First Brainlove Record of 2012: Andrew Paul Regan’s The Signal And The Noise (4th June)
aaamusic | On 06, May 2012
This is the first Brainlove Records release of 2012, and one of just three or four albums that the label will put out in 2012.
Andrew Paul Regan might be a new name to many, but there’s a long history behind the project. Those fifteen letters are the unscrambled version of “Pagan Wanderer Lu”, an anagrammatically-derived pseudonym Regan operated under between 2000-2010, releasing several albums and EPs, and touring widely. “It just felt like the right time for a change,” says Regan. “Ten years with a daft name is enough.”
Now he’s back with “The Signal And The Noise”, the first Brainlove release to be announced in 2012. It isn’t a concept album, but it’s an album full of concepts.
Listen to Andy talk about the record on the Brainlove Radio Show:
From ‘cargo cults’ to spy technology, and from the rise of machines to discovering long lost siblings or the problems of viewing the past through rose-tinted lenses, each of it’s ten songs is rooted in a small fiction. But amongst these seemingly disparate vignettes and ideas there are threads of continuity that tangle with Regan’s exciting, immediate pop songwriting. “The record as a whole is about how human beings seek out narratives as a way to understand the world,” says Regan, “and also about what happens when these cherished stories start to sit uncomfortably with reality, or break down completely.”
“The Signal And The Noise” is a progression from the last Pagan Wanderer Lu record, “European Monsoon”. That reviews of that record picked up on it’s creative indie-pop sensibility, it’s ambitious lyrical and musical complexity, and the grand, expansive centrepiece that Sufjan Stevens would be proud of: an epic song with an epic title (“God in his wisdom and compassion spares the Mona Lisa from being engulfed by the dying sun”), about entropy and the end of the cosmos.
Fusing such big subjects to indelibly catchy, memorable songs is no mean feat, and it was a challenge to find where to go next, especially lyrically. “I felt like I’d already written a song about everything there was – even the various things that are predicted might happen when the universe ends” explains Regan. “So, I thought I’d turn to fiction for inspiration, make up stories to go in the songs. Some of the stories are from real life – the John Frum cargo cult is real, it’s part of a group of small tribes like the one that worships Prince Philip. Checker Charley is inspired by a character from the first Kurt Vonnegut novel, but in my version it’s murdered… Mistakes Our Parents Made is an instalment in a story I began years ago in other songs, about an unlikely couple; this one’s from the point of view of their children.”
The album’s title, “The Signal and The Noise”, refers to the density of information in the internet age. “The ‘noise’ is how of I think of the phenomenon of information overload”, says Regan, “so the ‘signal’ is the bit you want. The key line here is ‘every single voice is both the signal and the noise’ from The Omniscient Narrator – that was a lyric before it was the album title, but it summed the central idea up beautifully.”
The album also features strings by David Madoc Roberts and Eleanor Tyrell, and a guest vocal appearance by Liz Hunt of Cardiff indie-pop band The School, adding softer sonic counterpoints to the dense electronics. But at their heart, these ten songs are simple, accessible and pared back “alt-pop”. “On this album the lyrics are the focus,” says Regam. “I like music which is clever, unusual and has pop thrills, so that’s what I aim for.”
Tracklist:
1. John Frum Will Return
2. Checker Charley
3. Mistakes Our Parents Made
4. The Omniscient Narrator
5. The Easy Road
6. Spy Numbers
7. One Time Pad
8. Infinite Babies
9. The Good Old Days
10. In Potential
LIVE DATES:
26th May Brainlove Festival, Brixton Windmill, London
UK tour dates to follow.
