GLOWING LETTERS

Ian C Stewart "Glowing Letters" MP3

side one, track one, of 'motion', the other half of my 1992 'box set'. "Glowing Letters." This song lasted through a couple of lineups of Samarkand. It was kind of impossible to argue with at the time since the entire song was programmed into my drum machine. And I thought it was a convergence (needless, pointless, as it happens) of all the genres I loved at the time, rap, death metal, techno, wimpy/alternative. When the first Samarkand lineup played it in Boston, Stephanie even added a hint of r&b to the equation. The title was obviously inspired by (stolen from) Ned's Atomic Dustbin's "Capital Letters." Well, it's obvious now!

The tape cover was an odd shape, I remember the look of confusion followed by disgust when I took it to Kinko's to be copied. I didn't understand that the copier had margins, so some information is lost on the copies of the 'motion' covers. I tended to start with obscure photographs & then just making copies of copies until it was an unrecognizable mess. That was my approach to most things, in fact. I used my typewriter on the super bold font for all the text.

'motion' again featured some lyrics by Marian, but at least half of them were written by me. The idea behind using an 'outisde lyricist', if I can overstate the situation completely for a moment, was to collaborate and find a new way of working. The music for the songs with Marian's lyrics tended to be a little different from my usual stuff, for whatever reason. But that was usually at the cost of the vocal performance. Since the lyrics weren't mine, they weren't chips off of my soul, so singing them didn't necessitate any particular emotions. Whereas, I guess, I felt like my own lyrics could only really be performed 'from the heart' as it were.










here's the original photo used on 'insomnia'.