If you have endured these posts you would have heard an awful lot of talk about structure, names and experiments with organisation. It’s probably been tedious reading but I think it’s good to document how ideas struggle for relevance and (more hopefully) respect. Personally I like reading about small ideas became mainstream – and how mainstream falls into oblivion (Kodak?). It’s better than most fiction.
Looking back to 2020 you’ll see the designed end of ‘Severed Heads’ (several attempts actually), a complete rename/relaunch that sailed into the COVID era, followed by much fussing and fiddling to little avail. ‘Nilamox’ has been a negation (not a progression) which could not land a punch. Not long after I needed to sell an idea to a festival and borrowed from the name Paul Barker Sound System from the 2019 tours, adding a small reminder of ‘Severed’ and ended up with the alliterative Severed Sound System. The client demurred but the name remained. Then there was the idea of a Séance – again for a potential live event and again a false alarm (hang on to that for later) hence Severed Séance System. And then came a residency at ARUP from which I was able to develop Dolby ATMOS surround music – the Severed Surround System.
You look at these three triangles which conspire to make a larger triangle and you think – ‘why did I ever believe I was running the show?’. The birds always run the show, not you stupid human.
My partner and I will often debate what we are achieving artistically and why, which helps reach clarity and praise. In this discussion last night I described the elegant structure of the last three things I’d produced – a Sound System, a Séance and a Surround album. When asked about nilamox there was really nothing to praise.
Nilamox just lay down, smiled a little as if to say no hard feelings, and died. It’s always time to move on. To keep things simple this site will be reconfigured to be tomellard.com and the nilamox material will be absorbed in a some manner. Not everything is magically clear, but it seems better to start from the work itself to define the container, not the other way.
Another thing – I ran into Richard Fielding at the last gig (the other guy that came up with the name in 1979). He asked bluntly why I was so fussed about ‘Severed Heads’. There wasn’t really time for me to go with the whole history but – yeah – why fuss? It’s a stupid name but I don’t have to carpet bomb it.
Time Wasters
I’m quite amazed to be writing this, because it sounds so stupidly corporate. But the last few years have been difficult partly because of people who get in touch with opportunities that sound really exciting and I throw my soul into it. I don’t involve other people in my brain farts, but it feels like more people will send contracts or conduct lengthy interviews or author proposals … and then just wander off scratching their balls and whistling. Maybe they have good reason. But I have good reason to run a sanity check on the next ‘ideas guy’.
“You look at these three triangles…”
*Looks at the three triangles*.
Intriguing. I dunno, Tom, have you opened a gateway to the abysss with your Nilamoxian keys… or are you simply into home brewing now? 🤔 Birds… the birds ring a bell… in their cages perhaps… Tell me more about ze birds – zey conspire mit ze trienkles, ja?
Birds are available to everyone if there is opportunity. They come at times of their own choosing and can make seemingly unrelated ideas combine into a direction. So you may have this idea or that idea that alone are ineffectual – but once entwined they form a structure that gets you to a creative outcome. Only over the last few weeks the idea of a Séance connected with others to make a tripod on which I can mount many projects. Here’s another significant bird moment https://nilamox.com/we-go-to-the-moon/
If you prefer more control then Paranoid Critical actually works https://nilamox.com/paranoid-critical/
There will be complaints and posturing from the Zelda fanatics, maybe some spears and arrows but unfortunately no outrageous fortune. I am annoyed that there is no way the three phrases can be arranged in the design without colliding impossibly. The logo of six Ses denies overlapping expression to the titles with nine Ses.
Thank you for the reply. I had certainly heard of Dali’s PC approach, but just read up further on it. Bloody hell, Dali, you slapped your name all over *that*? Cheeky bugger. We should call him Salvador Alamy.
The sky is full of birds. It’s all birds, all the way down, at least until it’s fish (going by Escher: ‘Sky and Water I’ & ‘II’).
I like the idea of a “tripod” but am still not clear about the SSS sssignicance, other than that the epiphany suggests that you did not notice the pattern before, which would surprise me, since it seems so overt as to have been intentional, but then maybe that’s the point, and a relatable one at that.
Wonderful to hear the letter S triads revealing themselves! Oh those birds!