Mick Dillingham - Talks To Custard Flux

Mick Dillingham talks to Curvey about the upcoming Custard Flux album, Phosphorus, in an I Don't Hear A Single Exclusive

The time is finally upon us to immerse ourselves once more in the swirling ocean of musical joy that is the Custard Flux with the brilliant new album Phosphorus. When it comes to the magical out pouring of Greg Curvey I find myself as a reviewer in that familiar and slightly confounding place I’ve been many times before in theses very pages. 

To blithely say this is his best yet is a nonsense, because Curvey has always delivered the best, from when The Luck Of Eden Hall reformed in 2006 right through to today and onwards into tomorrow's yet to come.  Its all the best and Phosphorus continues that unbroken chain of greatest we have come to expect from this hugely talented man. So what has our friend been up to  in these strange times since we last met?

Curvey:  "I wanted to be a biker after watching C.C. & Company, a B movie featuring Ann Margret and Joe Namath.  It was the early 1970s and I couldn’t get my fill of Cycletoons comix.  I idolized Evel Knievel.  I drew pictures of motorcycles and monsters all the time.  

My Dad had a garage filled with motorcycles, including a Triumph Bonneville, with matching bubble visored helmet and gas tank, a glorious sparkling silver, adorned with orange and yellow flames.  Sometimes I’d muster up the courage to cross the forbidden zone and sit on it.  I’m pretty sure my Dad knew.  

He bought a 50cc Suzuki trail hopper for my step sisters and I to ride and let me take his 175cc Yamaha out a couple of times, which was fantastic, when I got to visit every other weekend.  Years later, I had a 1968 Triumph Bonneville for a very brief time, but it was stolen.  I was in my late 20s, living in Chicago and it wasn’t the best place to own a motorcycle.  

In 2020, after Oxygen was released, I had started working on the basic tracks for Phosphorus, when I saw an absolutely gorgeous 1974 Harley Davidson Sportster for sale.  Boom!  I decided to sell enough of my childhood collectibles (i.e. cereal premiums, concert tour books and t-shirts, toys, etc.) that were sitting in boxes, and buy the bike.  

Being stuck in the house under Covid quarantine was a bit maddening, right?  So, I spent the entire summer and fall of 2021 becoming a grease monkey, falling in love with chrome and the smell of burning oil, riding and working on my bike.  Then came the Michigan winter.  Back to the mixing board and the Phosphorus Album."

Here are Curvey's thoughts on the new songs.

The Pretender

"This song initially started out as a complaint about all of the political lies being casually shoved down our throats, but I decided not to go that route.  I really wanted to write some positive, even possibly uplifting, songs.  I figured the world didn’t need more negativity after experiencing the pandemic and the Trump fiasco.  Goals we set, are goals we get, eh?"

Memory Ends

"In 2021, my brother-in-law, and friend, died unexpectedly.  He was a gifted, intelligent being, using his talents to help his family and the folks around him grow and prosper.  The world needed him.  His passing influenced the lyrics in this song.  Inspiration for the music came from chords I started playing while recording the harmonium at the end of the previous song, The Pretender."

Phosphorus

"This is one of my favourite tracks on the album.  Red era King Crimson, maybe?  It all started with the intro, as it should.  Vito Greco and I decided it was the perfect setting for a guitar battle.  Why not?  I love Tim Prettyman’s double bass part and Mars Williams’ interplanetary saxophone solo rules!"

Station

"I had the music composed and recorded, long before the lyrics settled.  In my youth, FM radio was a place to discover new music.  Long extended tracks, played back to back, with no commercials.  Mahavishnu Orchestra, Genesis, Yes.  It didn’t last long, but it was a beautiful thing while it did.  The same thing happened with cable TV and the internet.  I long for old frequency modulation.  FM.  Vito’s Portuguese guitar part re-energized my interest in this song, after I’d nearly scrapped it."

The Gardener

"The lyrics are inspired by something one of my High School classmate’s older brother actually pulled off and would have gotten away with, had he not bragged about it to some friends.  It was around 1980, before cell phones and cameras were everywhere.  Imagine that.

Strawberry Squid

"Practicing scales pays off and inspired this composition.  It’s was one of the first tracks written for this project.  I wish I was a better drummer.  Oh and strawberry squids are real!"

The Man In Blue Wants Out Of His Suit

"Something I posted on a thread once, about some 60s band’s photograph and my friend Steven Curl suggested it would make a good song title.  I’m just singing about myself.  The good folks at Fruits de Mer Records included this track on their recently released Earworms CD Compilation."

Roses And Wine

"Once again, the music was composed and recorded and in need of a lyric, so I decided to look up the Henry Mancini classic, The Days of Wine and Roses, for some inspiration.  I never realized how bad the lyrics to that song were!  But, they did inspire me to write something.  The music is inspired by a riff I’d recorded on my phone while practicing.  I do that quite often."

The Devil May Care

"I really like this mix and Vito’s guitar parts.  It’s not really about anything, or anyone, I guess.  Stay away from drugs, folks.  They will make your life worse."

Sifting The Stars

"This one flowed seamlessly after The Devil May Care and resolved what was a bit of a downer with something uplifting.  It’s certainly easy to sing along to and was a good excuse to plug in my Flying V."

Orbital Transport

"Definitely influenced by John Barry’s soundtrack to You Only Live Twice.  You may not hear it, but it’s there.  Mars on saxophone.  When I recorded the triangle during the last part of the song, I set up two mics, positioned facing outward, like the ears on your head and revolved the triangle around the mics in a big circle.  There’s some autoharp in there as well."

Staring Straight Into The Sun

"Beware of the charlatans.  I’m gobsmacked by how many people swallow the bullshit fed to them by talking heads.  That’s what the lyrics are about.  The music was written around the riff."

By Order Of The Grand Vizier

"I’d written and recorded the piano and drum parts for this track while I was working on Echo, but it didn’t fit in with the other songs, so I filed it away.  When Phosphorus grew beyond the limits of a single LP, I pulled this one out and started working on it again.  The ghostly sounds are the combination of an Ebow on my electric guitar and a recorder, the instrument we all had to play in elementary school.  I added the motorik bit at the end to extend the composition and Vito absolutely nailed his solo on the Stratocaster.  I love this track."

The Face Of Mankind

"It doesn’t happen very often, but most of these lyrics came to me while I was composing the music on guitar.  The weight of knowledge can be hard to carry.  Isn’t that what the Garden of Eden is all about?  Even though it may seem like an easy way out, to be one of the souls who have remained wilfully ignorant, I’m glad to have chosen the path I’m on."

"One of my favourite memories I keep from my years of martial arts training, is from a Kali bow: The hand of friendship is superior to the hand of war.  Truth."

Phosphorus will be available to pre-order on the Custard Flux Bandcamp site here from 1 April.

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Custard Flux - Oxygen (Mick Dillingham Interviews Curvey)

Oxygen the third album by Curvey’s Custard Flux project has arrived and as with everything the great man releases, there’s no need to worry here. The stars turn in the heavens above and everything is as it should be in the wonderful world of Curvey.  Oxygen is full to the brim with marvellous heart felt songs smothered in sensational and adventurous musicianship and blessed with yet another beautiful kaleidoscopic production.

Such is the assured consistency of his creativity that I can confidently buff up yet another five star award and slot it into place even before hearing Oxygen for the first time, knowing full well those five stars will be effortlessly deserved. As a listener, it’s a great position to find yourself in, to be so very sure that what is about to be delivered into our heart and mind will not disappoint.

Then comes the first listen and…and….hell let's not even pretend this is a cliff hanger  because we all know how this turns out.  It turns out right.  The three Custard Flux albums are like three beautiful sisters, unmistakably sisters at all times, but each with a individual personality that makes each of them unique unto themselves. Oh hold on here’s Curvey passing by my windows right now, let me grab him and get some background on the latest platter.


