Ithaca: These songs try to capture the beginning half of 2024. During a period of creativity when the musical muses visited often, I wrote a lot of songs – folk songs became another project and rock songs became the basis for this album. Its not strictly a concept album, but these songs do follow a narrative arc, beginning with hopes and dreams, documenting little vignettes of expectations, then the reality, and finally closure. I took inspiration from the journey of Odysseus. Finding or reaching Ithaca became a central theme of the album, as a metaphor for searching for a home.
‘Indie Rock’ is a broad musical category – which gives you a lot of colours to play around with. I tried to use synths and reverb in a different way with these songs, whilst not straying too far from the Lost Penguinos ‘sound’. ‘The Interlude’ is a definite nod to the 60s and Jimi Hendrix and just a bit of fun for the middle of the album, but there are little moments inspired by a range of artists such as Greenday, The Beatles, U2, The Beach Boys, Love of Lesbian and The Cure. As is often the case, these fleeting moments might not be noticeable – but I know where they are…
Lyrically this album was a challenge – its always the most difficult part for me and this time I was pushing two different directions – the first aim was to be more raw, simple and direct, with the hope that these lines or phrases would be less cryptic and would connect with more people. The second aim was to try more of a storyteller angle when appropriate. Take a bit more time and try and stick with a metaphor consistently for a verse or two. Unlike the ‘When This is Over’ album I wasn’t trying to do anything different or unexpected with form, structure or arrangement with these songs. The lyrics are more of a driving force and the hooks serve these lyrics. I didnt want the arrangements to get in the way of, or to divert or dilute the message, meaning and intension of the songs. I think to summarise, the focus of this Lost Penguinos effort is clarity.
These songs were born out of a fairly difficult time, and gave me a creative focus for which I’m grateful to the muses for their repeat visits – wether it was a melody that arrived when sitting on the sofa holding a guitar, or a phrase that popped into my head crossing a busy road. They were threads to follow and pull at to see where they would lead to. Sometimes the muses are like that – they can give you a whole song in 10 minutes, or a little piece of a thread to pull at for a month.
The songs were mixed and mastered whilst travelling in Spain, the UK, Japan and Peru over a seven month period. In a similar way to the threads of continuity between the tracks, they gave me a constant, an anchor point wherever I was in the world. They were fun to write and record and I hope you enjoy listening to this new batch of Lost Penguinos songs as much.
Find the lyrics and stories behind the songs below: