A minimal, chromatic fantasia. Lounge fodder. A many-sided, pleasing wallpaper. A film noir for funk. Digressive, polyphonic, inconsequential, unnecessary, unsettlingly soothing.

I wish I hadn’t read that they’re “more likely to play a 2 minute song than a 6 minute song” on the BBC uploader website. All artists, I’m sure, are at times, trying to strike a balance between making something that they want to make and making something they think people will like. On the record, most artists like it when other people also like what they’ve made. I wouldn’t say it’s the driving force behind creativity, it’s more like, imagine walking through a marsh for ages in the cold rain, and when you get in someone offers you a cup of tea. That’s maybe, kind of what it’s like when you pour your soul and heart into something and somebody ‘likes’ it, whether physically, or clicks like online, or streams, or shares, or buys. Every time that happens it’s like a wee warm cup of tea.

This piece of music grew out of another song, as musical pieces often do, for me. I was trying to write a bridge for a wee pop song which will hopefully be coming out later this year, but it didn’t want to be a bridge. It blossomed and before not too long I knew it was it’s own thing. It had a classical feel to it, it wasn’t repeating verses and choruses, it just flowed quite spectacularly paving its own road. I didn’t have much work to do initially, it, and there’s no way to say this anymore in a non-platitude, but it did write itself. I would come in and sit down at the piano and play what I had, and the next part that I hadn’t written yet just came in and I added on, as if from memory, remembering it from the future moment when I would write it. And the bass would just, in my left ear, “I’mma do this” and I’m like “yes, good idea”, even the drums, I know I can be lazy with drums, but in this tune, drums where like “I would be like this” and I’d just “that’s wonderful” it was a lot of fun writing it, it was the anti-tedium.

After scratching the 1 minute mark, with no repeats, I started to sweat. “Who do I think I am?” I’d cry to myself, and genuinely, possibly, sabotaged myself in that moment. I also kept thinking about what I'd read on the BBC Uploader website and just as I was starting to really like the way it was sounding, it became “I have to make this radio length/playlist friendly or else this great thing I’ve done will never really get heard by anyone”, I’ll never get that cup of tea, it was a sort of “okay, we need to wrap this up soon, what’s it gonna do” which certainly hindered the creative process. This thing could have been symphonic in length, but is there an audience for that? In hindsight the answer is - it doesn’t matter, but the story proceeds as follows: It got shelved for quite a while, and I’d listen to it every so often and think “shiiiit, that’s ok” and then go back to existential dilemma’ing, knowing I had something good but no idea where to go with it or what it would end up being. If I’m honest with myself it didn’t find the organic conclusion that I’d have hoped it would, but if there are an infinite amount of versions that are better than the one I have, I have to make peace with that, because I have the version that’s finished.

This came echoing back at me in the form of a rejection from a blog I submitted to, called Underrated. They wrote “the magical soundscape made for a truly hypnotic and unique experience, creating an enticing and alluring piece, but I wish the latter third of the track had a bit more going for its ending to really end things in a satisfying final push towards the resolution.”

They’re on to me.

Anyways, this song went through a few working titles. Originally it was the bridge from a song that I don’t even think is called ‘Terracotta’ anymore. After that it was Fantasia, and briefly Chromatic Fantasia, and Phantasia Kromatico. It was also called Klams & OYsters for a bit. I was reading a book called Flatland during the writing of this one, and I’m sure that’s where I got the name from. It lent itself well as this tune is a bit more complex than some of the other stuff I write. If other songs I write are squares, and hexagons, this one is a polygon.

The artwork I was originally drawing for Les Club Tropicales but I got behind schedule. I figured it worked well for this track though, because it's quite loungey and keys based.