What’s going on with you good sir?

“First off, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who supported Echo and helped make it such a successful release.  I sincerely appreciate the DJs, bloggers, magazines and fans who keep this little train rolling.”


So Echo sold really well?

“It’s a mystery to me what makes one album sell better than the next.  When we released The Luck of Eden Hall’s Victoria Moon, Clearspot, my distributor in the Netherlands, sold 250 copies in the first five days. But that didn’t happen with the next album, The Acceleration of Time, which got more coverage and better reviews and in my opinion was a better album.  When I recorded the first Custard Flux album, Helium, I couldn’t get any label support, so I decided to have them manufactured here in the states, at Smashed Plastic in Chicago, who did a fantastic job with the printing and pressing.  But it turned out to be a foolish decision on my part, because most of my sales are in Europe and shipping a box of 80 LPs to the Netherlands cost a lot of money.  It was actually three boxes.

The album didn’t sell as much as I’d hoped, in part because of shipping costs and also probably due to my releasing a CD box set of the same music one year earlier.  I’d chosen to do CDs first because it was less expensive, but had a ton of requests for an LP version, so I went for it.  I did sell enough copies to pay for my investment, but I still have a couple boxes of Helium LPs in stock, which I’d really like to get sold off.

When I was going to release Echo, I approached Keith at Fruits de Mer Records and he kindly offered me a Friends of the Fish release.  I was ecstatic, because it meant extra promotional support and some guaranteed sales. I’m now down to my last thirteen copies of the Echo LP and those good sales put enough extra money in the coffers to cover most of the manufacturing costs of Oxygen, but it’s certainly no guarantee that Oxygen will sell as well as Echo.  So, here I sit.  Eyes closed, fingers crossed, preparing to spin the roulette wheel once again.”







So tell us about the recording of Oxygen.

“Some of the Oxygen tracks were already in their embryonic stages when we recorded the songs for the bonus CD that’s included in each Echo LP. I Feed The Fire did make it on to that release, but Vito Greco has since recorded a new solo for the ending and I remixed the track, to great improvement in my opinion.

The bulk of the recording took place during the first few weeks of mandatory quarantine. I’m incredibly fortunate to have my own recording studio and used the lockdown time to my advantage. I initially set down to record all the parts myself, being as I had no choice, but then I remembered Vito had recording gear and we started sharing tracks. I knew the Psychedelic Furs Tour, like all tours, had been cancelled, so I reached out to Mars Williams, who’d played on a track for The Luck of Eden Hall and he was happy to help.

I’d been hearing a saxophone part in my head that I wanted recorded and when Mars agreed, I wanted to utilize his playing for the solos on Gelatinous Mass, to introduce another sound other than guitar. Then Tim and Walt Prettyman got what they needed to do some home recording, by mail order and that was sorted. I knew I wanted to call the next album Oxygen since the wrapping up of Echo and had already chosen the perfect image for the cover, painted by Gregory Chamberlin.

It was only after all the songs were completed, as I sat listening to the full album, that I realized how much the project had been influenced by the virus and it’s effects on us all. I’d like to dedicate Oxygen to the folks that lost their lives to the virus.”


Any chance of a track by track guide to Oxygen?

Oxygen.

"I’d been messing around with this guitar part in 5/4, but it took me a while to find the right melody to sing over it, especially one that I could sing while playing guitar. The lyrics are about meditation. My daughter had been having a bit of trouble with anxiety and I’d recently shared the gift of meditation with her."

Gelatinous Mass.

 "When I just can’t find the right vocal melody, it’s instrumental time. I figured the soloing would be covered by my Flying V on this track, but I really like to try to stick to my “no electricity” rule if possible and was ecstatic about Mars playing sax on it. Heavy electricity free Prog."







You Can’t Get Away.

