The Night Moving Company

Original artwork by Jean Walter

My latest album "The Night Moving Company" is an example of my fascination with the need to escape.

In Japan there are companies who offer "Night Moving Services".  These companies help people to disappear, abandoning their lives, jobs, homes and families.
There are many reasons why someone might choose to disappear and the whole idea intrigues me.

Thinking about whys and hows, there are many wildly varied answers to consider about people escaping or leaving their lives behind;  kidnapping, alien abduction, problems with the law, monies being owed... Some of these answers could be considered outlandish.  Some are more serious and real.  One such reason could be an abusive partner or family member.

Most people probably don't know this about me, but, I lived through an abusive relationship.  It lasted more than 5 years.

It was mostly psychological and emotional abuse, but sometimes things would turn physical.
I am not a violent person.  I hate violence.

My upbringing was fantastic.  My parents are both amazing people who gave me the best childhood.

So, to find myself living with an abusive partner was a bizarre, disturbing and shocking experience, the long-term effects of which I am still living with some 25 years on.

There's a lot of accounts about what it all means to live through such traumatic experiences so I don't feel the need to recount my particular story, but recently I have come to realise that, still living with the consequences of that time have shaped, not only my personality and my personal life, but it also seems to be the fodder with which I find inspiration in my music and career.

The first single from the album is "World Looks Sideways", featuring the wonderful lyrics and vocals of UK singer Stevie Toddler.

Original animated works adapted with kind permission from Karlijn Scholten.

Writing about the inspiration for my music is not something I've done before, so it has been enlightening for me to realise that my work seems to be born from the life changing trauma that I lived through.

 

It was life changing in literally every way - notably, it was when I first picked up a guitar and learned to play and write songs.

 

I am intrigued by the mysteries of the human condition; our individual experiences, our own personal perceptions towards ourselves, to each other and to the events & experiences that we all have.

 

My music is mostly instrumental (with some rare exceptions which I have collected together on the E.P. Animus/Anima which you can hear here), so without the benefit of expression through words I have to find other ways to get my musical message across.

 

 

On "The Night Moving Company", the main theme throughout being "escape", I have included subtle hints at various reasons and ways to disappear; 

 

There are the sounds of boats creaking, conjuring images of ghost ships adrift... (Parrhesia) 
 

There are interpretations of aliens and spacecraft, making me think of abductions or a disappearance that wasn't planned... (Vril) 

 

There's the a suggestion of aircraft taking off (or landing), making one feel the beginning of a long journey...  (Hypersanity)

 

There is a sudden broken ending, unexpected and awkward... (Pokkuri Death Syndrome)

Original artwork by Jean Walter

I also put a lot of value in the ambiguity of the titles I choose;

The Rashomon Effect for example, illustrates the fact that an event can have contradictory interpretations giving differing perspectives.

Loss Of Simultaneity is explained by The Andromeda Paradox, (the idea complimenting The Rashomon Effect.)  I am very motivated by the concept of differing perceptions.  (Right and wrong can be quite changeable depending.).

Hypersanity: Hypersane people are calm, contained and constructive.  RD Laing presented madness as a voyage of discovery that could open out onto a free state of higher consciousness, or hypersanity. But if there is such a thing as hypersanity, then mere sanity is not all it's cracked up to be, a state of dormancy and dullness with less vital potential even than madness.

Pokkuri Death Syndrome (PDS) refers to an unexplained type of Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) with unknown cause.

Parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth.  This is particularly fitting, not only to this post, but also to the ideas on The Night Moving Company.

Total Internal Reflection for me is the most ambiguous of all the titles on the record, with my own interpretation being quite an introverted look into ones own psyche and experience.
The real scientific meaning is quite different:  Total internal reflection is the optical phenomenon in which waves arriving at the interface from one medium to another are not refracted into the second medium, but completely reflected back into the first medium.

I am still coming to terms with some things from my past and how it has changed me, but, I am happy to have lived through this.  It has given me new perspectives, new ideas, personal strength and inspiration.

The Night Moving Company is out 1st December 2021:
The Night Moving Company

Animus/Anima is out now: 

Animus/Anima

I hope you enjoy the music.

https://mrdogthebear.bandcamp.com