Minute Taker (Ben McGarvey)

Today's inspiration comes from a FB post of my friend Lefty (Ciao bello!). It was a song by a gay man called Ben McGarvey, who usually goes by the name of Minute Taker. The song and artist spurred my interest, et voilà!

McGarvey grew up in Shropshire. His interest in music began at the age of 12 when he started playing an old piano in the basement of his family home. After having some music lessons he decided that he preferred playing by ear and began writing his own songs. He went on to study contemporary music at the university.

Following his studies, McGarvey moved to Manchester where he wrote and recorded songs in his bedroom. In February 2008 he self-financed his debut album Too Busy Framing (released under his own name). Manchester Evening News was enthusiastic: "McGarvey has locked himself away in his bedroom and crafted songs of true otherworldly magic and splendour. Bursting with beautiful acoustic melodies and hooks...", while Clash magazine sang his praises: "McGarvey is a young singer/songwriter with that rarest of things in the genre; imagination".

The album begins with a short Intro, whic is followed by My Electric Wire, a beautiful song about the singer's love affair with another man that is coming to an end:

I know it’s not your fault boy
That I used to love ten thousand vaults of you
Racing through my veins
But I’ve had all I can take
And now it’s time to take control
I know it’s over

The album's title track is an inventive take on the artist's creative process and the frustration he feels when there exist many good ideas and "too little time to frame them all":

For Lust, a song about the delicate subject of a gay person's internalized homophobia, McGarvey sampled gay porn movies, "creating the song's rhythm section from sounds created during intercourse".

Disjointed told the tale of Fred and Rose West, a song of two serial killers in love. McGarvey has said that the song was written "from my perspective as someone who, at the time, drew a parallel between the story of Fred and Rose and my own relentless search for a partner".

I think I am addicted
To this feeling I get
I was born a fresh blood hunter
I play with my prey ‘til the end
Then I dismember them
And move on to the next one

I'll hunt alone
Until I find my Rose

........................

Oh Rose...
It’s only wrong when I’m alone

Ben lists an eclectic bunch of artists as his influence: Kate Bush, Bowie, Bat For Lashes, Stevie Nicks, Arcade Fire, Bjork, Tori Amos, Radiohead, Eurythmics, Kraftwerk, Pet Shop Boys, Billie Holiday, ADULT. Agnes Obel, Fever Ray/The Knife, Goblin, Diamanda Galas, Abba, PJ Harvey, TR/ST, John Grant, Suzanne Vega, Joni Mitchell, Empire of the Sun, iamamiwhoami, Jane Weaver, Lana Del Rey, Lamb, Portishead, Niki & the Dove, Roisin Murphy/Moloko, Wild Beasts.

He also lists these film directors and films as his favorite: Lars Von Trier, Hitchcock, Dario Argento, Alien/Aliens, American Beauty, The Shining, Donnie Darko, as well as these TV shows: Stranger Things, Walking Dead, Halt & Catch Fire, Mr Robot, Six Feet Under, Roseanne. We seem to agree on a lot of these, Ben.

In 2010 McGarvey formed a band called The Spiels (an abbreviation of "glockenspiels") with singer-songwriter Ryan Lamey. The pair originally met when Lamey recruited some of McGarvey's backing band members for his own solo project. They later came to work together when Lamey replied to an advert McGarvey placed on Gumtree looking for musical collaborators and the project evolved into a 5 piece band. Manchester Evening News described their music as "alternative folk-pop of infinitely dark hue" comparing their work to that of Arcade Fire, Kate Bush and Antony and the Johnsons.

One of their first songs was the delightful Hymn:

From a 2011 concert in Manchester, here's a good cover of The Smiths' There Is A Light That Never Goes Out:

From their 2012 Manchester Gay Pride concert, here's their version of Rihanna's S & M:

The Spiels released their debut EP Nightvision Part 1 in January 2013. Let Me Sleep for A While is an exquisitely beautiful song:

In 2012 McGarvey adopted the pseudonym of Minute Taker and released a 4 track EP Postlude. In reference to his change of artist name McGarvey revealed in an interview with The 405 that "I never really felt comfortable using my own name". He described how he'd spent time working in offices as a Minute Taker and was drawn to the name because it simultaneously sounded "mundane and fantastical." Echo 2 was the song that stood out; it is a fruitful marriage between Sufjan Stevens and Dead Can Dance.