"I like this song. It’s written about killing time while under quarantine. I’d had the structure worked out for months, but when it was all recorded it didn’t feel quite right. Actually, after all nine songs were finished, the album had a problem with continuity. The sounds were kind of all over the place. Sax solos, violin solos, acoustic and electric guitar solos. So I decided to break my rule and stitch the tunes together by doubling parts with my Flying V. I hope you don’t mind."


Quarantyne.

"I picked up the guitar and this song fell out. It’s morbid. I live in the Detroit metro area. Lots of people were and still are, dying. I was reading horrible stories about people being left alone in rooms to die. I chose it for the single and artist Shane Swank created a beautiful music video for it. Vito plays a really cool Brazilian instrument on this track, too."


Monster Island.

"I was a monster fiend in my youth. I loved to read magazines like Creepy, Eerie, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Weird Tales. The Ghoul was a television personality that hosted monster movies every Saturday night and I always tried to stay up late and watch his show. Creature Feature ruled too, with all of the Japanese monster films. Monster Island is a place in the movie Godzilla’s Revenge."


I Feed The Fire.

"I absolutely love where Vito’s guitar part took this track. I knew I wanted the song to start with a train whistle and found a wooden one on EBay. The lyrics are about humanity, blasting forward, laying everything to waste to achieve light speed and the acknowledgement that I am part of humanity.







She Opens Her Eyes.

"This is one of those tracks where the original sketch and the final mix sound completely different. After laying down the drum part, I deconstructed the song and reworked the bass, guitar riffs and vocal melody, until I enjoyed listening to the song again. I figure if I don’t want to listen to the song, why would anyone else want to?

Vito plays the Brazilian guitar again on this track and I liked the sound of it so much that I made a special mix which is included as a digital bonus track. I had bought a bow meant for using on acoustic guitar and used it on Quarantyne to great effect, so I tried it on this song as well. Walt’s fabulous violin solo was the last thing added. The lyrics are a metaphor for lady liberty and my hope for a more liberal and sane direction in our next election."


Innocence and Peppermints.

"Yes, the title is an homage to the Strawberry Alarm Clock hit. I was writing about my daughter again. She’d just had a bad break up with her closest friend and confidant and was taking it kind of hard. It’s hard being a parent and watching your child experience pain.

This was the last track to be completed on the album. I wrote it on guitar, but Tim and Walt’s parts, along with the Harpsichord, took it to a different place. The recorder was a last minute addition and makes me think of Donovan."


Capacity Overload.

"Ahh, the piece de resistance. My favorite on the record. Vito suggested we do electric solos on this one and who was I to disagree? Being in quarantine gave me time to figure out how to use iMovie, so I made my first music video using footage I’d shot driving into the city of Chicago, along with footage I’d shot driving in the Welsh countryside. There’s an image in the video of half my face with streaks of horizontal lines that I didn’t create.

I’d used my phone to shoot a short movie of my computer screen whilst I fiddled with Photoshop, which worked fine, but when I did some colour editing of the movie on my phone, that half face video just magically appeared in my photo files. A gift from the cyber gods."







I’m Feeling So Much Better (Bonus Track).

"On March 7th, my wife rushed me to the hospital because I was experiencing severe pains in my lower abdomen. While there, I was dosed with Ketamine and experienced bad hallucinations. This song is about that experience. Turns out it was a kidney stone, that I passed while I was at the hospital, so they sent me home. We got to the hospital at 6pm and left at 6am.”


You can pre-order the vinyl release, buy the download and listen to Oxygen here.

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Custard Flux - Echo

Curvey is back with a second instalment of Custard Flux goodness. Mick Dillingham catches up with the great man to find out all about it and he gives us a track by track breakdown of Echo.


Another glorious Custard Flux album is upon us and like everything Eden Hall’s Gregory Curvey unleashes it’s a psychedelic treasure chest of wonderful songs, masterfully played and beautifully produced. Let us sit down with the great man and find out all about Echo. So straight off, why Echo?


