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5. The Sea Lanes

from Living Space by The Curator

/
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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Living Space - a lament for a lost future.

    Alongside regular collaborators (Mark Fletcher, Jez Salmon and Ian Burrage), guests include Steve Bingham (no-man) on violin and viola, Chris Lee (Pigbag) on Trumpet and Flugel Horn and the human orchestra that is Brian Gulland (Gryphon) on lots of other things.

    Signed copies available on request

    A Curator writes:

    This is not the future we expected or were promised. In 1969 when I watched the moon-landings (with hundreds of millions of others) it seemed that my life would span an unprecedented era of change. Even as a 9 year old, watching the old films and hearing about the changes my parents and grandparents had lived through, I had a sense of the world (and The Beatles) changing before my very eyes. I don’t suppose my grandmother (who was born when Victoria was on the throne) had even thought about man going to the Moon until a few months before she watched it unfolding in the middle of that July night. I wondered then what the world would be like when I was 20 or 30. I knew it was going to be unimaginable.

    But that - at least to me - was not how it turned out. Instead by my early 20s it had seemed that change had slowed to a crawl: commercialism and the straightjacket of economic fashion had made the world smaller and slower; the counter-culture changing into the shop-counter culture. Only a fraction of what was predicted in films and books, in the late 60s and 70s, seemed to have come about. The things that technology had brought us were somehow idiot offspring of television; social media, sat-nav, childish ideology and division. I had been left holding a lost future, a-might-have-been, a-should-have-been, an only-wish-it-could-have-been. The only echo of it left, down the years was in the music that remained ever present 50 years later, unlike Al Jolson who was lost and gone long before 1977, the 50th anniversary of The Jazz Singer.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Living Space via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Living Space - a lament for a lost future.

    Alongside regular collaborators (Mark Fletcher, Jez Salmon and Ian Burrage), guests include Steve Bingham (no-man) on violin and viola, Chris Lee (Pigbag) on Trumpet and Flugel Horn and the human orchestra that is Brian Gulland (Gryphon) on lots of other things.

    Signed copies available on request

    A Curator writes:

    This is not the future we expected or were promised. In 1969 when I watched the moon-landings (with hundreds of millions of others) it seemed that my life would span an unprecedented era of change. Even as a 9 year old, watching the old films and hearing about the changes my parents and grandparents had lived through, I had a sense of the world (and The Beatles) changing before my very eyes. I don’t suppose my grandmother (who was born when Victoria was on the throne) had even thought about man going to the Moon until a few months before she watched it unfolding in the middle of that July night. I wondered then what the world would be like when I was 20 or 30. I knew it was going to be unimaginable.

    But that - at least to me - was not how it turned out. Instead by my early 20s it had seemed that change had slowed to a crawl: commercialism and the straightjacket of economic fashion had made the world smaller and slower; the counter-culture changing into the shop-counter culture. Only a fraction of what was predicted in films and books, in the late 60s and 70s, seemed to have come about. The things that technology had brought us were somehow idiot offspring of television; social media, sat-nav, childish ideology and division. I had been left holding a lost future, a-might-have-been, a-should-have-been, an only-wish-it-could-have-been. The only echo of it left, down the years was in the music that remained ever present 50 years later, unlike Al Jolson who was lost and gone long before 1977, the 50th anniversary of The Jazz Singer.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Living Space via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 3 days

      £10.99 GBP or more 

     

  • Book/Magazine

    A Fool's Errand is an Alistair Murphy novel partly designed as a literary accompaniment to his 2023 studio album, Living Space (as The Curator).

    A picaresque adventure of an idealistic young man, now grown jaded and old, looking back on his life; trying to make sense of himself, the world he inhabits, and the other worlds that lie beyond in the heavens, spinning through time, space and eternity, to which he dreams of visiting and visits in his dreams. The fables of the Hawker, the Astronomer, Senator, Stockman and Soldier; Boat-Builder, and Advocate, Lounger, and Hermit, unfold, abrade, conflict and collide to provide amusement and understanding as the old man grapples with comprehension of his own futile earthly life in a senseless, uncaring universe; aided and abetted by his unforgettable guide, Earth-Beater, (which, like the book itself, is not an easy ride for it is both ship of the desert and vehicle to the stars. The old man identifies a key moment in his life, which occurred as a child, many moons ago, perhaps in 1969... he projects this significant instant into another time, another past and another world, where he is further enlightened by an encounter with the female spirit of another world. Sci-fi novel; discussion on the meaning of life; flight of fancy; religious examination; magi-like quest, philosophical tract or merely an entertaining diversion from the ennui of the everyday? Let the reader be the judge - the goal, the object, the inner core of the novel open to the subjective interpretation of those who care to turn its pages. ... more
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lyrics

Soon I will be, cast in motion on this darkest of seas
The sea lanes quiet and empty, empty save me
And if I close my eyes then I'll be free
Totally closed, the world I live in's bright and totally closed
Looking up at screens set in orderly rows
And when I speak aloud I sometimes hear
Hear myself speaking through the warm peaceful air
If I didn't hear the sound
I wouldn't believe I was really here
Wouldn't believe I word that they told us here

All I perceive, every light and dial and screen, I perceive
May be all that I will ever receive
No message from the dark that holds my way
If there was more, if there was a reason
To believe there was more
A target grander than this brightening star
Could I hold that secret in my heart?
Hold it where it shone and bathed me with light
So I would know a reason for this glow of delight
As if I'd ever know what lay beyond the encircling night

credits

from Living Space, released August 27, 2023
Ian Burrage: Drums & Percussion
Mark Fletcher: Shuker Bass
Jez Salmon: Electric Guitar
Steve Bingham: Violin, Viola
Murf: Fretless Bass, Electric and Slide Guitar, Korg BX3 organ, Wurlitzer EP200a
Alistair Murphy: Mandolin, Organ, Mellotron, Stylophone, Vocals

Written, Arranged and Produced by The Curator

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The Curator UK

Alistair Murphy is a British songwriter, record producer and musician.

He has released four albums with his band The Half Life as well as solo albums under his own name and his stage name The Curator.

As well as recording and producing a host of his own albums under various names he has produced four albums by Judy Dyble and two by Terry Stamp of the cult proto-punk band Third World War.
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