Track By Track: DECIUS – Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience)

Buckle up…

1 – Birth of a Smirk:

Something about the way you gurn. About the doubts that pile up over the course of a lifetime, then work their way into this gurn. All roads, as it turns out, lead to gurnica. And I’m not talking a drug gurn. I’m talking more a spiritual gurn…a psychic gurn…a gurning imaginal. Everything slips through your fingers, all of your dreams, all of your aspirations, then, magically, instead of being left with nothing, instead of emptiness, which might not be so bad, you’re left with this contortion, this crookedness, this kind of effervescent malignancy. Know what I mean? How can one work this hard, one’s whole life, and arrive at less than nothing? It defies physics. That’s why I voted Brexit in the end. Physics. I wrote this song shortly after casting my ballot. 

2 – Walking in the Heat

This was co-written with Alex Sebley of Pregoblin not-quite-fame. Alex doesn’t make ultra-generic user-friendly post-post-post-punk so he’s been sadly over-looked by most of the music press this last ten years. We based this tune on an old German folk staple called ‘Die schlussel’ which translates to ‘the spanner’ in English. It gained international appeal during the Weimar era, when Kurt Weill reformed it into the more jazz orientated ‘Re-sexualisation of the Rhineland or death’, a portrait of worker solidarity under fire. Sebley and I decided to bring it up to speed, make it about how dear it is to get a decent flat share in south London these days. 

3 – Queen of 14th Street

This was co-written with the dude from White Devil Disco, the one that looks like an over-rated 80’s film star. A lot of people made it way further in life than they should have during the 80’s. Maybe the world we live in today, where each individual has to be fighting 100 wars of attrition with his fellow human beings isn’t so bad after all? Not when you consider the 80’s? The 80’s lined this time up. This time has integrity at least. This time is stripped of its illusions. This time is real. I’m sure Curly Joe from White Devil Disco understands that too, on a kind of subliminal level. On a level audible only to those that allow themselves to drift too far from the shore from day dot. Fuck the 80’s. 

4 – Ghent

Have you ever been in close contact with Andy Butler from Hercules and Love Affair? I have. I don’t mean to boast, but it’s true. I shared a plate full of pastries with him once in Paris. This song is a celebration of that moment. Sometimes I get down on myself. Like all artists, I’m a manic depressive. When the wave of public adoration goes back out to sea, which, sadly, is inevitable, you have to remind yourself that at least once or twice in your life you were loved, and not just by anyone, but by people further up the chain of command than yourself, people with a little class, people not like you, in that arran jumper you’ve had 6 on winters in a row now…no, you were loved by people with grace, with style, with taste, that haven’t strangeld their inner child, that didn’t sell their souls out of fear, that didn’t surrender to the panic, people that stayed true…you ate croissants together once in Paris…you have to keep that in mind…always…if it can happen once, it can happen again…just look at Donald Trump…croissants in Paris… 

5 – Ibrahim

The fault line where conservative Islam meets Western sexual liberation has always fascinated me for obvious reasons. In a sense, is it not the sauciest zone that there is? It brings to mind long hot summers spent with Jean Genet in the Maghreb. Summers that only occurred in my head while reading his books sure, but summers none the less. In a sense, all of my music is just an imaginal portrait of Jean’s time in the Muslim world, whether that be in North Africa or with the Fedayeen out in Palestine. What was he up to? Who was he up to it with? How often? Where exactly? 

6 – I Gave Birth to You

‘The life of Riley’, you ever hear that expression? Who the fuck is Riley? I don’t know a single Riley. I’ve travelled the world. I grew up in 16 different places, I’ve never met this Riley fella, or even someone with the same name. I mean, we’ve all heard of ‘Ripley’s Believe it or Not’, but ‘Riley’? He only exists in service of this maxim. Don’t you think that’s odd? In who’s interest is it, do you ever wonder, that we all carry this bloke Riley on our lips? Is it even a bloke? No way of knowing…unless of course we Google it, which would smash the mystery…we’d be one bit of mystery down…we’re shedding mystery like there’s no tomorrow these days…are you man enough to shed Ripley as well? Well? 

7 – Punishment/Improvement

I won’t lie, I enjoy things that hurt me. I can blame this on my dad, or my socio-economic position, or some subterranean impulse that’s been innate since birth…what difference does it make? I like pain. No matter how far I stray into decency, into stability, into a life worth living, sweet immiseration is always calling to me from just over yonder, beckoning me to my native element…suffering. I don’t know about you, I don’t want to know about you, learning about you would occupy too much of my head, where space is already compromised, but I do know about me, and I know this for certain…I enjoy humiliation. 

8 –  Y U Look at Me That Way?

Scientists have done studies which suggest that particles behave differently when you stare at them. This is our ode to the men and women that conducted that crucial research. 

9 – We Carry Our Flamboyance As A Warning

It’s quite simple, we cannot and will not die. There will be Decius chapels carved into hillsides on Greek islands 2000 years from now. Our name shall ring out on the lips of the faithful for all eternity and the eternity after that…I suspect this won’t be the last, I suspect this eternity was just an excuse, a rush job, a warm up…the next one will be the one that matters…this is just foreplay…All of it…Trust me…There’s a better reality coming…And Decius are fucking massive there too. 

10 – Arctic Spring

You ever come across an arse you know will haunt you for the rest of your life? 

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