Caramel Dreams
Reminiscing on old times and revisiting songs from the archives
Once upon a time — in another decade that seems far, far away — burrowed beneath a cosy, dusty carpentry workshop off the Hackney Road in the heart of East London were two friends trying to make the world a nicer place through the power of psychedelic-tinged indie lo-fi folk ambient music.
They called themselves Blue Movies.
For those of you who know me well, and who may have lived in London during the mid 2010s — you may well have seen a Blue Movies performance with your own eyes. We were frequently found in East London hipster hangouts of the time — The Sebright Arms, The Alibi, Rough Trade and my personal favourite Biddle Bros — home of our monthly residency and a magnificent, chess-playing, parrot owning patron named Rob.
Firebird wielding, velvet velour shirt wearing me and the acoustic wizardry / sound effects sorcery of Tom Ball performed firstly as a duo, before branching out into a full four piece outfit. We never “made it” far in the industry — our band never got signed to a label, but we didn’t make a deal with the devil either so every cloud.
I still own a fair few copies of our self-released, first and only album — Disenchantment — stashed away shyly in my parents’ attic. One copy still sits proudly in my studio and one copy remains a permanent resident in my car’s CD player.
I listened to it today driving home through the hills of Aubagne. I had been on a mission to pick up some new furniture for my humble home studio and got to wondering — perhaps there’s more songs in this old sea dog yet…
I wrote Caramel Dreams whilst riding cross-country trains during a stay in Poland. I was visiting my girlfriend at the time family home up in Gdynia on the Baltic north coast and had travelled alone from Kraków via Łódź.
I spent a great deal of this time listening to live Grateful Dead shows (big love to Cornell 5/8/77), reading Beach Boys biographies and admiring the vast countryside panoramas of the Polish countryside — enjoying a somewhat nomadic adventure in a land I knew very little about.
“A serene sojourn through the gloaming, clear star-flecked skies above, campfires in the wilderness with sparks living trails across the retina, sunrise/sunset over environments that can never be tamed, the human condition internalised then spat out, a contemplation of all this infinitesimal and infinite”
sonic masala
Looking back on those days past and the many hours devoted to sculpting, scribbling, tracking and destroying, crafting and grafting tirelessly to find our sound — I didn’t know then what I know now…
What appears as a beautiful blossom of nostalgia in my thoughts, a soft incense from the past that occasionally visits, reminds me of a time when we were free to discover and experiment together in a way that neither of us had done before, and may never do again...
With the passage of time comes the development of our self, and the anchoring of it towards others. Drifting nearer and further apart, our orbits widen — partners change, children arrive, people relocate — priorities is a word that seems to take up a great deal of cerebral space in your 30s.
I have dedicated many years of my life to music making — and though I never attached myself to an identity confined to being strictly a musician — I’ve found myself often questioning the wisdom of the path.
As I drift towards middle age, I find myself asking myself the direction that music making is heading. As AI integrates and engrains itself further into the process of writing, producing and recording for the modern musician — I find within the melee of artistic expression, attention seeking promotion and gut wrenchingly cringy content creation, a disorientating ennui brews.
Someone who has a great voice on this subject is Shawn Reynaldo who writes First Floor — a highly recommended source for music news, culture insight and the industry that surrounds it.
“As workers whose livelihood is already precarious to begin with, this is far from ideal, but considering that bookings are now routinely based on follower counts and lowered barriers to entry have made the music landscape more competitive than ever before, most artists feel compelled to play the social media game regardless. In a cultural ecosystem that’s absolutely saturated with content offerings and voices (only some of which are actually creative) loudly pleading for attention, maintaining some level of visibility has become absolutely essential for artists, and those hoping to build or sustain any sort of long-term viability have to find a way to forge a real connection—or at least something that feels like real connection—with the people who actually care about and support their work.”
I didn’t set out to assassinate an already wounded industry, nor did I wish to contribute further negative energy into a world that seems in certain need of the opposite.
I won’t make any commitments or promises here to myself or to you as readers (we all have enough of those and don’t need the pressure of a new year to create more) but here’s to hoping I find a few more songs in the bag somewhere down the line…
Until my next mystic rendezvous with six strings —
Now I feel smaller though grows my age
Listen to elders interpret their ways
Don’t spend your whole life in Caramel Dreams
Sweetest intentions are not what they seem
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Thank you for being here with me.
Mat
🌻