Track-by-track guide - Remember Remember

Remember Remember have provided us with our Album of the Week – read the review of their self-titled debut album, out via Rock Action this week, HERE.

Whenever possible us Clash types ask the artists responsible for our favourite records to guide us through their creations. So here’s Remember Remember lynchpin Graeme Ronald’s track-by-track dissection of his excellent debut.

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‘And The Demon Said...’
I've never owned a piano, but playing them is one of my favourite things in the world to do. Any time I get to play one I end up writing a little piece... they are often bad but I always liked this one. I wrote it a couple of years ago when I was in Cava Studios, recording with my old band, and I was obsessed with demons. Once I had recorded it, it felt a little naked, but we had already recorded the sound of a sparkler burning with the intention of using it as the intro to the album. The sparkler on its own sounded too harsh so it made sense to put it together with the piano piece.

‘The Dancing’
Are you The Asking? Then I'm The Dancing. This song probably mutated more than any other throughout the recording process... at first the only rhythm was a loop of me kicking a can of Irn-Bru around and the pounding kick-drum... then we sequenced some samples of us spinning coins and spraying deodorant and the like, then several months later my friend James added some hi-hat and snare, the resultant rhythm salad being quite flavorsome.

‘Genie (For Amaya)’
Doing a Genie: Hold a lit match up to the exposed phosphorous heads of a full box of matches, and watch it explode. This is probably my favourite song on the record – it’s another old one which I initially wrote as a layered guitar piece... it was tremendous fun then translating those guitar melodies onto piano, violin, clarinet, sax and flute and it turned out sounding even better than I could have imagined. It's dedicated to my niece Amaya who was born around the time I was writing it... although the other theme, of playing with matches, is perhaps a little inappropriate for children.

‘Fountain’ / ‘Mountain’
Tracks four and five, ‘Fountain’ and ‘Mountain’, are actually just one song ‘Fountain Mountain’, an earlier version of which was released as one full song on a Rock Action compilation earlier this year. The title was suggested by my friend Iain, unbeknownst to either himself or I that there is a type of Roman Candle firework named Fountain Mountain which was a nice coincidence. Anyone who spots the similarities in the final section to ‘Hey Ya!’ by Outkast is politely requested not to tell anyone...

‘The Swimming’
This was written around the same time as ‘Genie’, and the water sounds throughout are intended to counteract the fire sounds heard in ‘Genie’. I'm superstitious.

‘How Did You End Up Like This?’
Introduces the album's closing four-song suite, which may or may not be about a man who believes he is a cat. It began also as a guitar piece but I borrowed a friend's Rhodes piano and fell in love. The final layer to be added was the beautiful flugelhorn part played by James's friend Mick, which was a total afterthought, but now I couldn't imagine the song without it.

‘Imagining Things (i)’
My girlfriend just called this song a mindgasm...

’Imagining Things (ii)’
And relax...

‘Up In A Blue Light’
Essentially a reprise of ‘How Did You End Up Like This?’, except with the cold minimalism replaced by practically everyone involved in the record either clapping their hands, playing percussion, improvising solos and pretty much playing at full pelt. I felt the pain of my insistence that everything be played totally live (no loops) by clapping a rhythm out on my hands for ten minutes straight. If you turn it up really loud at the very end you get to hear my extremely inexpertly played harp solo.

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‘Remember Remember’ is out now on Rock Action – read our album review HERE and find out more information on MySpace.