The Various Assortments - Paul Program - Keiron Standfield -
Chris Garnett original unsigned ambient
electronic rock music band from Liskeard in Cornwall
The Various Assortments More Songs From The Moon (TVA Records TVA007)
as heard on BBC Radio Cornwall
available on CD
&
download from
iTunes
01 Moon
Under Water 1
02 Moonscape 1 (Green And Pleasant Land)
03 Moonscape 2 (Mercury Moon)
04 Moonscape 3 (Space Bass)
05 Moonscape 4 (Through The Eyes)
06 Mexican Moon
07 Moonscape 5 (Hi Life)
08 Moon Under Water 2
09 Earth On Fire
10 Moonscape 6 (Another Day On The Moon)
11 Last Days On The Moon
12 Moon Under Water (Radio Edit)
13 Last Days On The Moon (Radio Edit)
More Songs From The Moon. The new
album from
The Various Assortments is available now on
iTunes
Featuring guest appearances
from
Martin Baxter, Steven Ayres and Ben Garnett
"That's great... a bit of madness" Richard & Judy
Show, Channel 4, April 2004
"Your songs remind me of a child's
drawing. I'm really surprised at how good Cher
Practised Coldplay is. I've heard it 3 times now and I always get loads of ideas listening to it. Well done" Keith
Levene, Public
Image Ltd, via
text, Aug
2005
"like
John
Shuttleworth on acid... I, for one, are sold on their cutesy,
knowing mannerisms" Backbone, 24/7 Magazine, Feb 2006
"Paul
Program is the jingle writer of a generation" Ryan
Hooper, Cornish Times, 2007
"Obvious
reference points, The Fall, Half Man Half Biscuit, Captain
Sensible, Kevin Ayers... I've seen a lot of bands and your
songs are really good" Attila The Stockbroker, April
2008
"I've
had that fucking
Wake Up song going round in my head all
day" Kunt & The Gang, May 2008
"The
Various Assortments are like a supermodel, you can drape any old rags over a supermodel and they will still look
good" Rick Prescott, Southampton, June 2008
"Like your stuff -
love the sixties vibe" Martin Rushent, Berkshire, May 2011
Ten things you never knew about More Songs From
The Moon
1. The album is a sequel to the
unreleased album Songs From Moon
2. The lyrical theme was inspired by a Western Morning News article
entitled "Moonscape is a green and pleasant land once more"
3. All the songs subtitled Moonscape are adapted from the same
initial piece of music
4. Except Hi Life, which is subtitled Moonscape 5 for no real reason
5. The album was recorded variously in two different home studios
and in various locations using two different laptops
6. Steven Ayres' pocket trumpet solo on Mexican Moon is a ten minute
unedited live take
7. Many melodic elements reoccur throughout the album. In classical
music, this is known as interpolation
8. Almost every track has been played by DJ David White on his BBC Radio Cornwall's BBC
Introducing show
9. None of the tracks have so far been performed live
10. The album was solely written in Liskeard, Cornwall using Sonar,
Reason and Reaper and mastered in Sound Forge
Initially inspired by a Western Morning
News article about the regeneration of the “moonscape” chalk pits at
Bodmin Moor, the Various Assortments set out initially to make an
ambient electronic album. As the music progressed, their natural pop
sensibility crept in and lyrics and choruses were added, along with
more avant garde elements such as jazz trumpet, techno beats, slide
guitar, acoustic guitar and harmonica.
The brain children
behind the project, Keiron Standfield and Paul Program, composed
most of the material with Chris Garnett adding space rock guitars
and harp which were then laboriously recomposed via computer. All
three then wrote lyrics for the project. Additional contributions
came from Martin Baxter (saxophone), Steven Ayres (trumpet) and Ben
Garnett (programming).
The Various Assortments
have been busy in the studio since retiring from live performance
last year. Stripped down to a three piece, they have been holed up
in their various studios across Liskeard working simultaneously on
four different recording projects: a contemporary sociopolitical
album called Great Britain; a plastic soul Motown tinged album
telling the story of a relationship from start to end; a satirical
musical called Pies, and this, their first release on iTunes,
entitled More Songs From The Moon.
