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Automatic Tendencies

by firestations

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £6 GBP  or more

     

  • Limited Edition Art Collection and CDr
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    We have 15 collections of special artwork editions, created/curated by band member and visual artist Laura Copsey, that expand on the ideas in the songs. With this super limited edition version, as well as CD and download, you get:

    - a firestations brand (tm) reusable brass chip fork made by designer Philip Crewe (espergaerde.co.uk).
    - an ilustrated, risographed, human/machine poetry "no parking" zine based on the lyrics to the song Small Island.
    - an Automatic Tendencies "Knee Deep" A5 risograph.
    - a "no parking" sticker.

    First 25 EP orders also come with risographed Sonic Healing Immersion Therapy (S.H.I.T.) questionnaires.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Automatic Tendencies via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Limited Edition CDr
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Limited edition hand-stamped CD-R in card wallet with 12 page A5 No Parking zine featuring illustrations by Laura Copsey and "human / machine translation poetry"! First 25 EP orders also come with risographed Sonic Healing Immersion Therapy (S.H.I.T.) questionnaires. Return back to us for a personalised (shit) treatment for your spiritual condition. Kind regards, Dr F Stations (actual medical doctor)

    Limited edition of 35.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Automatic Tendencies via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
New Device 03:44
Go ahead and take a look And I’ll be waiting around the corner They put the glasses on your face Won’t let you wait any longer Lead me off into the distance Wake me up when we get there Give me a window on the process And just run me round and round until I find A new device Honestly this is the worst And you believe the best is coming Now little eyes are waking up And it’s over and over and over again
2.
An ideal dream A rogue state A small island And a blank slate Show me an infinite dark sea Take me out on a limb to an extremity And let me be myself Just let me be myself Letting go It’s like we’re floating underwater Getting out Cos we were promised tomorrow sooner But the past is taking over The future so familiar Is coming round again Problems here all left behind In grains of sand Deep ocean time And we can be ourselves Letting go It’s like we’re floating underwater Getting out Cos we were promised tomorrow sooner Letting go It’s like we’re floating underwater Getting out Cos we were promised tomorrow sooner But the past is taking over The future so familiar Is coming round again
3.
Spent so long pretending to be Someone who wasn’t me I forgot to tie the right knots Around the familiar trees Carry me, carry me Just take me home Bury me, oh bury me In soil without a stone Portioned off Drained and reclaimed No anchors on your side The streets and houses fall down To the sand at low tide
4.
Go to Greenmount and climb the beacon towers Go to Greenmount and chase the wasted hours Check the blood and climb the window The ghost in the room he knows more than we know We have to guess where it all is And pick a direction, pick a direction Pick a direction, pick a direction They won’t know ‘Cos they won’t follow Just head on out This maze of roads The dark hills in the distance If we change our names They’ll never catch up with us Pick a direction, pick a direction Pick a direction, pick a direction We’ll go now We’ll go now
5.
6.
I would like to live In an old house on a hill Yeah I could just kill for a new vista I need to see Which mountains will weigh down on me Which ones will set me free Which ones value neighbours Walking down to say hello We stay just for a while And then we leave and we feel fine We stay just for a while And then we leave for what could be a long drive Wherever I go I look out for faces I know Stop conversations mid-flow To tell them I'm leaving I need to see Which mountains will weigh down on me Which ones will set me free That value new neighbours Walking down to say hello

about

Automatic Tendencies is the first of a series of three EPs set to be released digitally and on limited-edition CD-R (by Lost Map Records) over a six-month period, with each collection including alternative “sunken” versions by the band as well as covers and remixes of new Firestations material by other artists. Band member and visual artist Laura Copsey has curated limited edition collections of special artworks that expand on the ideas within each release.

Over the last two years, Firestations have refined their brand of conceptual alt-pop, and new songs are concerned with identity, belonging, progress and escapism. ‘Small Island’ is about finding ways to embrace an inclusive islander mentality when the dominant narrative seems to be stuck in slow motion or on repeat – the languorous but insistent groove providing the perfect “road-to-nowhere-fast” backdrop. It’s accompanied by a video from award-winning animator Jack Alexandroff, featuring striking time-lapse footage of clay statues melting, islands dissolving into seas of milk and watercress growing from clenched fists.

The first track ‘New Device’ begins with a hooky synth line and moves along quickly, but hints also at a kind of fatigue and disillusionment with the progress on offer. With ‘Bedford Levels’ and ‘Greenmount’, songwriter Mike Cranny looks closer to home and examines ambivalent feelings towards his own sense of belonging and identity, and the pitfalls of outsiderness coupled with directionless escapism. Musically, the former has echoes of pastoral/ambient end kosmische, all gently nagging synth and light drum machine pulse, while the latter highlights the band’s deftness, a just-too-slow-to-disco chug with the subtlest interjections of Nile Rodgers-esque guitar. Last track ‘Just For A While’ offers a meditation on travelling, and the quiet joys of moving on towards infinite possibilities. It’s a reflective journey, punctuated by keyboard ripples and bent-note guitar twang.

About the art collections accompanying the Automatic Tendencies EPs, Laura Copsey writes the following:

“The music Firestations make together and the ideas we explore, have increasingly influenced the work I create. Sometimes it’s hard to see where the music starts and the art stops, and this cross-pollination comes from the time we spend together as a band – conversations, in-jokes and influences that we agree or disagree about. The way we work has become increasingly process-led, which has always been how I work as an artist. This way of working together grew out of our previous release Dream Home, which was the first time my visual work was so connected with the music.

“The songs on Automatic Tendencies reflect on ideas of cultural identity and belonging. A tendency for repetition, a desire to escape, but also a strong connection to place and the shared experience of being alive at the same time on this small island. The contents of the art collection work alongside the music to create a sense of belonging, yet there is an ever-present awareness of growing insularity. The waters surrounding the British Isles are increasingly politicised – viewed as a border, despite being fluid and acting as a connection.

“It was these metaphors that guided the illustrations in the risographed No Parking zine – which contains human / machine translation poetry generated from the lyrics to ‘Small Island’ by forcing a machine to glitch via many global languages. The lines would not exist were it not for the differences between us and the zine aims to celebrate this fact. Designer Philip Crewe (espergaerde.co.uk) has crafted a set of reusable brass fish and chip forks to represent the iconic staple of British culinary culture which can be used whilst staring out to sea eating chips in quiet contemplation. These items speak to a wonky ‘no parking’ sticker (‘take back control?’) and the Automatic Tendencies print which features legs, knee deep, drawn into a risographed version of a 16mm film still that had been buried in the English countryside for three months.”

credits

released November 6, 2020

Music by firestations

Recorded at home, Otterhead Studios and Studio Klank

Mixed by Mike Cranny

Mastered by Antony Ryan at RedRedPaw Mastering

Art by Laura Copsey

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all rights reserved

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firestations UK

We are a band.

We write alt-pop songs and then mess them up.

New album 'Thick Terrain' OUT NOW

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“Melancholy tempered by shimmering shoegaze stylings... a wistful delight.” Electronic Sound Magazine

“Firestations present that sense of worldly vulnerability in synth-driven glimpses of the sublime.” ★★★★ THE LIST

(Photo by Katherine Leedale)
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