If Planets (actually finished in 2019) ends with a moment of stillness in ‘Norway’ then Defunct Devices (finished in 2022) begins with probably its most restless song.
A title track. One of only two in my discography of eight albums and seventeen EPs. Like the other occasion when this happened, it was the title of the album before it was a song or song title. I felt the shape of the words emerge. I knew it had to be alliterative and the cadence of the syllables – at one point it would have been called Default Domestic.
A theme emerged for the record, and the theme was ‘Men’. Again I talked about this in this interview. So in the song the defunct devices are the junk we throw away, and they are the men. I’m not sure I actually think men are junk we throw away – but I suppose there’s a part of the old way of being a man which is junk, and which we should be throwing away. I suppose it’s part of the ‘culture war’ at the moment. A lot of men see that the old roles are dying and double down on them instead. Incels. Jordan Peterson. All of that.
I’m not sure this song is about that though. We’ll come back it when we get to another song. I think the devices in this song are fairly content to find a place where they can go rust.
So the restlessness is musical. Jumps somewhere between a bit of sub-Field Music funk, and a vaguely ballady Terror Twilight middle section. This is what happens when my hands write songs rather than my head. I’m still quite enjoying finding this out.
The fuzzy outro happened because I realised I’d made a mostly electric guitar record without really rocking out much. Gratuitous.
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