Silverman

SILVERMAN

Is Martin J Williams and Anna Dennis with co-conspirators Mark Rolfe, Paul Treby, Alan Deacon + Steve Moody.

Collapsed under the weight of our own insecurity we walked away from each other 10 years ago, but as Stud Brother Dom Wills writes:

“Some music has to be made. It cannot be ignored, forgotten, pushed to the back of the mind and left to die where most dreams die. No matter what barriers oppose its creation, no matter how uncomfortable its birth, it will out.

So it is with Silverman's Onno, conceived in the deep darkness of crushing disappointment, brought to life by sheer artistic necessity. Its strange sounds could spring only from oppressive alienation: its lacerating honesty only from years of bludgeoning experience and aggressive self-examination: its sweetness and beauty only from a very human desire to live, really live, and a belief that life, real life, is really possible for us all.

What a long journey into night it was. Straggle-headed youngsters mixing AC/DC with Simon & Garfunkel. Pretentious, ambitious, paragons of small-town cool. Utterly shit. A surprise publishing deal. Big fish leap from small pond into national waters and are consumed. A new band, talented, exciting, more substantial. An album with legendary nut-job Kim Fowley. A manager shared with hitmakers Embrace. Big in Japan but poor, so very poor. Steam runs out. Dreams, it seems, do die.

A new start, liberated from band constraints. Writing and producing. A cheap sampler and half a 12-string that's otherworldly when gently caressed. A new singer, an emotional conduit, a brightness to balance the looming gloom. A promise of success. Half a million downloads, awards won and a paid-up trip to LA. A hot new manager, a top-line publicist. A publishing deal lost - manager on the lam owing six figures. Too hot by far. A second deal lost - new embargo on new bands. Holding down jobs, too many gigs, too much pressure. Relationship warps and implodes. It's all over. Singer seeks husband. Songwriter disappears into China.

Years pass. Other lives are lived but prove inadequate. As if proof were needed. The songs have no singer, the singer no songs. Blood flow arrests. Scabs form. Wounds heal. Channels re-open. Ideas flow, old and new. Trip-hop Cohen meets dream-wracked Beth Gibbons and hope reignites. Real life is really lived. As the song says: "We will be who we dare". Not for money, not for sex, not for glory or escape. Just because some music has to be made.”

And it’s true. Time passed and our other lives felt inadequate. The songs had no singer, the singer no songs. So we talked. Then we met. Then we went to Italy, to Torri del Benaco on the shores of Lake Garda. The sun shone, we made a new record. And now we’re here.

Because some music has to be made.

And heard.

It’s been a while...