On 15 April 2013 McGarvey released his second solo album Last Things. The album received favourable reviews from various online publications. As part of a feature on Minute Taker, Notion described Last Things as "A beautiful collection of electronic-orientated pop songs that sound like old recordings that have been rediscovered and restored by a renegade computer; glitching and looping."

Three promotional singles from the album were released; Merge, Let It Go & Alkali. They are all great. Merge describes a feeling that occasionally visits people who are really in love:

When you lie here by my side
Our bones will curl and entwine

How can it ever be enough?
When all this flesh that makes us up
Is separating us
Without our earthly parts between us
We could merge

My skin will crawl into yours
To knit a father’s womb for us

I want to rub out all the lines
I want our blood to turn to wine
So I can swallow you
(so you can swallow me)
We’d be one being, so divine
If we could merge

Let It Go is a catchy pop song that should've been a hit:

Alkali is yet another beautiful song which likens a lover's soothing touch to the alkali that neutralises the acid that builds up in one's stomach:

Echo 2 was also included in the album, as well as some other outstanding songs: Wait For Me is a game of light and shadow:

Somewhere Under Water is a majestic lament of lost (or misplaced) love. This is probably my all-time favorite song of his.

Your skin is wet
My sheets are dry
You’re not the one
Here by my side tonight

He looks like you
But sometimes you change
There in your murky bed
Beneath the passing waves
Is that where you’ll always stay?

Oh my love
Somewhere under water
Have I been wasting my time?

I could make do
At least for a while
But I’m not the one
He wants by his side tonight

Maybe you love
And his true love
Float down there
Together you’re eternally suspended
Tempting us to break the surface

Oh my love
Somewhere under water
Looking up
Never close enough
Oh my love
Somewhere under water
Have I been wasting my time?

McGarvey composed the music for a stage musical Hoax: My Lonely Heart which was shown at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre in June 2014. Written by award winning author Ravi Thornton, HOAX is a cross-media project consisting of the stage musical HOAX My Lonely Heart and accompanying graphic novel HOAX Psychosis Blues. The musical, which was directed by Benji Reid, was described on the Royal Exchange Theatre's website as "a dark musical fuelled by those most destructive of tendencies: love and self-sabotage" The story is based on the experiences of Ravi Thornton's younger brother Roabbi (aka Rob) who committed suicide in 2008 at the age of 31, after having suffered a long battle with schizophrenia. From this play, here's A Captain:

From the same musical, here's Nothing To Fear:

McGarvey premiered his latest work, an audio-visual performance, To Love Somebody Melancholy at Chorlton Arts Festival in May 2015. A collaboration with illustrator/animator Ana Stefaniak, the show was described by the Chorlton Arts Festival website as "a story told through a contemporary song cycle and projected photographic animations, exploring the melancholic temperament of artists." Time Out Manchester included the show as one of their top recommendations for the festival.

In a recent interview for PlanetNotion, Ben shared his writing process: "I tend to write little bits of melodies and riffs all the time and record them on my phone (which has recently replaced my clunky old dictaphone for this job) and I also write ideas for lyrics or just a general concept for a song on my notes application on my phone. Every now and then I listen back to all the recordings I’ve made and am amazed at how many there are that I have no recollection of writing! Some of them are barely discernible because I’ve woken up in the night with a tune in my head and recorded it before falling back to sleep and forgetting all about it by morning. When I listen back later, it often sounds like that guy who phones people up in horror movies and tells them they’re going to die. Some of the snippets sound pretty shite but then I listen to others and think ‘oooh I like that’. Then I start piecing the parts together and these eventually get married up to the ideas for lyrics and a song is born. I never really sit down and write a whole song out of the blue. Sometimes, I get pretty much the whole melody and chord structure straight away but the lyrics take me a bit longer. I have lots of unfinished songs for which I just sing gibberish, hoping that one day some lyrics will stick. I write a lot of songs and they are a bit like those baby turtles that make their way down to the sea in those David Attenborough documentaries- most of them don’t make it but the odd one does. Maybe it’s because they are stronger or maybe it’s because they just got lucky!"

We are lucky that these baby turtles made it to sea, Ben. And hopefully, there'll be many more, and pretty soon you'll achieve the success you so richly deserve!

As an epilogue, here's Ben covering my second favorite Kate Bush song (after Wuthering Heights), Running Up That Hill: