Perfect , therefore, as the title of my eighth and latest full-length, wide screen, three-strip Technicolor, digitally-encoded compact disc album of ‘classic pop songs’, touches of satirical folk and a couple of full-on, hard-out rock monsters. Mostly, though, the heart of this record (and you will, no doubt, have spotted said organ on the album cover) resides in three songs that came directly from the decline and death of my dad. They are joined by several others that are imbued with the unalterable humanity of both the event and its inevitability. Yes, they are sad songs but, as with most of my work, there is hope at their core and I've tried hard to deliver them in an honest and melodic form.

Honesty’s always tough when you’re also trying to entertain and, y’know, "shift units" but I like to think that people actually value it more than the vapid, meaningless pap drooled out by those who profess to address that vast, amorphous horde of 11 year old girls who deserve so much more.

(Now, look, see what I’m doing...climbing aboard one of my favourite hobbyhorses when I should be informing you about (and whetting your interest in) my latest piece of product. And I do want to do that because I’m really pretty pleased with it.)

There’s a much more varied approach to the songs than on YES!!, my last album, which was mostly a drum machine and fuzz guitars record, a good translation of that part of my ‘live’ sound. This one is quieter, more reflective, less of an angry rant. Apart from the above-mentioned songs there’s a little love song, My Only Friend, that is about as naked as I get, utterly heartfelt in a way that Not Given Lightly only hints at. Elsewhere, though, the venom does leak through, as on Denial Song, significantly, the oldest song on the record. There’s always a pinch of salt bundled in with these free-associating ditties that should never be ignored. I Wanna Look Like Darcy Clay may require a more liberal dosage than usual, the lyrics were written while, to all intents and purposes, unconscious. I love it when that happens and try not to change a thing. I don’t believe in magic but this sorta shit gets close.

There’s even a feel good stadium-swayer called Everyone’s Cool, the last line of which I changed to make for a more positive coda. Someone could make it a hit, hey, it’s even got an ascending key-change! The Man in the Crowd is me surrendering to my desire to be the Dylan for whatever this decade is called. Again, a bunch of words that just spilled out and lay in a reasonably ordered array on the paper in front of me. Much the same happened with Ghost, one of three non-sectarian litanies on the record while The Hell of It sees me back in unashamed feminist mode. Both of the latter feature the funky stylings of "The Salivation Army Horns" ,a.k.a messrs Neill Duncan and Kingsley Melhuish on sax and trumpet. I do love a new texture and these guys translated my vague ideas into solid 3D sound which has added heaps to these songs. Neill also plays melting clarinet on Laughter, the most recent song about my dad.

Well, not specifically about that lovely old man but stirred into being by my time with him and my mum before he died. I went for a heartbreaking melody and scored, I think, a reasonably noble failure. Doing melody’s tough, too. Becoming Something Other was written after a phone conversation with Dad during which he first told me of his mental decline and that he felt he was close to death. Musically, it’s a small tribute to Bill Smog who has never shirked from revealing his deepest (and darkest...are they synonymous?) feelings. The Pulse Below the Ear had its genesis the night before his death while lying awake at 3am in Invercargill. I couldn’t get the first phrase and its rudimentary melody out of my head and a couple of days later I added the chorus bit. The recorded version has been ruthlessly cut down from the original concept of a very, very loooong, very repetitive, very minimalist piece of performance art. And is much funkier (in my lumpy fashion) than I do it‘ live’.

When I Have Left this Mortal Coil came before all this and is very tongue-in-cheek, taking the piss of my sometime image as an arrogant, preachy bastard. Of course, it’s also all completely true. As is What do we do with Love? On the other hand, It’s Love is naught but a cute Troggs / Buzzcocks rip-off throwaway and is thus, obviously, the song you’ll hear the most...

Like I said, I’m pretty happy with BEAT. Believe it or not, I do this stuff to foster happiness. Other reasons, too, I cannot deny, but happiness is important.

Thanks for your attention and your time,

yours,
Chris Knox