One of the things I'm proud of (if you hadn't noticed), is my association with Kodagain. I love Saša's somehow-traditional, somehow-weird pop sensibility, his simple melodies, sometimes immediately catchy, sometimes as subtle as patterns in desert sands. I love his harmonies, his ability to knock out one song after another, and for each of them, small and compact, to somehow have the power to unfold over time.
Listen to this, for instance:
A Very Strange Relationship by kodagain
To me this sounds like a classic single from the sixties or seventies – not like a copy, but like it's actually a missing piece of pop history. I wrote the lyrics for this quite quickly, inspired by a line from Joe Simpson Walker's transgressive tour-de-force, Jeanette, and although the clues in the lyrics themselves were perhaps very few, Saša managed to strike exactly the right mood here. I can't imagine the lyrics sung any other way now.
Here's another one with a great, natural melody. I'm actually not sure if this is a cover, although Saša sometimes covers lyrics and changes the melody:
Here's one that features a poem by Robert Creeley, with what I think is an extraordinarily beautiful musical arrangement:
Somehow or other, I've managed to collaborate with Kodagain now on over one hundred songs – I've actually lost count. Anyway, I was listening to some of our collaborations stored on my hard-drive just now and was struck by a repeated message in the lyrics. For instance, this from 'Failures':
For some years now, I've been on life support.
No one visits,
No one knows.
And this from 'No one Has a Song':
Why are you all so preoccupied
With everything but the soul
Who's starving at your side?
I know even now you will evade
My simple, single heartfelt question
Somehow.
Hmmm. I probably shouldn't go on giving examples. At this link you can hear 'Valediction', which is quite possibly my favourite collaboration with Kodagain. It's really degrading to explain oneself, is it not? I should not do it. The story of my life, if I have written it, is 'Troubled Joe' in the collection All God's Angels, Beware!