"I initially intended to name the album after one of the elements, like Helium, and already had permission to use an entirely different painting by Gregory Chamberlin for the cover, but that Echo knob on the cover of the Helium Box Set wouldn’t let me be.  The box did have enough room for another CD, so I went with the idea of making Echo an annex to the Helium Box Set."


This time you brought some other players on board for the sessions.


"Having Tim Prettyman play double bass on the album definitely added a new dimension to the sound.  The acoustic bass I played on the Helium tracks sounded pretty close to an electric bass, even though I didn’t use an amplifier.

America happened to be the first track we recorded the double bass on for this project, and as soon as we finished laying it down, I couldn’t believe how the sound was spatially altered.  You can almost feel the double bass in the room on the whole record.  Tim’s son Walt received a degree in classical violin and toured with a gypsy jazz band for a few years.  He’s a phenomenal player, and I’m extremely pleased with his contributions to this record."


A  handy song by song break down of Echo might be called for about now, don’t you think?


Supernatural :

"Originally titled Supernatural Disaster, but that seemed a bit too negative and the world is desperately in need of positivity. It’s about my day to day struggling with the USA’s current political retardation, but I kept the lyrics vague.  The riff was one of the good ones I’d saved on my phone and I had the verse parts for a few weeks before the chorus finally came to me. Funny how that works. I love Walt’s violin playing on this track."

Echo : 

I was in my basement, working on the space where my stereo and records will one day be removed from their storage boxes and properly set up. I was listening to U2’s Boy album on my iPhone and reminiscing about that period in my life when new wave was fresh. Later that night, I was playing my guitar, while putting my daughter to bed and out popped the initial parts for Echo.  The original bones of the song got buried in some pretty distracting flesh."






America :

"Originally titled Babylon. I had all the melodies and parts worked out, but couldn’t come up with any lyrics for weeks.  When they did come, I was in my studio and they just rolled out. The first verse was about baseball, so I wrote the second about apple pie, both have lots of hidden meanings. I think America has some of my better lyrics.

Cirque d’Enfants :

"I wrote this song thirteen years ago, and just weeks after my daughter was born.  It didn’t fit with the tracks on the The Luck Of Eden Hall album I was working on at the time, and I tried to pull it out for a subsequent albums, but it never made it.  Not to say it’s a b-song, I really like it.  It just never worked until now."






Extraordinary Man :

"My good friend Tim Ferguson (The Red Plastic Buddha) came to Detroit for a visit and we had some fun in my studio. I took the best one that we did that day, and turned it into Extraordinary Man, which is written about one of my good friends that is transitioning from a man to a woman. Love everyone folks. Don’t judge."

Pink Indians :

"The folks that pre-ordered a copy of the Helium Double LP directly from me, got a chance to hear all the songs on Echo in various stages of creation as a bonus for their endearing support.  Pink Indians definitely went through a transition.

The original version was a bit too poppy and the song came really close to getting cut, but I stripped it down and reworked the rhythm section with a progressive beat and added vocal tracks. The lyrics are made up, but based on real experiences, including losing my girlfriend in India for a spell. I thought of those times when your child is briefly missing and you’re beating down the fears of all the possible bad scenarios and then suddenly there they are, smiling and safe."

Gold : 

"Originally titled Silver and Gold, but I just went with the element. Last summer I was repairing a rotted window sill on the second floor of my house when this song came to me.  I’d go up and down the ladder singing “heading to the mountains...and living off the land...”.  I wrote two complete songs around that stanza, both with different ideas, and couldn’t stand either version, until I started splicing them together, which altered the meaning of the lyric to my liking."






Suns And Daughters : 

"Another good riff I’d saved on my phone.  My friend Steven turned me on to My Friend The Sun, a really great old song by Family. I took my existing riff, sat down and wrote under the influence of the Family tune and this was the result.

