PS: When you read about Joyce Carol Vincent and you saw that very moving documentary, did you immediately think that her story would serve as the basis for your next album?

PS: When you read about Joyce Carol Vincent and you saw that very moving documentary, did you immediately think that her story would serve as the basis for your next album?

SW: There wasn’t like a eureka moment, if that’s what you mean. No, I think it was more a question of once you’ve seen that documentary, once you know the story, it’s the kind of thing you do carry around with you and it’s not easy to forget. It’s not easy to brush away to a part in your mind; it stays with you, kind of haunts you. I didn’t necessarily say to myself: “OK, great, that’s the idea for the next record, that’s the story I’m going to write.” But, I did carry it around with me. When I came to start writing new music about 18 months ago, I didn’t want to be pretentious and say the subject kind of chose me, but there was a sense that this was still kind of rattling around in my mind, and I found myself beginning to write about, not about Joyce Carol Vincent, but about a fictional character which was very much based on her story.

 

PS: Okay, can you talk a little bit about the meaning of the title, Hand. Cannot. Erase.?

SW: You know what? I’m not going to say so much about that, but I’m going to explain to you why I don’t want to tell you too much about the title. For me, giving a title to an album is kind of a necessary evil in a way. You have to give your album a title. But one of the problems with doing that is in a way once you title your album, you are kind of telling them what the story’s about, what the album is about. You are telling them this is what the album is about. I could have very easily called this album the Loneliness of Living in the City or something even much more directly specific about this content of the record. And, of course, that would have been a fair enough title because it is about that, but the point is it’s all about many other things, too. In this album there are songs about loneliness, nostalgic of childhood, the internet, 21st century, isolation, alienation, lots of other things as well, lies and anger, and all these things. They are all in this album, so rather than give it a very specific title, I chose something I thought would be ambiguous. It’s still a pleasing title but still leaves things fairly open-ended and leaves it for people to make up their own mind about what the album is and what the album is about. It doesn’t have a meaning for me, but I didn’t want to be too specific about it.

 

PS: Okay, that’s fair enough. You mentioned some of the tracks, so let’s talk about them. “Home Invasion” is a really powerful track in my opinion. Can you talk a little bit about that one and how it came together?

SW: “Home Invasion” is kind of a little bit of a musical journey within itself. I think of the album overall as kind of a musical journey, but that one almost has a musical journey within it. It goes through many different changes. There’s a jazz section, and there’s funky section, and then there’s like a spacey section.

Those kind of songs are the hardest ones to put together for me because it’s almost like you’re juggling lots of different ideas, lots of different sections and you’re trying to find the one way that makes the most logical sense from a listening point of view. I am very happy with the way it came out because it ultimately did come together in a very eying logical way for me. The song itself is about the Internet. It’s about this idea of social networking, and it’s about this idea that you can in a way redefine yourself and redefine your personality online to project an image of yourself closest to the one you would like, if you see what I mean.

There’s a line in there, “Download the life you wish you had.” I think there is something about the Internet which gives people almost an opportunity to role play and to create a façade, an image. I see that as quite a dangerous development because I think what we call social networking, Twitter, Facebook, etc., is actually quite antisocial. It’s a way for people to have the illusion of communicating with each other, connecting with each other. In fact, in truth is social networking makes it easier to disconnect, to kind of hide behind social networking, Facebook, cell phones, Twitter and all this stuff. It’s a song really about that and my concerns about that side of technology in the 21st century. It connects to my central character.

 

PS: You previously alluded to the blog and the website for the album. As you’ve done with previous records, on this one you included some really beautiful artwork, and extended the story in a way that a simple lyric sheet could not do the same on the website. Can you talk a little bit more about the presentation of this physical record before we talk a little bit the forthcoming tour?

SW: This is a story that mostly takes place in isolation. There is no dialogue between the character and other human beings, so much of the dialogue is kind of internal. It’s like an almost internal monologue which is happening with herself. Now how to present that—well, the answer I came up with was obviously this woman would perhaps be writing some kind of diary or the modern equivalent of course would be some kind of online blog. She may not be writing for anyone in particular. She may be writing just as a pure kind of indulgence, but having established that is the way she communicates her ideas and her thoughts and her day. That became a wonderful kind of device for, as you say, for revealing more about the character, more about the concept behind the record. We have this diary and blog which is taking place over a few years of this young woman’s life. As she gradually becomes more and more isolated, her thoughts become more and more surreal. You’re not quite sure at the end whether some of it is actually reality or if it’s fantasy. I like that kind of ambiguity. That gave an opportunity, of course, to illustrate the blog and the diary. In this whole kind of package, there are a lot of different sources. There’s photography, illustration, a child’s diary — written by a 13-year-old girl who obviously has a very different look again to the grown up blog. It has become a real gift actually for a proposition of interpretation and I’m really happy with the way it’s turned out.

 

PS: It looks great and that’s certainly part of the experience that you can’t get from either downloading it digitally or stealing the music outright. There’s a presentation I noticed with all of your records (including Porcupine Tree) that makes you want to own them.

SW: That’s kind of the idea. I grew up with vinyl records and remember the pleasure and the kind of buzz that I got from buying a beautiful vinyl record with the sleeve and the lyrics — all that kind of tactile experience that you could get from an old vinyl record.

