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Holy Motorway (Selected Demos 2022​-​2023)

by Mattie Konig

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1.
Tolworth Tower (On The Horizon) 04:30
lyrics
Cats are winking, counting miles ’Til Fleet services And Sunbury Cross Dashboard blinking, gauges smile Red and green petrol-glyphs A codex of loss Take the turnoff on the left Not the right like the sign Don’t trust what you’re told Up ahead you’ll see Stonehenge Passed it so many times But never gets old Through the haze of sodium Catch a glimpse of the distant lights Heralding the fantasy Bringing joy back to joyless nights Tolworth Tower on the horizon Tolworth Tower on the horizon I’m coming home Help me I’m lost in myself Help me I’m lost in myself Help me I’m lost in myself (she’ll walk this holy motorway) Help me I’m lost in myself (safe in the arms of yesterday) The city farm The SavaCentre The wave machine The hospital towers The windmill heath The River Wandle The little things that mean the whole world I’m coming home I’m coming home I’m coming home Was it simply irony Proustian sentiment For concrete collage Maybe dream or memory Buried by sediment A fading mirage Great and simple images Made their mark on an awestruck tyke I could reach the stars and back And you’d still be there and that’s alright Tolworth Tower on the horizon Tolworth Tower on the horizon I’m coming home Tolworth Tower on the horizon Tolworth Tower on the horizon I’m coming home Shake, shake Wiggle around people Shake, shake Wiggle around people Shake, shake Wiggle around people Wiggle around people Shake, shake Wiggle around people Shake, shake Wiggle around people Shake, shake Wiggle around people Shake, shake Wiggle around people Wiggle around people We’re coming home
2.
It Happens Today 04:10
lyrics
Someone’s been playing detective Searching for conviction Did it fall behind the sofa Along with all the 5p pieces Chewing gum and Beano annuals Contaminated Gumption has gone galumphing Spurned by strange addiction Sálo in the frontal cortex Scrambling your get-up-and-go Drowning you in coulda shoulda Intoxicated This is how good times speed past but overstay This is how her smile lingers but not her face No more excuses There’s work to do So postpone all your plans Fire the ignition T minus 5 White knuckle grip be damned It happens today Or it never happens at all It happens today Save your fantasy for tomorrow It happens today Or it never happens at all So come on Make the now that you’ve been longing for The now that you need to go on Calendars can’t be reused Backdates court neurosis Lobster in a darkened cellar Always gonna be there somehow Gurning in the clammy stupor Of domination Blinders aren’t rosy glasses But you’ll stay in focus Zooming down the straight and narrow Far from all the nagging terrors Giddy with the burgeoning warmth Of jubilation This is how bad times inch past but always fade This is how kind arms grow old but still embrace, still embrace There’s work to do So postpone all your plans Fire the ignition T minus 5 White knuckle grip be damned It happens today Or it never happens at all It happens today Save your fantasy for tomorrow It happens today Or it never happens at all So come on Make the now that you’ve been longing for The now that you need to go on Most people don’t But I know you’re not most people Most people don’t But I know you’re not most people
3.
Eternal Present 05:05
lyrics
And a thousand tiny moments glide on limp and pointless gossamer wings tracing paths no eye could hope to follow And the mysteries of ink evade the hands that filled the handsomest barns with the diaphone tones of psalms and sorrow Is your eternal present gleaming and effervescent? First stroll and morning cup of coffee Is your eternal present not there one hundred percent? First time you’ve seen a human being But now when you man the manuals It comes flooding back Every glissando and solfége phrase Braver than you’ll ever know Seven-second spirit May your memory carry ’til the end of days And the flies are getting bigger Buzzing round the living room But they’ll never get inside you Or your brightly lit gloom And the Fab Four of cognition Go on stage without a George But they’ll play like it’s their last show And the first of many more Is your eternal present fearful or ever pleasant? You’ve spent so many years apart Is your eternal present unique in mortal torment? Somehow the devil spared your heart But now every time she walks in It comes flooding back Passion’s beaming beacon now in sight Braver than you’ll ever know Seven-second spirit May your memory travel at the speed of light Mr. Trebus on the scaffolding and Hannah Hauxwell roaming the Dales Could you fit their names on number plates? And would you seize every conscious moment with a vim we’d do well to share Truly superlatively awake? Eternal present Eternal present Eternal present Eternal present Eternal present Eternal present Eternal present
4.
Citywise 04:28
lyrics
Citywise Citywise… Broadmead - woman said remember me Yes, I felt that Redcliffe - Noah said safe travels man Yes, I felt that Not quite Cockaigne Nor Doggerland Somewhere between the two Up, right, down, left Could I stand to taste the haste in more than passing Citywise Citywise Suck on the core throw away the rind North, east, south, west Could I stand to spray the sinks not fit for livestock Citywise Citywise Bunged up with wax from a grubby hive Doorbells might cry Crown moulding too Cabot Circus - clown said child confess Yes, I felt that Brown blood, blue plaque Could I stand to vouch for all the tests they’re marking Citywise Citywise Broker bouffon in a motley tie Dead horse, reborn Could I stand to grieve the graves obscured by gridlock Citywise Citywise I think the town’s leaving me behind Citywise Citywise Citywise! ...and there’ll always be a part of you, always be a part of you, always be a part of you... Sure the meet-and-greets are fun But I smell like wet metal And handshakes leave me dry Two searing hearts meet for a mo’ Vibes might connect, then scurry off to the hotel Will he remember me? (remember me, remember me, remember me?) Sure the buildings taste nice But they don’t mean a thing When you’ve got dirt on the chefs Ten thousand years on borrowed time Swords drawing blood from Nicene necks All gussied up, cited in crap cadasters (crap crap crap crap crap!!!) Not quite Cockaigne Nor Doggerland Somewhere beyond the two wise ways and ways that aren’t so wise and ways that hurry by and ways that take their time and ways that scrape the sky and ways that aren’t so wise and ways that hurry by and ways that take their time and ways that scrape the sky Wiv’ the launch codes and some kevlar I could end this farce forever If it wasn’t for the smell of gasoline
5.
November/Bravo 05:48
lyrics
