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Notes on Moss Elixir

This is my latest attempt to make a real record--i.e., something to listen to, rather than music that helps you buy clothes. The last two albums I made with the Egyptians seemed too airtight, in retrospect. I had originally wanted Respect to be recorded with the musicians sitting around the table and singing into a bowl of fruit; somehow, production, budgets and musicianship all intervened to make a far more dense record than some of the songs warranted.

Hindsight is a groovy bedfellow. But it left me all the more determined to add only what was NECESSARY next time I went into the studio. When I started recording the songs for Moss Elixir , I had no deal, no producer and no money for a band. So I was able to build the tracks up slowly. "Filthy Bird," for instance, was recorded in June, 1994. By the following July, I could afford to fly Deni Bonet over from New York to play violin on it.

Morris Tepper (of Captain Beefheart fame) recorded a session with me last autumn in Seattle. Although he is only featured on one song on this album -- "You & Oblivion" -- he has furnished me with some very juicy out-takes, including "Shadowcat," which should be ready for the next album.

Having played a lot of shows alone, or with Deni on violin, I've gotten used to filling the stage by myself. Also, after 20 years, I can finally hear what I'm doing. So I've lost the band habit. But a few of the songs seemed to need a rhythm section, so for these, Tim Keegan kindly lent me his group, Homer. Drummer Patch Hannan also plays with the Sundays, and Jake Kyle is bassist with the Blue Aeroplanes.

I've never been a sax fiend, mainly because of the way the saxophone is deployed; the ghastly mellow tootling as the lovers ooze through Central Park in corporate movies, or the brassy squiggles that emerge whenever a rock act is wealthy enough to afford extra musicians. But, on the fringe of the horn scene, dwell some interesting souls. Ntchuks Bonga has made an album, Tshisha , that creates a vivid emotional landscape using sax, cello and percussion. I was lucky enough to track him down to add flock-of-birds horns to "Devil's Radio." My ancient friend James Fletcher, played and arranged art-horns on "DeChirico Street." Dave Woodhead, a regular contributor to Billy Bragg, added his cascading trumpets to "Beautiful Queen."

This project has no production as such. I've produced it inasmuch as that I've caused it to exist. Pat Collier, veteran of numerous Soft Boys and Egyptians sessions, came in to help out with the band tracks. My partner, Michele Noach, has listened to every prospective tape that has gone into
this thing, and she has steered it with me towards the magical gates of release. But I always associate the word "production" with some kind of sheen--a sugar buzz patina that has the listener lying on their back, almost licking the record: and there is none of that here. In that respect, I think
this is a real record.

Robyn Hitchcock, May 1996