Tom recalls the development of No Side Effect’s new song ‘In Your Brain Right Now’
It is Spring 2014. I have just moved house from Newbury to Swindon. I feel a haze of tiredness most days because of a very intense conservation project I am working on and trying to unpack into our new home. It’s the weekend. I’ve just returned from leading a wildlife walk and I am exhausted, but the sun is shining and everything feels tranquil.
Adrian is standing on the drive as I arrive home in the car. He has a purposefulness in his eyes that I haven’t seen before. He’s arrived at my house so we can work on a new song.
He sent me a demo of this new song the week before. The demo was titled ‘A New Conversation’ and it was based around a sample of a Sam Harris lecture titled ‘Death and the Present Moment’. I’d never heard of the guy. When I first played the demo I wasn’t sure whether I was comfortable with it. I was worried we would end up sounding too much like Public Service Broadcasting.
Adrian and I go up to my little recording studio and I play through some of the guitar riffs I have been messing around with and Ade is pretty firm on which ones he likes. This song means a lot to him, I can tell. He sets himself up at the recording desk and tells me to start playing the guitar.
I play the guitar with complete freedom. Ade has control over the recording process so I don’t need to worry about doing it myself for the first time in years. I just dive into the repeating drum beats beneath Sam’s voice. I play for about two hours. Sweat is pouring off me and I feel a new type of exhaustion. Ade gives me a thumb’s up to tell me he is satisfied with my guitaring. I let out a sigh of relief and drop my bulky electric guitar to the floor.
‘Do you want to do some drums now?’ Ade asks.
I look at the drum kit in the corner, wondering where I can find the energy.
‘Give me second’ I say and I go downstairs to get a drink and wipe away some of the sweat.
‘How are you getting on?’ asks Ruth.
‘I think he’s trying to kill me.’ I say.
‘You could always have a break’ she says.
I consider it for a moment, maybe just stopping for the day, I have done quite a lot of stuff for one day. The wildlife walk seems like a distant memory.
‘No, I’m good, I’m good.’
I go back upstairs and leap onto the drums. Ade is still at the computer. There is a serenity about him, but an excitement beneath it all. You can almost see this song being created through his neural pathways.
‘Shall we do some more?’ he asks.
I re-adjust my posture and give him a nod. As the song starts I manage to find a beat that doesn’t really feel like it should make any sense, but I stick with it and I become lost in the drum kit. I don’t really have arms anymore, I just have drum sticks. I look to one side and Adrian has a camera. He’s leaning towards the drum kit taking pictures. It distracts me for a second, but I keep on the beat. I can feel the walls of the world opening up and I am not too sure what is happening. I have become Adrian’s instrument. He is somehow playing me.
I have played the drums for about an hour when Adrian gives me the thumbs up with a big smile. It’s done, it’s over. I feel my back crack as I get up from the drum stool. The room is warm and thick with sweat. I open the windows and doors and I stand for a while, panting, taking off my shirt and towelling myself down.
Adrian listens back to a few sections and he looks incredibly satisfied. He has a quick coffee and packs up his stuff and leaves the house. I stand at the doorway trying to understand what just happened. I think someone just dragged some music out of my chest.
The next time I hear the song it is nearly in its final form and we have renamed it ‘In Your Brain Right Now’ and I can’t remember playing a lot of the things I play. I hear elements of jazz in the song, which originally sounded more like a slow burning Underworld track and I don’t understand where these influences have come from. How the hell have we started playing jazz? I discuss this later with Ade and I discover that his Nan use to play jazz records to him when he was a kid.
Adrian also doesn’t fully understand where some of the influences came from, which leads me to conclude that this is the most No Side Effects song that we have recorded. It seems to transcend the two people that made it.
No Side Effects 