute and a half within that recording. Then I just built the rest of the song around that.

Lyrically though, it's just me geeking out over Blade Runner. The lyrics contain loads of blatant references to that universe; ‘replicants’ and everything. The guitar sound we got initially on the bass synth pedal was a really robotic sound and since the riffs all hover around the same note; it's really droney, almost like a binary or something, which is why I thought it suited a robot theme.

I'm a huge Daft Punk fan so I'm always looking for ways to rehash their ‘robot rock’ thang in a new and original way. So when we got the vocoder it was a perfect opportunity to put that stamp on it. Songs For The Deaf-era QOTSA would've made a lasting impression on me in my formative years too, so I'd say I can hear that in there too. Particularly ‘Song For The Dead’. The drum fills and the way that song builds is a master class. I've always wanted to try and reference that in some way.

And, of course, the overriding theme for Mons Olympus is SPACE! So, having recently acquired a Korg Minilogue synth, it added a nice layer of synthy sheen which takes it into intergalactic cyberspace. The vocoder bits were incredibly fun to do. We recorded those the week before Christmas and I started freestyling a verse about shopping for gifts; which may develop into an Xmas number 1 for this year, who knows?

I'd always wanted to use one and luckily a friend from the area had recently purchased a second hand Roland Juno synth with vocoder capabilities that we used on our album, very subtly in the background of one of the songs. It became the main thing in this song and I'm sure it will feature again. It screams cheese, robot, space and alien all at once, and it's so much fun to use. It's tempted me to take up chain smoking so bad that I require a voice box. But I hate the taste of tobacco, so I just can't commit to that.

Also recording the bass was pretty cool. In the verses I used an envelope filter which gives it a sort of underwater feel. I had to play super gently to get that texture and then when I hit it hard on the stabs, it squelches up and gives a crazy sound. I'd recently went to see Thundercat in London too, so it reminded me a tiny bit of his crazy sound.”

LYRICS

Android Bop

Bop Android Bop

Bop Bop Android Bop

Look up and stare to the left

Unmasking the replicant

Relinquishing self control

Android Bop

Android Bop

Android Bop-Bop Bop-Bop

What are you thinking R2? 'Beep-bloop-bleep'

What are your thoughts 3PO? 'This time you have gone too far'

What's on your mind Rachel? 'You think I'm a replicant, don't you?'

Neurotic robotic disguises

Skinjob the layman despises

I know you're just doing your job

The year is 2049