I do think it’s a way to still carry that tradition forward in the packaging, not just with vinyl but also with specific editions in the way you present the digital versions, too. It’s a shame that more people don’t sort of don’t give more attention to the way they present their art. But for me it’s always been kind of synonymous with the music, the creativity doesn’t just end with you writing the songs, it carries through to the artwork, the website, and the live show, of course.

 

PS: That’s great. Well I am looking forward to seeing you, hopefully in Los Angeles. Steven. I want to thank you for your time, and wish you nothing but the best with the forthcoming album and subsequent tour.

SW: My pleasure, Phil. Nice to speak to you.

__________________

 

 

Хорошо. Это достаточно справедливо. Вы упомянули некоторые песни. Так поговорим о них. На мой взгляд «Домашнее вторжение» действительно мощная песня. Не могли бы вы рассказать немного о ней и о том, как она попала на альбом?

Трек «Домашнее вторжение» является своего рода музыкальным путешествием внутрь себя. Думаю, что весь альбом можно воспринимать как такое путешествие, именно эта песня представляется путешествием внутрь себя. Она претерпевает множество изменений. Есть джазовая часть, фанковая, и потом есть спейсовая часть. Такие части песен трудно объединять вместе, потому что вы будто жонглируете множеством различных идей, различными частями и пытаетесь найти единственный путь, который позволит найти смысл песни, рассуждая логически с точки зрения слушателя. Я очень доволен результатом, поскольку нашел для себя наиболее логическое объяснение такого объединения частей песни в целое. Сама песня об интернете. Она рассказывает об идеи социальных сетей, о том, что вы можете таким образом изменить себя, чтобы ваш виртуальный образ в сети наиболее подходил к тому образу себя, который вы хотите видеть. В песне есть строчка «Скачай жизнь, которую ты хочешь». Думаю, что это об интернете, который дает людям возможность некоторого рода ролевой игры и возможность создания внешней оболочки, виртуального образа. Развитие виртуальных сетей (типа Twitter и Facebook) считаю достаточно опасным, поскольку они антисоциальны. Это способ создать иллюзию общения. Социальные сети на самом деле облегчают разъединение людей, отгораживающихся телефонами и интернет-общением. Эта песня об опасностях этой стороны прогресса в 21 веке и связана с моим главным персонажем.

 

Ранее вы упоминали о сайте и блоге, созданных для альбома. Эту запись вы дополнили несколькими действительно замечательными изображениями, и расширили историю так, как не может сделать обычный текст, размещенный на сайте. Расскажите немного о тексте, размещенном на сайте.

В основном эта история, которая ведется в изоляции от мира. Здесь нет диалога с другими людьми; большая часть текста - внутренний монолог. Как теперь представляется правильным, я нашел очевидным, что эта женщина, возможно, будет вести личный дневник или какое то подобие современного он-лайн блога. Она не может писать кому то конкретно. При написании ею движут только свои искренние желания, но так завелось, что это способ ее общения, способ мышления и повседневность. Такой подход - прекрасный способ раскрыть характер персонажа, раскрыть концепцию альбома за рамками альбома. Дневник и блог ведутся на протяжении нескольких лет ее жизни. Поскольку она все более и более отчуждается, ее мысли становятся все более и более сюрреалистичными. Так что при прочтении последних записей вы до конца не уверены, реальны эти записи или являются фантазией. Такой подход, конечно же, дает возможность проиллюстрировать блог и дневник. Это – вид упаковки. Использованы совершенно разные источники: фотографии, иллюстрации, детские записи, написанные тринадцатилетней девочкой. Это стало настоящим подарком для интерпретаций проекта и я действительно доволен, как все сложилось.

 

Это выглядит грандиозно и является опытом, который вы не может получить скачав пиратскую запись или купив цифровое издание. Я заметил такую презентацию на всех ваших записях (включая Purcupine Tree).

Это своего рода идея. Я вырос на виниловых пластинках и помню радость, которую получал от покупки красивой пластинки (упаковки и лирики) – все это своего рада тактильный опыт, который вы получали от винила. Думаю, что эти традиции можно продолжить не только с выпуском виниловых пластинок, но при издании компакт-дисков и цифровых записей. Ко стыду многих, презентации своих работ не уделяется должное внимание. Для меня же это всегда было в некотором роде синонимом музыки, творчество не должно заканчиваться написанием песен, но может быть донесено через произведения искусства, веб-сайт и, конечно, выступления.

 

PS: When you read about Joyce Carol Vincent and you saw that very moving documentary, did you immediately think that her story would serve as the basis for your next album?

SW: There wasn’t like a eureka moment, if that’s what you mean. No, I think it was more a question of once you’ve seen that documentary, once you know the story, it’s the kind of thing you do carry around with you and it’s not easy to forget. It’s not easy to brush away to a part in your mind; it stays with you, kind of haunts you. I didn’t necessarily say to myself: “OK, great, that’s the idea for the next record, that’s the story I’m going to write.” But, I did carry it around with me. When I came to start writing new music about 18 months ago, I didn’t want to be pretentious and say the subject kind of chose me, but there was a sense that this was still kind of rattling around in my mind, and I found myself beginning to write about, not about Joyce Carol Vincent, but about a fictional character which was very much based on her story.