Now coalescing amalgamations into a single shirebred savant Flung back before Gravity lensing, yeomen yelling, prayers rewritten around the wisdom of her blorbos Costard fritters fried in triptorelin Let the mesne lords actualise some glamour Femme Will Sommers soars beyond her station Teach mercantilism some manners Is this not the lifeline of your dreaming? (dream/dream/dream/dream/dream) Suffer not this regime of aggrieving Look who’s won a timeline to believe in Hark! and the tally sticks mount Syon Park rings true with glees from another age All are accepted, none are rejected And none will bear scars From devices beyond God’s design Grift and grind have no cause to continue Once girl dictums privilege pleasure Love enshrined by her sapphic retinue She will rule this island forever … Some say a stitch in time will stoke success Some say long jaunts will help relay this last request Leave us alone But I’ve walked the old trading roads with their crumbling pavements And I’ve passed the boarded-up shops with their foregone payments And I’ve glimpsed the illmongers’ heads with their famous hair And I’ve searched so far for their hearts but there’s nothing there Some say this bedrock might be gone by dawn Some say this rose was impaled by its own thorn So long ago So a bravo if you’re still here trying to survive There are selions left in this land where the fear won’t thrive And a bravo if you’ll make sure weaker grips won’t slip There is time to patch up the hull of the sinking ship This is not a timeline I believe in Not while purple parasites are leeching In the name of all the hope you’ve shattered I want all your severed heads on platters
6.
Highs Beyond Your Years 02:28
lyrics
highs beyond your years highs beyond your years highs be yond your years highs beyond your years Down but not done just yet Out but not for the count
7.
Dissonance Taker 07:14
lyrics
Still there’s an ear underwater in the harbours of Monaco The big man hass your name Still grown-ups play hide and seek in rooms they first furnished long ago The joy of every day And I tried (a rumour carves a shortcut in time) And I tried (a codependent bond) And I tried (why did I never see what this was) And I tried (why were they always blond) Astronauts touching down on the moon Punctured suit, edema Happens to everyone Astronauts left behind, no big deal And I tried (you sitting next to me on the bus) And I tried (you not saying a word) And I tried (this doorway back to defendamus) And I tried (this Twinkie-coded cur) And I tried (in sixteen years I’ve not changed one bit) And I tried (a child and a clown) And I tried (and when it’s my turn to go to Hell) And I tried (a bearskin cap will follow me down) And I tried And I tried And I tried Dissonance taker Took what you could and then you ran You’ll live forever You and your poison touch Don’t think I’ll forget Just what you did to me Dissonance taker You’re gone and I’ve had enough I could run and run and make like I was perfectly well-adjusted But I had to chance a look back some day And the thing about rear views Is that they’re closer than miles travelled might have you reckon I could writhe and ramble and relive the echoes of teenage failure Or the beds I thought for sure I’d die in And no matter which was which You’d always be there staring through the kitchen window Oh I missed you, I loved you, I hated and I waited as ten thousand lies obscured one plaintive plea Tell me, on the day you first spoke all the ugly truths of life Were you just as scared as me? Dissonance taker Took what you could and then you ran You’ll live forever You and your poison touch Don’t think I’ll forget Just what you did to me Dissonance taker You’re gone and I’ve had enough And I lied And I lied And I lied (but I don’t get to tie it up neat) And I lied (but then again who does) Long John Silver Long John Silver Long John Silver Long John Silver
8.
Do The Automation! 05:28
lyrics
A highlight reel Of anything you want The First Sally The path is stodgeful The trail cams are on Shoot low, aim lower Heaven on Earth Heaven on Earth Never enough Never enough From the All-Noise bursts your favourite movie But its spools are spoiled in ways that beat perception From the All-Noise springs a mile high bungie Flinging dissidents to rest with wedgie power From the All-Noise leaps the drooling wild man Mouth smeared red with farm-fresh chunks of Peggy Mitchell From the All-Noise gapes my gasping bundle Eyes and legs and twelve too many fingers on the hand I have seen the future And it’s John McCririck Eating a deep-fried rat in the shower I have seen the future And it’s neural cheesecake Funnelled down electrode wires I thought this was so cool But I misjudged how soon We’d all be huffing fumes from the ether I have seen the future And it’s brain-drained trainframes Preaching to Cupertino choirs Meta! Meta! Invert my urethra Tesla! Tesla! Take me in the mouth Roia! Roia! Where the hell is Deos Northrop! Grumman! Rearrange my south There was no other way this was ever going to end Born in thrall to the last pretender There is now nothing left but this final pirouette Stomp your feet Clap your hands Surrender! Do The Automation! Do The Automation! It’s not real and I don’t care This is what I wanted Do The Automation! Do The Automation! Do The Automation! Ghosts brought back ten thousand times Everything is haunted Do The Automation! A highlight reel Of everything we lost The Last Sally A highlight reel Of every other reel Before and after Hell on Earth Hell on Earth Never enough Never enough
9.
In True Inbetweeners 03:10
lyrics
In true inbetweeners Lucid dreamers Fable cleavers School-of-life leavers In these forms the makers sing A chapbooksworth of freaky hymns In these halls abundance weeps And braces for the next worst thing Not here Trapped in the realm of the senses Nor there Barbed by the spiel of the senseless In a time when everyone has to be zased let’s be a little cringe You and me and everyone we know In a world where everything happens so much let’s happen just enough Far from the cat race Far from the sodding crowd And if you scrub away the layers of art You may judge what remains This strange canvas And if you peer inside this heart of hearts You may flinch, squeal or recoil Or love it all the more As I was saying Join the dots tonight As bosons and gators did the same Spin arrogance into rich designs, so fine And shed the skins of shame And then we’ll journey forth, hand in hand, along this holy motorway (don’t have to look back) We’ll break the locks and stake our claims, no longer lonely stowaways (don’t have to look back) We’ll find a corner of paradise where he can’t hurt you anymore (a child and a clown) And we’ll fall into each other’s arms, the heaven we’ve both been longing for (don’t have to look back) In true inbetweeners, inbetweeners, inbetweeners, inbetweeners…