My daughter went to Montessori School for a few years and on a child’s birthday,the teacher used to have them carry a little planet Earth in a circle, around a candle in a sun shaped candle holder on the floor.  I thought that was a cool ritual and was thinking of it when I wrote this song. The facts are true. We are travelling around sixteen hundred thousand miles per hour through space.




Echo is a magnificent, well worth your attention. You can listen to and buy the album here.


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Mick Dillingham Interviews : Curvey

It's about high time that we had another Mick Dillingham Interviews feature. This is a hectic time for Mick with another couple of interviews coming up in the near future.

Here at IDHAS, we are big admirers of the magnificent Psych Pop purveyors, Luck Of Eden Hall. We also love Curvey's latest project, Custard Flux. So we thought it was about time that we caught up with the great man. Mick found out all about Custard Flux, including a track by track breakdown of the Helium album and much more.


Mick: So you moved from Chicago to Detroit. That must have been quite an upheaval for you both physically and emotionally.


Curvey: Yes.  I really had no desire to leave Chicago, and my house that I’d been pouring my heart and soul into for ten years. But my wife was really burned out from working for the City of Chicago for twenty years and she was receiving job offers from all around the country.

So we decided to make the move for her career.  I thought I could handle it, but it has really taken a toll on me psychologically.  Detroit has a great music history, but I haven’t had much luck finding local musicians to play with and it’s been quite depressing.


Mick: So how did the Custard Flux project first germinate in your mind?


Curvey: My friend Lee Klawans, a great photographer and man of many talents, was managing an estate sale in Chicago, where they were selling an old harmonium, or pump organ.  He told me that I should see it and that I’d fall in love with it, so I rented a trailer and drove from Detroit to Chicago to have a look.

Jim Licka had one in his keyboard emporium that I used to play on and I’d been wanting one of my own, so I bought the harmonium and brought it back to Detroit.  I played on it for about a week before it started to fall apart.  First, one of the old straps that work the bellows ripped, so I replaced both of them.  Then the mechanism that allows you to play an octave higher without touching the keys broke.

So I ended up taking the Harmonium apart and gave it a thorough cleaning and replaced all of the felt pads and cloth hinges.  Once I had it all back together, it was just about as good as new.  My fantasy was, or is, to set up in the park and play progressive psych pop without any amps or p.a.  A green dream, if you will, to share with the kiddies.







Mick: How did the recording process and musical approach taken differ from Eden Hall, what challenges did you encounter and what lessons did you learn from setting yourself this goal?


Curvey:  On this project I wanted every instrument to be recorded with microphones, not plugged in directly, to give the songs a true acoustic feel.  I don’t own an acoustic bass, so I had to borrow one from my friend Steven Chamberlin and it sounded fantastic when recorded.  I never mic the bass when I’m tracking songs for The Luck Of Eden Hall.  I always use amp software for that and occasionally for my guitar sounds too.

Another big difference is that I didn’t use a click track for most of the songs this time.  My studio’s in the basement and my piano is on the first floor, so I had to run mic cables through a hole where radiator pipes pass through the floor to be able to record the piano.  My headphones wouldn’t cover the distance, so I had to track the piano first and use it as a guide for recording the drums and the rest of the tracks.

That really helped give the songs a different feeling.  I basically approached mixing the songs the same way I do with Eden Hall.  As far as panning, I just limited the effects used to reverb and delay.  I did learn a lot about blending acoustic sounds on this project, but it’s basically the same as mixing electrified noise.


Mick: In your mind did the songwriting process differ in anyway from what you’d done before….were you conscious of writing Custard Flux songs rather than Eden Hall songs or did you just write songs as normal and then let the creative approach turn them into something else?


Curvey: I wanted Custard Flux to be more progressive than it turned out, but pop songs flow out of me like slag.  I had written a slew of tracks that were starting to lose their appeal and then The Hit Parade happened.  I really liked the different time signatures in that song and tried to write more songs that way to break out of the typical pop mould.







