The Fairy-Lit Tapes are 7 solo demos recorded monthly from January to July 2019. Often featuring first-take performances & very few overdubbed instruments, they represent the first Nova Soon forays into home recording. Lyrically, the songs vary wildly from escapist sci-fi to body-image confessionals via climate change satire.
April's demo, the suicide story song Nearby Bridges, was the standout success of the project, garnering airplay on BBC Radio 6 in September 2019, & featuring in the end credits of While We Wait, a 2020 mental health documentary film.
My eyes are blurring, lungs are burning, where do I start? Oh man, where do I even start? The Silver City's silent beauty glows in the dark. My hands are shaking. So's my heart. The wind is high, and suckles at the sides of our viewing stage. Ninety miles over the violet spires and neon sands, we hang suspended in space. Her Opulence is stealing princes; so I have heard. Oh man, feels like another world. This here inviolate evening with my hand under hers, all that weighty meaning blurs. The wind is high, and suckles at the sides of our viewing stage. Ninety miles over the violet spires and neon sands, we hang suspended in space. The wind is high, and suckles at the sides of our viewing stage. Ninety miles over the violet spires and neon sands, we hang suspended in space.
Drunk at that party, we got married, in our pairs of matching shades the shade of cherry blooms, drifting down the starlit garden. I remember thinking, ‘Hey, I mustn’t let this moment fade’… but morning came; now where are you? Somewhere far and darkened, as I try to let go. No more nostalgia, I can’t stand it. A century of habit: we drink and say, ‘Those were the days, and now the world is broken.’ Nothing’s broken just because we change and age. I like to think every evening I will burn a couple more of those old polaroids shining from my memory ceiling: endless blue New Zealand sky; school uniform and Daddy’s pride; and you beside me on that day, silently awaiting my embrace. I let go. No more nostalgia, I can’t stand it. A century of habit: we drink and say, ‘Those were the days, and now the world is broken.’ Nothing’s broken, no. No more nostalgia, I can’t stand it. I’m riding out to grab it: the heart of space. These are the days from which our lives are woven. The night is open. Time to put away the pink shades.
Sick of getting wasted. Scared of getting naked. Twisting in the mirror to look a little thinner, in a city ever younger by the summer, as people disappear, just like you feared. It’s a cautionary tale: don’t fail that way, kids. ‘Come on!’ There’s a maudlin chorus in the moonlight, calling out to you: ‘Come on! What’s wrong? You’re in the lucky zero point zero zero one!’ Lucky zero zero one. Lucky zero zero one. Living just to savour who you are to strangers: some kind of perfect shiny surface. To those who know you’re lying, don’t reply, and stay inside your bubble, deep in the rubble. It’s a cautionary tale: don’t fail that way, kids. ‘Come on!’ There’s a maudlin chorus in the moonlight, calling out to you: ‘Come on! What’s wrong? You’re in the lucky zero point zero zero zero zero... Come on!’ There’s a maudlin chorus in the moonlight, calling out to you: ‘Begone! Go take a motherfucking jump off a tower wall!’ Lucky zero zero one. Lucky zero zero one.
Oh, I googled 'nearby bridges' today, in unbearable pain, to find the place I'd leave this life. So I walked for miles in the dwindling sun, and I scrambled on up to where the railings meet the sky. I thought of those young men who made the same plan, here where I stand. They all stared into that swallowing space, metaphysically brave, to trade their pain for fates unknown. You may say there's gentler ways to be brave, but it's hard when you're raised to bear your burdens all alone. But we're not alone here, we boys on the bridge, sharing this wish. And on the nightfall breeze, swear I heard them speak, just for a moment: 'We're beside you.' Weighing my life in my hands, watching the tall trees dance, just for a moment, I believed them. Oh, I guess I'll stay a little while more.
When we were ten, our science teacher said, 'Don't let Al Gore get into your head. Tune out his truth with my convenient lie: this old Earth of ours is, was, and will be fine.' I still dream about her, Diane Kermack, PhD; thirty years from now, smirking in the ground, while her grandkids scream. Enjoy the golden age; enjoy the cool wind on your face, while you can. Enjoy the engine oil, and the fruit of foreign soil, before they boil away. My school and I spread round the Kermack lie; the official fear felt thrilling to deny. I told my older brother, hoping he'd think I was cool. He turned away in shame; said, 'If you're not afraid, boy, you're a damn fool.' Enjoy the golden age; enjoy the cool wind on your face. Enjoy the engine oil, and the fruit of foreign soil. Enjoy the deep blue waves; the silence as they rise and break on heads in sand. Enjoy the engine oil, and the fruit of foreign soil, before they boil away.
When you stare out into the black, share a smoky prayer with the woman you imagine looking back from her distant moon, wishing under a shiny neon bloom for escape; just like you do every day. She's real to you: the night of her birthday, high in the corn maze, trying to fight her age. Even light years away, the mortal story's still the same. Calliope. She is you. When you stare out into the black; that ancient, shining zodiac... She's real to you: the night of her birthday, high in the corn maze, trying to fight her age. Even light years away... We permeate the wild dark unknown with our desires; try to ignore corporeal truth. A race of moon-eyed mayflies joined in jubilant doom. Calliope. She is you. Calliope. You are she.
Another insane night on the run. Smoke and new names on my tongue. Hear a voice in the rain: 'Don't you dare let a good night fade.' And who am I to disobey? Whoa! Flying alone through the majesty; only infinite night above. Despite all of that sky hanging over me, I'm alive, and I'm enough. Another new rave, and a lover to spurn; drawn to the blaze, afraid of the burn. In the quasar's gaze, it's so easy to shy away... but stay. Stay. Stay. Whoa! Flying alone through the majesty; only infinite night above. Despite all of that sky hanging over me, I'm alive...
