The music industry has a lot to answer for, it has the good stuff to answer for and more lately, the bad stuff. I am sure that each generation of music has been plagued by second rate piffle, even Bach must have had his opponents that would have made him baulk at every turn; and it’s one thing that these aural terrorists exist, but it’s another when the mainstream music industry and media champion these purveyors of cheap, plastic, throwaway, insignificant crap as the future of music. We are all well away of what is being shipped in order to make a quick buck, nobody is pulling the wool over our eyes, we know what is good, we know what is bad, we know what we like and we can live with the nonsense. As is always the case however, a garden covered in horse shit will eventually yield the green shoots of progress, and soon enough beauty will surge forth as roses bloom through the mire. We know it’s going to happen someday, and that is what makes it all bearable.

Gordon McIntyre is better known as the mainstay of ballboy, who have for the past five years or so crafted a back catalogue to be proud of, tales of hope and of love and of confidence, (and of the occasional lack of all three) set to sometimes delicate, sometimes searing guitar lead indie pop triumphs have been well received yet under-represented in the press and radio. It’s on this firm foundation that Gordon McIntyre launches his solo project ++Money Can’t Buy Music. The role of songwriter is obviously important, either that or he just has an unfettered natural ability to create stunningly effective, often heart warming, sometimes desperate lyrical slices of life set to a backdrop of always appropriate musical soundscapes. The words and the music go hand in hand in perfect harmony and demand the listeners attention.

We Will all asphyxiate is the first offering from which we can guage the direction of this project, and from it’s first swooping chimes and the sultry reading of Keplers Laws it draws you in, holds you there, and lets you in on a few home truths about love, of life and of planetary motion. It shows that there is only a fine line drawn between the principles of astronomical physics and the elements that tug and stretch our own heart strings so much. It’s the same for us all, the planets, the music, and you and I, we are all affected by the gravities, by the swooping, swinging motions that will give you that warm reassurance of belonging yet still manage to fill you with that heart in the mouth, stomach somewhere else terrifying thrill of a rollercoaster ride as we are thrown off course only to be drawn back in by the emotive forces that slung us skyward in the first place. Musically the track is a mini pseudo symphony which fits the sentiments of the lyric perfectly, it’s Holst for the modern man.

“And as we lie here and watch them spinning and turning and arcing  in the darkness, I wonder where they get their inspiration from”

Brought with the title track is We are all on our own when we fall, which comprises a rudimentary vinyl crackle, a lush finger picked guitar line and a tale of despondency, thinly veiled hope and inevitable resignation. It’s a track that would not have seemed out of place on ballboys The Sash My Father Wore album had it not been for the ethereal synthesised string break that swirls around the subject and soothes him into the repeating mantra outro of “...we’re all on our own when we fall...”, and you know something – maybe we are, but when songs like this provide the sound track then push me from the top of the multi-storey car park now.

An absolute delight.

As a polite aside, I am reliably informed that the issue of We will all asphyxiate will be limited to 500 copies, each of which will contain a handwritten line from a story penned by Gordon McIntyre himself on the cover, which the recipient will be invited to enter onto a blank page on the ++Money Can’t Buy Music website – when all these lines are compiled the story will be complete – genius.

++Money Can’t Buy Music can be seen on the internet here, and in real life playing live at The Arches in Glasgow on the 5^th November, and at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh on the 9^th November.

Check back next week for an interview with Gordon McIntyre!

Words by Johnny Mac
 

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