Songs usually come to me eighty percent complete, and yes, I was very conscious of writing acoustic songs for this project.  I knew I wanted to include a few instrumental tracks, but most of the ideas I had required electric guitar and echoplex.  I saved a few to flush out for the second release.


Mick: If you had to sit down and re-record any of the tracks as Eden Hall versions how different do you think they would be. Are there tracks on the Flux album that you couldn’t fathom how to do an Eden Hall version?


Curvey: Oh, I think they’d all work as The Luck Of Eden Hall songs.  Some of the tracks would be much heavier and psychedelically blown out, to be sure.  I actually had a hard time not putting down more electric guitar solos on these songs, because I hear them in my head that way.  There’s no sustain when using an acoustic guitar, so I really had to practice my scales, which has really improved my skills.

Mick: How about a track by track breakdown of the album.


Curvey: The Hit Parade.  This track was written around the beginning phrase and the “I feel better” chorus.  I liked the sound of the riff being doubled on piano and guitar.  The lyrics are all about the high you get when you create something new artistically that’s well received by critics and the public.


Forevermore.  I wrote this on the harmonium, but was really pleased the first time I heard the piano and harmonium parts together.  It created a real dreamy circus feeling.  The lyrics are about the current dingbat U.S. president and his administration.


Empyrean House.  I wrote this track for a collaboration I did with Icarus Peel.  I’d finger picked the guitar on the version he released, which was beautiful and mellow and I decided to rework the song for this project after playing it on my Harmonium.  The lyrics are about experiences I’ve had in the wild, on mountains and in India, how man is really out of balance with nature.


Tiger.  I really liked this riff.  I record melodies on my phone for later use and it was one I’d thrown down.  The chorus lyrics are from a Buddhist saying.  My friend Gregory Chamberlin, who let me use his art for this project, is Buddhist and I wrote it for him, but it’s really about me.


The Shire Of Gingin.  The name of an Australian town I’d passed while on vacation.  Actually my wife was asked to speak at a conference in Perth and I was her baggage boy.  I thought it would make a good song title, so I logged it into my handy dandy iBrain phone.  The lick felt like dark magic and I had to learn a completely different set of scales to be able to riff on top of it, which was fun.  I imagined the shire swirling with magic and genies.







Sleepy.  This was written on the piano and is one of my favourites on the album.  I really like the riff, which got a little buried in the final mix.  I recorded most of the piano tracks on this album with the sostenuto pedal pressed, letting the piano strings ring.  The song is about being lonely.


La Mort.  I had this happy riff and couldn’t seem to turn it into a lyrical song, so I played solos over it and let an ominous blanket of dark harmonium engulf the end.  The drums were added last.  I was picturing a happy child blindly running through a field of daisies and tripping into an old well.  I hope that doesn’t ruin it for you.


Out Of Phase.  This is a track that was left over from The Acceleration Of Time sessions.  I liked how it sounded on the piano, so I rearranged it and added the trippy ending.  It’s all about relationships.


Golden Opportunity.  I wrote this while on tour in England.  I’d played at Kozfest and saw Soft Machine, who blew me away, and it rained the entire weekend.  The mud was thick and hungry for wellies.  I had a great time.


Tiger Reprise.  Believe it or not, all the parts in this song were recorded as part of the Tiger track, but I decided to strip Tiger down for the final mix.  I liked my solos and the drum part, so I mixed this version without vocals.


Helium.  Written on piano.  The Floydian bass line brought it home for me.  I’d nearly scrapped it for being too pop, but I really liked the lyrics.  Dreaming about the queen of psych.  I was originally going to title the album Harmonium Chrysanthemum, but decided it was a little misleading and one of Gregory’s paintings reminded me of a helium balloon, so I made this the title track.







Bonus Disc.  All of the original songs on the bonus disk, except for Innermission, were early songs I’d written for Custard Flux that fell out of favour.  I’d grown tired of them.  It’s usually a sign for me that I shouldn’t release the song if that starts to happen, but I remixed them and added parts that made them more interesting to me again.


