Do You Like Keytars? I Do!: Glasgow’s iamchemist

Feb

Do You Like Keytars? I Do!: Glasgow’s iamchemist

Categories: iamchemist, keytar, Scotland and synthpop

I would like to begin by saying that I’m a fan of the keytar – there’s something brazen about subverting the traditional electric guitar by strapping on a keyboard in its place. Others may mock the keytar as being a cheesy vestige of the ’80’s that should only be used ironically – that only makes me like it more. iamchemist, a one-man electro project from Glasgow, uses a keytar, and there is an unabashed, unapologetic bliss to his music. He has already supported the likes of Imogen Heap and The Hours and gained airplay on XFM Scotland and BBC Radio One, and this is all without an official release of material. I’ve been waiting for electro music that would make me feel the elation I felt as a thirteen-year-old listening to New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle for the first time – iamchemist has had that effect.

Citing influences ranging from electro acts (White Rose Movement, Ladytron, New Order, Salon Boris) to intelligent, tongue-in-cheek art rock (Pulp, The Futureheads, The Rakes), iamchemist produces melodic synthpop songs with plenty of vocoder, and provides a welcome alternative to the latest trends in grittier guitar-driven electro, electropunk, and sleazy disco. In a way, iamchemist cleanses the electro palate with a wash of breezy synths. While iamchemist began by exclusively doing cover versions, including a stunning re-working of Pulp’s Babies, he has now moved on to brilliant original material, including A Sense of Purpose, Four Mistakes, and Closure. The intro to A Sense of Purpose recalls The Rakes’ Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep), but than floats off into a different airy direction like a cloud of electro cotton candy. Its lyrics describe the monotony of civil service, but adds that “there’s still time, there’s still time/If we change, we can find/a sense of purpose” – forgive me for another New Order comparison, but this optimism achieves the same euphoric, but non-cheesy, effect as New Order’s Krafty does. Four Mistakes once again fuses light New Wave synths with a more choppy lyric style reminiscent of bands like The Futureheads and The Rakes. Closure features a Hungry Like the Wolf-type female giggle in it and pumps along with a harder drumbeat and a shimmery melody line. Spirals, which was first released to the public as a demo this past Christmas, is the latest iamchemist creation, and it spins about in an excellent, dizzying imitation of its title.

There are rumours of an iamchemist EP for this summer, but as of yet, no official announcements. For now, enjoy the sample MP3s (including a cover of The Rakes’ We Are All Animals) and visit iamchemist’s MySpace page to hear more. Also, if you live in Scotland, go to see iamchemist perform live at his upcoming dates (he plays with one of my favourite bands, Stroszek, on March 29 in Edinburgh). Considering the inclusion of “bad dancing” alongside vocals, synths, and programming in the MySpace band members section, I would expect that iamchemist is a fun act to see live. Bring on keytars and vocoders, and long live iamchemist.

iamchemist’s MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/iamchemist

A Sense of Purpose – iamchemist

We Are All Animals – iamchemist

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The only certain thing that is left about me

There is no part of my body that has not been used

Pity or pain, to show displeasure's shame

Everyone I've loved or hated always seems to leave

So I turned myself to face me

But I've never caught a glimpse

Of how the others must see the faker

I'm much too fast to take that test

A dreaded sunny day

So let's go where we're happy

And I meet you at the cemetry gates

Oh, Keats and Yeats are on your side

A dreaded sunny day

So let's go where we're wanted

And I meet you at the cemetry gates

Keats and Yeats are on your side

But you lose 'cause weird lover Wilde is on mine

When they kick at your front door

How you gonna come?

With your hands on your head

Or on the trigger of your gun

Charles Windsor, who's at the door

At such an hour, who's at the door

In the back of an old green Cortina

You're on your way to the guillotine

Here the rabble comes

The kind you hoped were dead

They've come to chop, to chop off your head

Then you came with your breezeblocks

Smashing up my face like a bus-stop

You think you're giving

But you're taking my life away

Won't someone give me more fun?

(and the skin flies all around us)

We kiss in his room to a popular tune

Oh, real drowners

Don't walk away

In silence

See the danger

Always danger

Endless talking

Life rebuilding

Don't walk away

Walk in silence

Don't turn away in silence

Your confusion

My illusion

Worn like a mask of self-hate

Confronts and then dies

Don't walk away

You don't want to hurt me

But see how deep the bullet lies

Unaware I'm tearing you asunder

Oh there is thunder in our hearts

Is there so much hate for the ones we love

Tell me we both matter don't we

I don't know whether

To over or under estimate you

Whether to over or under estimate you

For when I come over

You then put me under

Personal taste is a matter of gender

I wake at dusk to go alone without a light

To the unknown

I want this night inside of me

I want to feel

I want this speeding

I want that speeding

You'll never live like common people

You'll never do what common people do

You'll never fail like common people

You'll never watch your life slide out of view

And dance and drink and screw

Because there's nothing else to do

All I have is words, words that don't obtain

And I feel I'm a stain on your horizon

So I stay away - it's easier that way

And there won't be no-one I need to rely on

Is it him, is it me

Or is there something only I can see

How did I get here, why do we blow around like straw dogs on the breeze

I'm a special one, what they used to say

But I've to stay on, finish levels-A

You don't need exams when you've read John Gray

And nobody ever comes alive

And the journalists clamour round glamour like flies

And boys who should know better grin and get high

With fat men who once met the MC5

And no one discusses what they don't understand

And no one does anything to harm the brand

And this gift is an illusion, this isn't hard

Absolutely anyone can play the fucking guitar

JAMC Darklands

And we tried so hard

And we looked so good

And we lived our lives in black

Plucked her eyebrows on the way

Shaved her leg and then he was a she

She says, hey babe,

Take a walk on the wild side

Said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side

Hide on the promenade

Etch a postcard:

