Plato’s Summer Stars

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“Plato’s Summer Stars”. Tiny Tide new album. First of all let’s begin with a brief list of what this album IS NOT gonna be

• This album it’s not for selling, it’s free, but you can also choose to buy the CDR on Kingem Records or find it on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify from October.
• This album IS NOT Tiny Tide new album“There’s A Girl That Never Goes Out” (the one with “Come Along Pond) that will be released September 5 2011
• This album IS NOT a big production: it was made in just three weeks, it’s absolutely lo-fi, voice (as you can hear) was not recorded in a studio.
• This album it’s not talking random shit, but it’s the transfiguration of Mark Zonda summer’s memories (you can find the lyrics here)
• The cover art IS NOT designed by Mark Zonda, but Claire Goldthorp, also know as Atta Girl, already making illustrations for Fortuna Pop and Ace Bushy Striptease. Check her site HERE.

“Plato’s Summer Stars”. What’s all about?

Since I spent all my money making a video (that you can check here) being stuck in my city (not so far from the sea, telling the truth) I decided to spend my time making an album about my holidays. In just three weeks! (two weeks in a row and 4 days between July and August, not counting the days I spent on the seaside).

When I thought of it the album should have dealt with my idea of a lonely and boring summer spent in this City. It turned out to be quite interesting and exciting in return. Never underestimate the power of summer! But let’s have a look at the single tracks…

01 – Euro Instinct (Back to the U.E.)

Dealing with Stars… the album begins with an Euro Star crossing your headphones. I have to admit that I stole the idea of the title from a Facebook state update of a friend of mine – Andrea Lucchi – who played drums, guitars and synths on Febrero’s  track “Total Groupie”. And now he’s telling me he’s not even sure it’s U.E. and not E.U. instead! Started as a parody of “Back in the U.S.S.R. (a parody of a parody) with the intention of turning it into some kind of album manifesto. One of the most exciting days of my summer was being a DJ for the Californian band “Puro Instinct”, and I often dreamt about spending an holiday on Venice Beach, also because of the heavenly shots I got from the summer season of  Torchwood, now co-produced with an American company. Torchwood has been a hudge inspiraton for my work as well. A friend of mine told me it’s classic pop. It’s really difficult to make good classic pop. I take it as a compliment. Think it’s the best track of the album and it turned out to cross a strange land between Billy Joelandia and Summer Cats Reahlm. I tried also a little abort of a guitar solo, but Fripp and Macis will have a laugh on that. But what about “le piano à-la-garsson”?

02 – MIRACLE DAY

I was really hit by Rupert Sheldrake theory on Morphic Fields. And once again it’s all because of Torchwood, the Brit TV serie. To cut a long theory short, Doctor Sheldrake believes that World is filled with floating amount of collective informations (quite like jung collective consciousness) telling our bodies what to do even before these informations come to a conscious level. Moreover another factor called “Morphic Resonace” would be able to accelerate the performance of a group’s activity as much as more people are trying to get that result. The next step I took was: would this theory be able also for summer’s fun? I took some notes on young people most ridiculous thoughts on the beach and that’s the result

About the melody: at first the song was planned as an attempt to reach even a small bit of Teenage Fanclub ethereal choirs perfection and relaxed atmosphere. But then I went to a Lou Reed show and it was impossible not to imitate his style.

03 – NIMESULIDE EG

Sad enough to say my bones ache didn’t go on vacation as well. This is a song about being slave of physical pains and dreaming of redemption from any kind of restriction. I bought Of Montreal “Black Lion Massacre that day, and maybe I was a little bit influenced by that, still I find some parts of Nimesulide very Lennonesque. I don’t know where that voice came out from. I didn’t use my Lennonesque tone since 1999.

04 – SHOOTING WITH THE WELSH GIRL

The first song I’ve written for the album. Think there’s something like 10 levels of guitars in there, plus an hard Spanish riff that I think I would never be able to repeat once again in my life! I was back from the shootings of our first music video. An unforgettable day. I think the song  too.

05 – SHOES GOT AN HOLD ON ME

A day I came out with this battle of words between “She’s” and “Shoe’s”, and somehow it turned out to be a song on me being stuck in heart matter’s decision (because, basically, coming down to it I’m a coward and I’ll always be). The song came a week after “Shooting” and it’s got a little reprise in the end (just like in Strawberry Fields) pointing out that I was oh terribly wrong. The girl wasn’t Welsh!

06 – HASH PIPER

As I was saying in the introduction, being a DJ for Puro Instinct was THE day of my summer. This is a song about Skylar and Piper Kaplan having a tour in Europe. They had a great show at Hana-Bi in Ravenna and they were so nice to thank me for the music selection. Puro Instinct FTW.

07 – GREEN EYES

We were really surprised that Handsome Furs didn’t played “Confused” that night. Still I was also very surprised (and pleased) to see again a friend of mine. That made me thought first time I seen her eyes. That was the real surprised. An instant polaroid to preserve in my memories.

08 – NAME AND SHAME

It was impossible not making an album on Summer 2011 and ignore London Riots. I was really shocked. I don’t know what hooked me so much on that while there’s a global recession goin’ on and they’re still fighting in many areas of the World. Possibly because I’ve got so many friends living in the UK and I watched those violence acts happening as they happened following their updates on socials. And surely because I didn’t expected such a thing to happen in a country that I considered civilized for granted. I took my guitar and I wondered of being the most important pop singer in the Country to become the voice of The Island goin’ insane.

09 – MIRNA LOY

So I actually had a boring day in the end! I had a pizza with Mirna in July in a very empty city. Nothing much happened, and moreover I was afraid to talk about anything because of a person I didn’t trust to much eating on a table next to ours. This song was an excuse to use Otomata, a generative graphic sequencer invented by a friend of Robert Schneider. It was interesting starting from almost random generated noises to start and work on a new song. Coldplay, Radiohead, Joy Division… step away from my room!

10 – CAROLINE, YEAH

This goes for a friend of mine. Wouldn’t it be nice if she could live next door? Can’t see why Brian Wilson was so negative on Caroline, no. That’s why I had fun in turning cards a little bit! The song was planned to be a Beach Boys tribute, but I guess Eels and Blur’s influence managed somehow to emerge. (Do note that my writing get shortened whenever I get talking ’bout girls…)

11 – BACK TO THE BEACH

I think I made a Summer album just to have the chance of writing some slow closing titles for its end. Coming back from the beach always manage to bring along mixed and melancholic feelings while I’m driving home. Blame it on the sunset and some slowmantic (slow+romantic, hey! I just made out a new word!) songs like  “Tiny Dancer” or Alice Cooper “You And I”. Guess Beach Boys made it in time to watch the last song of this strange lo-fi indie album fade away.

Hold on tight! Just 2 weeks and and you’ll get pure pop from the next album