In case the ongoing frightfest that is 2020 hasn’t given you the chills just yet, the latest release from MICKO & THE MELLOTRONICS is here to put ‘The Fear’ in you… A swirling carnival ride of luminous visions, ghoulish brass sections and a foreboding eeriness; this is a song to heighten the senses.
Feel the fear and go with it, feel the fear and flow with it; live each day as if it were your last…” So sings Micko Westmoreland on ‘The Fear’, a spooky and psychologically probing new cut from the London based art-punk collective.
Though initially penned some three years ago, ‘The Fear’ rumbles with incantations of imminent apocalypse and quakes with a tangible feeling of paranoia. The track finds Micko ruminating on phobia and philosophical ideas of freewill, while offering wise words for what may seem like the end of the world.’
‘I was looking to both affirm the positive and compound the idea that unknowns are negative.’ says Micko. ‘I have an author friend in the states called Georg Eifert, who’s an eminent psychologist. He wrote a book called ‘anxiety happens’, which I was reading at the time. So a lot of those theories and ideas came into play and influenced the writing.’
Like that abandoned fairground in a teen horror movie, ‘The Fear’ poses an irresistible melee of wonky rhythms, mechanical guitar stutters and off-kilter horns that will both set you on edge and compulsively draw you in. Featuring the instinctively unsettling playing skills of former Banshees / The Bat Cave axeman and now full-time Mellotronics member Jon Klein; Micko also reached out to long-term collaborators Terry Edwards (Sax/Trumpet) and Dylan O’Bates (Violin) to design ‘The Fear’ with a distinctly creepy “nursery rhyme” feel in mind for the track. “I wanted the song to have a perilous feel” says Micko, “to try and capture a superstitious dread but to temper that with the defiant optimism of the message.”
Stitching together the Mellotronics’ arch new-wave nous with the graveyard strut brought by Edwards and the strung-out string sections of O’Bates, the resultant track is a formidable freakshow of sounds that will seep into your bones and haunt your headspace long after the needle has left the groove.
Micko & The Mellotronics is the latest project from Micko Westmoreland, whose key role in the cult 90s movie ‘Velvet Goldmine’ continues to gain praise as the film continues to be screened regularly across the globe. Micko’s music, under his own name and as The Bowling Green, has been released by labels as illustrious as Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records, Blue Planet, Spiky and Terry Edwards’ Sartorial stable.
As well-connected in film & TV, as they are in the music biz, Micko & The Mellotronics have already released a number of entertaining videos, featuring some very special guests. 2019 debut single ‘The Finger’ witnessed an appearance from Little Britain actor Paul Putner, whereas 2020 follow-up ‘Noisy Neighbours‘ also guested an appearance from Susy Kane (The I.T. Crowd, Gavin & Stacey, Saxondale, Extras). Pairing ‘Noisy Neighbours’ with ‘You Killed My Father’ (featuring the legendary Neil Innes of The Rutles/Monty Python/Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band), the two tracks were released as an AA-side 7” vinyl, released earlier this Summer and available to order here.
Currently putting the finishing touches to their long awaited debut album, the band further tease the release with the latest cut from it: ‘The Fear’. Packed with Jarvis-esque lyrical quips, pitch-black humour and a gleeful sense of experimentation, ‘The Fear’ is another dangerously enjoyable insight into what to expect.
MICKO & THE MELLOTRONICS – ‘THE FEAR’
– OUT NOW, VIA LANDLINE RECORDS