Aidan John Moffat's newest solo album, "I Can Hear Your Heart" is being released by Chemikal Underground on February 19, 2008.
If you always thought Aidan Moffat was the dirty one in Arab Strap, prepare to be proved right. I Can Hear Your Heart is a collection of Moffat’s intimate poems and stories set to sound collages, song snippets and crackles.
“I’ve wanted to do an album like this for years but never really had the time,” says Moffat. “I started it a few years ago so most of the poems are very old. When I decided to finally finish the album, it seemed like an old diary and painted a picture of the young man I used to be and the whole thing seemed to make sense and come together then.”
More of an audio novel than a musical album, I Can Hear Your Heart begins with a printed story, Poop, to be read and digested before the 24-track audio portion, Loop. “The idea was to get the listener more involved, to put my thoughts in their head right away,” explains Moffat. “The printed word is the closest connection you can have with an audience - a direct line to their mind.”
Moffat cites Ivor Cutler and William Burroughs as inspirations for making his first spoken word album, but there are things in here that could make Charles Bukowski blush. Even compared to Arab Strap’s famously frank lyrics, I Can Hear Your Heart is astonishingly raw.
“I did actually blush a couple of times the last time I listened to it, but it’s really the thoughts and mistakes of a different man, a younger and idiotic me that has thankfully since grown up, so I find that I can just laugh at myself,” says Moffat, who admits he hasn’t been in a rush to pass copies on to friends and family. “My girlfriend keeps asking to hear it but I’ve managed to talk my way out of it so far,” he says.
Moffat released his debut solo album, 2002’s Hypnogogia, as Lucky Pierre, which was shortened to L. Pierre for future releases Touchpool (2005) and Dip (2007). I Can Hear Your Heart is the first album released under Moffat’s true name. “I’m not even sure that Aidan John Moffat and L. Pierre are the same person,” he says.Now 34 and living in Glasgow, Moffat currently has a number of musical projects on the go, including his new band Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs, who plan to release an album in 2008. At forthcoming solo performances, Moffat plans to mix music with readings, “a nice, relaxed ‘Evening With Aidan Moffat’-type thing,” he says. But don’t worry if you don’t get a chance to hear the material live, because I Can Hear Your Heart comes with instructions about how best to enjoy it: “In bed, with headphones, preferably with a hangover.”
|