about

When I began writing a new batch of songs immediately after the release of Cleanup Duty in early 2022, I had no real idea what form the resulting album would eventually take - but I could never have anticipated that its unhappy gestation period would last nearly two years. Rewrites, reworkings and rerecordings piled up as I agonised over the tiniest details, perfectionism reigning supreme for months on end; I lost my voice after a nasty bout of covid, and emerged acutely aware of my limitations as a vocalist; personal circumstances led me to re-evaluate the experiences that have fuelled my songwriting over the years; and I faced the final grim realisation that - even with an unfamiliar veneer of late 90s-inspired pop sounds - my repetoire of musical clichés and production shortcuts was getting stale. And the last thing you ever want to do as a so-called progressive or experimental musician is to repeat yourself.

With all that in mind, today I’m putting out a reasonably - but not totally - complete assembly of what was meant to be my next official album of original songs. In doing so I could talk endlessly about the nine tracks that survived the long baptism-by-petrol; how their lyrics tackle ideas of time, space, history, technology, nostalgia and dance; how their production tries to fuse pop and prog, joy and despair, before and after, the sacred and the propane. But the truth of the matter is I can’t stand to spend another second with these songs, and I need to release them in some form or another if I want to move on, both in my life and in my musical career. So, whether the rawness of these songs proves hard to love, or whether they still read as the fully-fledged Y2K bacchanalias I envisioned - like it or not, for better or for worse, the Holy Motorway is now open to traffic. Drive safe 🙏🛣

credits

released December 15, 2023

Mattie Konig - composition, production, sequencing, vocals, keyboards, guitars, percussion, field recordings, cover design

Some sound effects from freesound.org
All samples copyright their respective owners

Written and recorded 2022-2023

Note: no large language models were used in the writing of these songs

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Mattie Konig UK

Eclectic progressive music from the weirdest trans woman in all the West Country. How's it going?

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