In 2016 FANTASING sang a sad country song about the inflated price of cheese, a Dear John break-up wail to departing Prime Minister John Key. We were artists-in-residence at the Audio Foundation in Tāmaki Makaurau, and all was lurching to catastrophe while we tried to write a song about it.
That song gestated in the FANTASING incubator for 7 years, and while it did so, the catastrophe lurched onwards and we lurched ever closer to the catastrophe.
If there was no denying it then, there really is no denying it now.
The catastrophe high-pitched-whisper-screams in our faces.
It demands our undivided attention.
It will not stop getting worse and worse and worse.
FANTASING move at an anthropocentric glacial pace, just like the literal glaciers in the literal anthropocene: slowly; imperceptibly; then too fast and all at once and it’s indisputably our own fault that we’re fucking doomed.
That’s why now, 6 weeks out from the 2023 general election, spluttering and coughing and shielding our eyes from the harsh late winter light, FANTASING are delivering Lurching to Catastrophe. It’s a work of art and a manifestation of anxiety, like ordering food on a touchscreen when there are people waiting for you.
FANTASING is Bek Coogan, Claire Harris, Gemma Syme and Sarah Jane Parton.
Ngā mihi nui to all who tautoko our work.
Lurching to Catastrophe was written at the Audio Foundation, recorded at Radio Active and Christmas Studios, and produced by Luke Buda (The Phoenix Foundation). Recording was made possible by the supporters of our Boosted campaign.
The chorus is an homage to folk singer Julie Covington’s My Silks and Fine Array (1978) after the poem by 18th century visionary artist William Blake.
lyrics
Ever-shifting coast
Clickbait tidal seep
Prove who cares the most
In the briny deep
Swallowed by the earth
A catastrophe
Measuring our worth
Death by selfie
Surf the wiki sea
Catch the mother’s teat
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Live on Sesame Street
Scroll into quicksand
Choose a strategy
Play a public hand
LOLs at privacy
Bring me an axe and spade
Bring me a winding sheet
What do people here die of
Of being ourselves
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
When I my grave have made
Let winds and tempests beat.
credits
released September 8, 2023
Written by FANTASING
Lurching to Catastrophe was written at the Audio Foundation, recorded at Radio Active and Christmas Studios, and produced by Luke Buda (The Phoenix Foundation). Recording was made possible by the supporters of our Boosted campaign.
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