How I dearly wish I was not here

In the seaside town...that they forgot to bomb

Come, come, come - nuclear bomb

Back when we were kids

We would always know when to stop

And now all the good kids are messing up

Nobody has gained or accomplished anything

Prices have risen since the government fell

Casualties increase as the enemy shell

The climate's unhealthy, flies and rats thrive

And sooner or later the end will arrive

This is your correspondent, running out of tape

Gunfire's increasing, looting, burning, rape

Well, maybe there's a god above

But all I've ever learned from love

Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you

It's not a cry that you hear at night

It's not somebody who's seen the light

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

And what costume shall the poor girl wear

To all tomorrow's parties

For Thursday's child is Sunday's clown

For whom none will go mourning

My body is your body

I won't tell anybody

If you want to use my body

Go for it

Oh it's opening time

Down on Fascination Street

So let's cut the conversation

And get out for a bit

Because I feel it all fading and paling

And I'm begging

To drag you down with me

And you see, I kind of shivered to conformity

Did you see the way I cowered to authority

You see, my life, it's a series of compromises anyway

It's a sham, and I'm conditioned to accept it all, you see

Take in the country air, you'll never win

Gentlemen take polaroids

They fall in love, they fall in love

We just want to emote til we're dead

I know we suffer for fashion

Or whatever

We don't want these days to ever end

We just want to emasculate them forever

Forever, forever

Pretty sirens don't go flat

It's not supposed to happen like that

There's no perfume I can buy

Make me smell like myself

So I put on perfume

To make me smell like someone else

In bed

I got love for you if you were born in the 80's, the 80's

I've got hugs for you if you were born in the 80's, the 80's

Does his makeup in his room

Douse himself with cheap perfume

Eyeholes in a paper bag

Greatest lay I ever had

Kind of guy who mates for life

Gotta help him find a wife

We're a couple, when our bodies double

Summer rains are here

Savaged beauty life

Falling here from grace

Sister feeling call

Cruising land to land

No faith no creed no soul

Half a world away

Beauty sleeps in time

Sound and fury play

North to south

Empty

Running on

Bravado

As if to say, as if to say

He doesn't like chocolate

He's born a liar, he'll die a liar

Some things will never be different

Well Daft Punk is playing at my house, my house

I've waited 7 years and 15 days

There's every kid for miles at my house, my house

And the neighbors can't...call the police

There's a fist fight brewin' at my house, my house

Because the jocks can't...get in the door

I just can't help believing

Though believing sees me cursed

I am trying to say

What I want to say

Without having to say "I love you"

It took 10 years to realise why the angels start to cry

When you go home down the main

Your happy smile

Your funny name

Doesn't she look a million with her hairagami set

Hair kisses 'n' hair architecture

Yes, she's a beautiful brunette angel from heaven with her hairagami set

Hair kisses 'n' hair architecture

Augment a beautiful brunette

How does it feel

To treat me like you do

When you've laid your hands upon me

And told me who you are

You must let her go

She's not crying

Baiting

Feeling like I'm waiting

Modern times

Valentines

Hating

Hating to distraction

Just leave them alone

Whipcrack

Girls in the back

They say come back to earth and start getting real, yeah

I say come back to earth and start getting real

I know I can't

So I walk right up to you

And you walk all over me

And I ask you what you want

And you tell me what you need

The problem of leisure

What to do for pleasure

Ideal love a new purchase

A market of the senses

Dream of the perfect life

Economic circumstances

The body is good business

Sell out, maintain the interest

Sitting in my armchair thinking again and again and again

Going round in a circle I can't get out

Then I look around thinking day and night and day

Then you look around - there must be some explanation

And the tension builds

India, India

You're my love song

India, you're my love song

In the flowers

You can have me in the flowers

We will dance alone

And live our useless lives

They only want you when you're seventeen

When you're twenty-one

You're no fun

They take a polaroid and let you go

Say they'll let you know

No consolation prizes

Spit out your lies and chewing gum

Cut off your hair yeah that's it!

If you look like that I swear I'm gonna love you more

All the neighbors are startin' up a fire

Burning all the old folks, the witches and the liars.

My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids

But my heart keeps watchin' through the skin of my eyelids

Prince charming

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of

Don't you ever, don't you ever

Stop being dandy, showing me you're handsome

CONDEMNED TO ROCK ‘N ROLL