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New Theme to Still at Large [single]

by The Creeping Things

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1.
...Good. He comes. It is night. The time has come. He comes. He is in the sea. Under the cover of foul and fair night. Standing in the sea. Squinting at the lights of the dark blasted land. Good. Up to his neck in the tidal swells. He has lain low with the eels in the Stygian marsh for many cloud-wracked moons. Dying for a snout and a biscuit. He is breathing the filthy air of thick night. Sunk in the black and deep ooze with his sea-vermin brethren. Eating crab guts. Shitting with the otters in the lapping brine. He has not slept, so aflame is he with yearning. Spent is he, pissed out into the ditch, into the woeful bay. He could murder a custard slice. The bollock-numbing sea water sends him off nicely. Into his hyperthermal visions of great doom. The light, the brightness thereof. They can say what they like, the jewel-tongued angels. He is not afeard of words. They won’t take him alive. Repeat. The words. They won’t take him alive. He has a strange intelligence. For many moons he has fought the good fight. He has nearly finished the course. The time, as he would say, cometh. Sometimes he hides out in the woods. A great lumbering insect. Formicating with the creeping things in the fetid mulch. He wants to burrow into eternity like an accursed blind-worm. Always did. Repeat. Formicating. It means crawling. Always crawled around the countryside as a boy. He loved the fetor of dead birds on his faux suede cowboy waistcoat. He doesn’t remember. The past is dead unto him. He loved to watch Robin of Loxley in bed, egg nog on his wee wee sores. Eating pilfered speciality sweetmeats. Robin Hood the black and white TV show. The repeats. His mam took him and his weird sister to Surrey. Where they filmed it. No dad. His mam took him. She wanted to see a few Lutyens houses in the area. An English vernacular enthusiast, his mam was. The chip-board Castle they built for the Robin Hood filming was still there, crab apples growing through it to the real-blue sky. It is gone, the past. For him. Obliterated. Crept round the back he did, climbed the wooden struts to eat the stridently acidulous fruit. His mam belted him for that. Many pilgrimages, many smitings, her eyes burning, his legs bleeding. He murdered the memories. No love there. She put egg nog on the lesions. He is on the lam. As they say in old American films. Unafraid is he, of fatal words. They were onto his filthy scent. Because he stinks of wee wee. Always did. But now he thinks the stench of the black sea water will mask his redolence. Poor thing. He never checks the tide tables. Doesn’t need to. Likes to squirm in the black mephitic seaweed. Sucking mussels. He is a seeker. Back from the Crusades seeking the true light is he. Writhing towards the chattering screech-knell of the fulmar bird. Towards the Castle. To see it one final time. It will be his last place. There will be a great brightness, when his agony will be released into the globe of fire. He could kill for a bowl of Advocaat and frosted flakes. But he dyed his mams tights green with absynthe and tinned spinach. Feared by the bad, loved by the good. Robin Hood. He watched in his tights with his cheeks stuffed with almond macaroons. It’s all dead and buried. They filmed some of it in this neck of the woods. Lindesfarne Castle was there, Robin riding up to it. An establishing shot. He is loved. He knows. He is loved by the good. And enveloped in the stinking swells of vulgar conceit. Used to think marshmallows were ghost droppings. But he kept the bloody faith. Once upon a time there was a pretty fly, He had a pretty mam, this pretty fly. But one day she flew away, flew away. He had to come back here. To hide out in the primeval sea-muck with the slithering things. Dying for a pink wafer and a snout. Been hunted by all of woman born, he has, been hunted all his life. He is a hunter now. Establishing shots. Of direful castles. That was why his mam took them on holidays round here, him and his sister. The castles were from the films and TV. She had an interest in English architectural traditions, his mam. Liked to take slides. Gave him his love for places. For buildings. But he can’t look at them, the slides. The dead moments in their dusty boxes. Can’t look. Upon the marzipan was a pretty fly, But he was all alone, this pretty fly. So one day he flew away, flew away, Into the sky, Into the moon. Establishing shots are not used much nowadays. In films. These days they need to get the plot moving. They can’t wait, they have to get on with the blood, the violence. Shame really. He can’t go back. There’s nothing there. One holiday his mam took him and his sister to Holy Island, to see the castle and pick up a bottle of the local mead. They stumbled on the set of a film about an American gangster on the run, who takes the castle dwellers hostage. The gangster spends the whole film waiting for his boss to come and save him. Its the perfect spot, of course it is, for a getaway, an abscond, a decamp. His mam took slides of it all. The actors, the cameras, the bright lights. A thriller in the style of Samuel Beckett. That was the idea. The dead past, all dead. The gangster’s boss never came. They stayed and watched all day, into the night. At the foot of the castle walkway they filmed the last scene, when the fugitive gangster gets shot and the white Jag explodes in the summer night. They’ve been wiped out. The memories. He got shot around 10 times, the gangster did, he had to keep going into a tent to change into a fresh white shirt. The Jaguar lit up the whole island when it went up, it was like a globe of fire, rising up to the heavens. He thinks its dead and buried, all of it. But it’s funny, it’s all there, in those slides. Not the past. The future. That’s what he would see in the slides. If he could look at them. They can mock him all they like. He will come, like the fatal tourist he is. They will take him seriously. He is still staring from the waves, still staring, day-dreaming about various sweet oblivious butterscotch flavoured products. A new life, he whispers unto himself. Towards the light he comes. He stares at the spot where the owner of the castle shoots the gangster at the end of the film. The castle-owner was trying to escape from himself, he was trying to start a new life of kite flying and Sunday painting. A new life, he whispers into the waves. He stares from the sea at the redness of the gangster’s blood-bloomed white shirt when the castle-owner blasts it with lead. It was a black and white film, but he can see the crimson gush pouring out, flooding the shirt, surging down the side of the hill, staining the very sea, and every swimming thing thereof. He is in the film now. Of course he is. He can taste the sweet blood in the seawater. The Jaguar lights up the bay. He sees the castle-owner crying like a bairn by the newly-crimson bay. His new life never came. It was such a shame. She mocked him. But she will take him seriously now. It will be his last place. It had to be here. The past is gone. Dead as photographs. Apart from here. Once upon a time there was a pretty fly, He had a pretty mam, this pretty fly. But one day she flew away, flew away. The past is alive here. He gazes at the ridiculous lights on the dark slaughterous land. He laughs. He remembers here. A Golgotha flooded with fervent golden blood. Good. Good. Bleed, bleed. The castle is like a beached black freighter in the darkness. Is it real or is it a set made for the film? He hallucinates a charming fishing boat made of shortbread. He vomits more seawater. He regrets not what he did. She had it coming to her. She pulled the trigger as much as he did. Blood everywhere. He can’t go back. Nothing there. But he remembers here. He remembers here. Why has he come back? He is here now. Get on with it. He is here now. Upon the marzipan was a pretty fly, But he was all alone, this pretty fly. So one day he flew away, flew away, Into the sky, Into the moon. The great brightness, the burning light, ascending, ascending. Good, Good. All bollocks, the lot of it. No Robin Hood castles, no holy islands, no burning Jag, no style of Samuel Beckett, no blood everywhere. All bollocks. Just the story that you want to be told. That’s all. So tell it. Go on. Get on with it. The protagonist has to keep going. You know that. Even if he is in a melodrama told by a witless idiot. He has to keep running. Running back, running away. Keep running. There’s nothing else. Good. And he knows that his audience needs the bloodshed for the story to be told, they will pull the trigger as much as he will. Why this torment? Why have you forsaken him to this? He will play it out. Once upon a time there was a pretty fly, He had a pretty mam, this pretty fly. But one day she flew away, flew away. Knowing no alternative. You don’t love us anymore. Good good good. Blood will have blood. The bloody shirt. The burning car. Let it come down. Light up the bay. Keep running. There’s nothing else. He can see a brightness. There are waves of blood, rising up. He will play it out. Keep running. A brightness. A globe of fire. Waves of blood. Arise bright light. Tell the story. Keep faith. Ascending. Running. Ascending. Sweetmeats. Get on with it! Bright light comes. Ascending. Running. You don’t love us anymore. Witless fucking idiot! Play it out! A great brightness! Lift up your eyes! Ascending! Ascending! Oh golden blood! Ascending! Upon the marzipan was a pretty fly, But he was all alone, this pretty fly. So one day he flew away, flew away, Into the sky, Into the...