Western Morning
News Advance Promo CD Cornish Times
More Songs From The
Moon - How It Happened
by
Keiron Standfield
In
the summer of 2011 whilst working on keyboard parts for the track
Here On The Moon, I accidentally came across 8 chords that would not
only be the genesis of MSFTM but also split TVA apart.
Although played at our last gig in The Barley Sheaf, Liskeard, this
piece of music, at the time being used as an intro to Here On The
Moon, general disinterest towards it and a so-called new direction,
plus numerous other factors caused both Martin Baxter and Steven
Ayres to leave the band. Tim Young never officially left, but work
and other music interests left just Paul Program, (at the time part-time)
guitarist Chris, and myself.
During this period many other tracks of a psychedelic ambient nature
were worked on, some I haven't heard since those rehearsals, and
some which are gone forever (hard-drive failure) were recorded for a
potential ambient album. Paul managed to use Steven Ayres’ trumpet
from one of our last jams to create Mexican Moon, which is the only
track from this era to make the More Songs From The Moon album. Fast
forward to January 2012 and for reasons many, I too left TVA. At the
time I thought this was for the best, however something wasn’t right
and in April 2012 began work on "Moon 2" which eventually became
Moon Under Water. After Paul accepted my request to rejoin the band
(which took a good few days...) I also worked on what would later
become Last Days On The Moon (thanks to Chris' vocals and guitars).
Months later
in November 2012, I started two new tracks (the other would later
become
Wonderful) and thought it would be a laugh to put some of Martin
Baxter's old sax on one of them. I played him an early version and he was
happy with it. The next night at the Red Lion, inspired by the Western
Morning News moonscape article, Paul added a vocal top line (some how I got
the credit for this?!) and the day after I recorded it, and Chris added
guitar.
This
should have been the end of the story however due to a large number of
disused tracks, including some from Chris' son Ben Garnett, part 2, then 3,
then 4 all followed in quick succession. Paul suggested tweaking an earlier
half finished demo Hi Life to go on "an album of moonscapes and moon under
waters". Paul primarily worked on Moon Under Water 1 and 2, plus the album's
big moment Moonscape 6 (Another Day On The Moon) which was again based on
material Chris and Ben added to my original demo, not to mention the
artwork.
In
early 2013 Paul began another project, Great Britain while Chris and I
busied ourselves with Earth On Fire, and what would become Dayglow Daydream.
By May
the album was near completion and only 3 tracks were remixed (Moonscape 6,
Moon Under Water 2 and Earth On Fire) and the final disc was compiled by
December 2013. On the eve of January 15th 2014 the album was uploaded to
iTunes, and a CD followed in May.
Although More Songs From The Moon may not be our most commercial work, it is
a finished article (rare for the Assortments), and as of November 2014 is
still getting airplay on BBC Radio Cornwall.
So far The Various Assortments have been
compared to the likes of The Beatles, The Rutles, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Small Faces,
doo wop, Lou Reed & The Velvet Underground, The Pink Floyd, Roxy Music, David Bowie,
Brian Eno, Frank Zappa, Kevin Ayers, The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band,
Wings, Frank Spencer, The War Of The Worlds, Billy Liar,
Grease, Tom Petty, Jilted John, John Shuttleworth on acid, Frank Sidebottom, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks,
The Ramones, The Queers, The Buzzcocks, Buddy Holly, Pere Ubu,
XTC, The Fall, Squeeze, Blancmange, Depeche Mode, OMD, Gary Numan, Madness,
Captain Sensible, Howard Jones (!), Adam Ant solo (!!), The Buggles, Kate Bush, Madness,
Julian Cope & The Teardrop Explodes,
Half Man Half Biscuit, the 60s, the early 80s, the late 80s, plink plonk music, The Dukes Of Stratosphere, Mr Bungle, They Might Be Giants, The Lightning Seeds, Blur, Pulp,
Super Furry Animals, The Frogs, The Weakerthans, The Streets,
Gorillaz, a cockney Bob Dylan,
and a bedroom Kaiser Chiefs.
Conversely, Laura by The Scissors Sisters has been compared to The Various
Assortments, as has Creeping Up The Backstairs by The Fratellis,