Something to lighten the load…we take great pleasure in sharing the news that Jack Cheshire is back with his fifth album FRACTAL FUTURE PLAYS (out in the Autumn) and releases first single TUNNEL VISION (listen below) which is released on 22 May 2020 on Loose Tongue Records. Inspired by the concept of Multiverse, time corridors, the Astral Plane and the dystopian rabbit hole our world appears to have headed down, this new record is a unique and bewitching brew.
Expansive sound pictures with a haunting refrain, first single and album opener TUNNEL VISION features a relentless and infectious groove with interstellar widescreen atmospherics. Multi-instrumentalist Jack Cheshire constructed the song slowly, sending iterations to drummer // producer Jon Scott over a period of six weeks:
‘We wanted all the parts to interact, and have their space, so we had to construct it quite carefully. Augmenting and minimising certain bits, the core of the track was there but it took a while to realise. There ended up being so many layers, particularly at the end, I just wanted a worm-hole of an outro, a kind of swirly sci-fi mind-bender.’
Lyrically it was inspired by a Gramsci quote, ‘pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will’, given by Noam Chomsky in a 2003 interview with Francine Stock:
NC ‘You look over history…every system of tyranny and oppression…collapses. There’s nothing special about the systems of power that exist now….’
FS ‘What I wonder though is how you square your fundamental optimism about human nature with what seems to be a pretty pessimistic analysis of what is happening in the world?’
NC ‘This famous phrase that was borrowed by Gramsci that we should have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will’.
That resonated deeply with Cheshire as a tonic for these troubling times.
‘I wanted to write something positive, something I could put on and say, despite all the toxic negativity in my mind and all of the madness occurring in the world, I am going to keep trying and keep believing.’
Whilst the track references various influences (Broadcast // Suicide // Can // Neu // John Maus // Jane Weaver), musically it retains Cheshire’s ‘inimitable’ sound but represents a quantum leap from previous critically acclaimed record BLACK LIGHT THEATRE:
Inspired by a Gramsci quote, that we should have ‘pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will’, Tunnel Vision is about remaining positive despite your inner voice and the world telling you otherwise. The song revolves around fixating on the things you love, the people you love, and never giving up on them.
TUNNEL VISION
Hush your inner monologue
Still your racing hungry eye
Simmer down your toxic thought
Settle deep inside this glove
Down down down
Underneath your cloaking spell
Peering through the portal glass
Light that drip feeds through the flood
This is for the ones you love
Down down down
Oh Tunnel Vision
You move to the Light
If you’re feeling the decline
Weighing on your scrambled mind
If you’re up there on the wire
Peering deep into the fire
Down down down
Oh Tunnel Vision
You move to the Light
Tunnel Vision is out 22 May 2020 on Loose Tongue Records