about

This track was conceived as an alternative, disruptive soundtrack to the now deleted YouTube video ‘Still at Large – Holy Island’, an essay film about Lindisfarne, UK, presented by architecture writer Nicholas Still. The Creeping Things (aka Lola de Witte-Still of Berwick-upon-Tweed and Berlin) made her own (unsolicited) version of the video, with her disturbing soundtrack imposed on top of it. When we came across this relentless and compelling piece of music and wordage we persuaded Lola to allow us to release it as The Creeping Things’ first UK single release. We are also chuffed to be exclusively hosting the new video on Owd Scrat Records’ Vimeo channel.

The female monologue on the track (which de Witte-Still claims is not her own recording but was sent to her via an anonymous WeTransfer link in 2015) remorselessly intones about a male figure on the run from an unspoken crime. This figure is up to his neck in the sea, in the manner of St. Cuthbert, who liked inducing trances by the chill of the water. Over de Witte-Still’s relentless motorik beat and haunted analogue synths (not unlike Neu!-mode Stereolab backing a robotic David Tibet) the voice chants of the fugitive’s many ‘hyperthermal’ apocalyptic reveries, until the monologue seemingly drowns in its own twisted poetic vitriol. The voice, and the figure it describes, both seem to be hunting for something or someone. Are they aiming their threatening intent towards Still himself? Interestingly, Nicholas Still has not made any public appearances since the new version of his video was posted. Thanks to Melanie Dagg, Berwick Visual Arts, Paul Rooney and Richard Stephenson Winter.

“The Creeping Things. This is a compulsive, thrilling, unnerving track… it’s powerful stuff.” Verity Sharp, Late Junction (BBC Radio 3). 22/5/2018.

“New from the Owd Scrat label which is I think rapidly challenging Kythibong as my favourite label in the world… They’ve got a couple of new releases that are fantastic, one of them’s that one, The Creeping Things.” Mark Whitby (Dandelion Radio). May 2018.

“…it’ s produced by The Creeping Things, it’s a soundtrack produced for a film, as an alternative soundtrack to the one that’s actually there…” Roger Hill, PMS (BBC Radio Merseyside).12/3/2018.

credits

released April 9, 2018

℗ 2018 OWD SCRAT RECORDS © 2018 OWD SCRAT RECORDS

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