Sweetened Hallowed.  I premiered this song last summer at the Halfmoon in Putney.  It’s a made up story about a beautiful, nice lady who gives money to children for candy.


The Feline Hallucination.  Written on guitar, and a little more jazzy.  Another fictitious story, this time about a guy who’s lost his mind.  Me.


Innermission.  Written on piano.  One of my favourite instrumental tracks and I was very happy to get artist Shane Swank to create a music video for the song.  You can check it out on YouTube.

Ascending Stories.  The music for this was written on guitar after returning from tour a couple years ago, but I finished up the lyrics for this project.  It’s about fighting depression.


Mick: So you put together a live band, how did that go?


Curvey:  Well, I wish that were true, but I haven’t put together a live band.  I’d really like to find some local like-minded musicians, but the Detroit scene is about electronica, Jazz, or hard and heavy rock.  Everyone’s already in three bands, or committed to another group.  I really wish I lived in England!


Mick: How has the response to the album been so far?


Curvey: Fantastic!  The first review was out of Moscow, and blew me away.  Shindig and Record Collector magazines have agreed to review it and I’m working on getting more.  I’m so behind in my promoting.  I’ll tell you I’m really happy to be talking to you again!


Mick: As ever you’ve come up with another dazzling limited special edition CD version. How was putting all that together?

Curvey: I wanted Custard Flux to look different than my usual releases and was extremely thrilled when my friend Gregory Chamberlin agreed to to let me use his paintings for the album art.  That too was a lot of pressure off me from coming up with artwork.  About four years ago, my wife and I backed the production of Glowforge, a laser cutting machine, because we could get one for half price.

It took three years for them to get the bugs in their design worked out and our unit arrived last year.  I knew I couldn’t hand cut anything out with exacto blades anymore, because of the pain it causes in my hands. A laser cutter seemed perfect for one of my CD projects or possibly an etched vinyl edition.

I looked into pressing vinyl locally, but the cost was way too much, so I decided on a CD Box Set.  The laser can etch images beautifully into wood.  As I started pricing out the supplies needed for each Box Set, including wood, hinges, CDs, a booklet and postcards. I ran across some boxes for wedding DVDs that were already assembled with hinges and a latch.

They were one third of the price that it was going to cost me to make each box, so I ordered ten to test how they worked under the laser and was pretty pleased with the result.  I had the CDs manufactured at Diskfaktory, where I’ve had CDs made since Subterrene’s release.  Had 100 of each postcard printed by a place I found online.

The 16 page booklets were printed locally, and I saved money by assembling and stapling each one myself.  Then I put the printed pieces in a paper envelope and sealed it with a wax stamp.  The positive feedback that I’ve received from customers has been rewarding.


Mick: You say something about the CD version being edited?


Curvey:  Yes, what I mean by that is some of the songs fade into one another.  If you download the songs from the Custard Flux Bandcamp page, each one is completely separate.


Mick: Will there ever be a second flux album at some point or is this a one off.


Curvey: Oh yes.  Number two is already starting to form in the ether.


Mick: Future plans?






Curvey:  I’ve just finished up a recording session with Tim Ferguson from The Red Plastic Buddha and the three songs we tracked need to be released. Keith at Fruits de Mer Records has asked me to piece together songs The Luck Of Eden Hall has previously released on the label, plus a couple new cover tracks, including one recorded with members of Sendelica, for a new compilation LP.

Mark Lofgren and I will be getting together this winter to start on a new album for The Luck Of Eden Hall. I’ve been asked to record drum tracks for a project Andy Budge is working on and I need to finish up my work on a live album recorded in Glastonbury with The Cary Grace Band and Andy Thompson. That should keep me busy!

You can listen to and buy the Custard Flux album, Helium, as a download, CD or Deluxe CD Set (as mentioned above), here. You can find more about the delights of The Luck Of Eden Hall here.