The Man That Things Weren't Meant To Know

H P Lovecraft was an American horror writer at the beginning of the 20th century. He's been extraordinarily influential on horror & sci-fi literature - not because of his prose style (which leaves much to be desired) or his characterisation (which is practically non-existent) or for his attitudes towards race (which are repellent), but because of the scope & the sweep of his imagination. Instead of an ordered universe with some benevolent deity, Lovecraft's stories describe a vast & uncaring cosmos peopled with hideous, vast, tentacled alien monstrosities who might as well be gods. They're not exactly evil, in any conventional sense; often they don't even notice the likes of humanity, let alone care about them. Sometimes described as "blind & idiotic", these beings might destroy the world without even noticing. What Lovecraft created was a mythology for the scientific materialist age, where these creatures are metaphors for the impersonal forces of nature upon whose caprices our safety & sanity depend.

The reason for mentioning all this is that, over the course of 2010, it's occurred to me that the world makes a lot more sense if you assume that our world leaders, bankers, CEOs of big corporations, the great & the good, are all in fact in league with these creatures, worshipping them & planning to deliver humanity into their clutches.

This album is also, amongst other things, a meditation upon life in England during the current escalating Great Recession - & indeed, what it even means to be English these days.

From a production point of view, this album builds upon the sound of (Batteries Not Invented), but with the addition of a 12-string guitar rather than a standard 6-string. I've found that it sounds a great deal fuller - having decided to strip down Mirrorkill's music to its acoustic bare essentials, it's rather like suddenly having an effects pedal again.

The track Shoggoths' Pseudopods In Ectoplasm is a Lovecraftian take on a King Crimson track, Larks' Tongues In Aspic. Trans-Albionic Existential Boogie builds on the riff from a Frank Zappa song, Debra Kadabra, & features lyrical references to English folk ballad Matty Groves, Killing Joke's New Culture, Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, & the appalling experience of travelling on Virgin Trains. & Xpider owes a great debt to Rush, an heroically uncool Canadian prog-rock band who I've loved forever, & specifically to their stunning track La Villa Strangiato.

The album & track title of The Man That Things Weren't Meant To Know came from a friend of mine by the name of Art who, in the course of what passes for normal conversation in my circles, had cause to use the phrase "the things that man wasn't meant to know" & tripped over his words. This probably offers as much insight into my creative processes as I've ever given anyone.

Please be warned that Mirrorkill cannot be held responsible for any local reality perturbations, or for the rampaging denizens of any dimensional portals which may manifest as a result of listening to these works.