Real Britannia, by Ultrasound

Real Britannia

by Ultrasound

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zaazaaspec fantastic i really relate to Kon-Tiki and the desire to runaway and youthful nativity and exuberance

John Milner It's difficult to pick a favourite from such a great album but Soul Girl is just the cherry on top

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‘Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again’. – A.E. Housman (A Shropshire Lad 1896)

These words were quoted by Dennis Potter at the beginning of his play “Blue Remembered Hills” first aired on the BBC’s “Play For Today” in 1979. It deals with childhood and adolescence, a world of innocence and cruelty, adventure and tragedy, and it’s portrayal of those halcyon days through adult actors gives a greater insight into the politics and drama of the machinations of that nether world where emotions and fears are heightened and more intense and affecting than they are when we enter adulthood. This is something I was keen to explore in musical terms as, after all, music was an important part of my shaping as a child, and as an adult.

This album concerns itself with themes of childhood, nostalgia, desire, secrets and sex, set in a Seventies environment of bubblegum and concrete and Top of the Pops, of cub scouts and power cuts, civil unrest and hazy summer lawns. This isn’t just a bunch of songs bunged on a disc. This is conceptual – an idea of an overall sound captured on tape. An idea that you put the needle on the record and go on a spiritual journey with us into light and dark dreams and wash up on the shores of life somehow changed, hopefully for the better. Music is important to us and to our fans. It is not just a chart obsessed “here today” type thing, but has a lasting permanence – a sense of eternity and something that should outlive us all. Music, like love, is forever.

We are five people who become something greater than the sum of our parts when we write and play. Magic, channelling, healing, ascension, whatever you wish to call it. It is a calling, a necessity, something we merely act as conductors for, something powerful we must complete and send it out into the hearts on this earth. We would like you to join us on this journey so that together we can make a brighter future, a lasting impression, a permanent influence, and contribute human ascension.

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

ships out within 3 days

Purchasable with gift card

£10 GBP or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
‘Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again’. – A.E. Housman (A Shropshire Lad 1896)

These words were quoted by Dennis Potter at the beginning of his play “Blue Remembered Hills” first aired on the BBC’s “Play For Today” in 1979. It deals with childhood and adolescence, a world of innocence and cruelty, adventure and tragedy, and it’s portrayal of those halcyon days through adult actors gives a greater insight into the politics and drama of the machinations of that nether world where emotions and fears are heightened and more intense and affecting than they are when we enter adulthood. This is something I was keen to explore in musical terms as, after all, music was an important part of my shaping as a child, and as an adult.

This album concerns itself with themes of childhood, nostalgia, desire, secrets and sex, set in a Seventies environment of bubblegum and concrete and Top of the Pops, of cub scouts and power cuts, civil unrest and hazy summer lawns. This isn’t just a bunch of songs bunged on a disc. This is conceptual – an idea of an overall sound captured on tape. An idea that you put the needle on the record and go on a spiritual journey with us into light and dark dreams and wash up on the shores of life somehow changed, hopefully for the better. Music is important to us and to our fans. It is not just a chart obsessed “here today” type thing, but has a lasting permanence – a sense of eternity and something that should outlive us all. Music, like love, is forever.

We are five people who become something greater than the sum of our parts when we write and play. Magic, channelling, healing, ascension, whatever you wish to call it. It is a calling, a necessity, something we merely act as conductors for, something powerful we must complete and send it out into the hearts on this earth. We would like you to join us on this journey so that together we can make a brighter future, a lasting impression, a permanent influence, and contribute human ascension.

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

ships out within 3 days

Purchasable with gift card

£15 GBP or more

1.	Kon-Tiki 04:52	lyrics	buy track
Pack your bags, put on those rags Leave everyone behind Your golden age is over now It's just a state of mind Batten down the hatches there's a twister on the way That gathers all your childhood dreams And breaks them on the waves I'll never go home I'll never go home again They won't find me Hiding in the shadows The prodigal son killed his virtual Mum And he sashayed down the hall His earrings swung to the beat of the young And his high heels paced the floor Haunted by the child, the dresses that you dared to wear Haunted by the knowledge that's what makes the child the man I'll never go home etc.
2.	God's Gift 04:51	lyrics	buy track
We feel the need before we came to this dance We come in peace, we fall to pieces We smash and grab and then we smoke some fags and leave Our call to arms is largely disregarded 'Tis the season for high treason And in the midst of all the hype we still believed I'm Don Quixote in a fetching onesie Turning tables, burning stables And down amongst the dossers king of all I see Oh feel the need, feel the burn as I bleed My one desire to fan the flames of me Me, and nothing else but me God's gift, a high plains drifter Comes to town He brings a saintly sickness And we all fall down High five, we stand in line and we Praise his frame Lockjaw, our throats are sore so We scream his name As I stride this lonely stage Bleeding from my swollen rage This queasy crown We all fall down I can't do this alone
3.	Soul Girl 06:09	lyrics	buy track
Flying Fields, a sight for vital me and I'm Tomorrows girl, I mustn't watch TV. Why don't you walk on by and see the city stink, 'Cos it is pointing down where all the people drink. No-one's home so will you walk on by, This is tomorrows world, the custard soul and tie, Just give me 16 dogs and I'll live by the sea, The man with teenage eyes, will fall in love with me. Save My Soul Falling sideways in another life, I want to Wash the world, be seen and heard. You know sore eyes still see, the love you have for me, Religious castles fake fear of the needs we need. Save My Soul
4.	No Man's Land 07:15	lyrics	buy track
Us boys are free to graze our knees We live to fight the foe With British bulldog balls we make our stand We play the game with dirt streaked frames Our enemies will know We're here to play a game called no man's land Brothers in arms we fight to save our lives Every Morn from 9 till 4 Crying war With drums and knives We pack our troubles in our old kit bag and smile Boy to man We crawl through fences into no man's land Us men are here to follow fear We're made to fight the foe With British bulldog balls we make a stand We go to war with nothing more than what we have to show We've come to play a game called no man's land Brothers in arms we fight to save our lives Every morn we heed the call Crying war With drums and knives We pack our troubles in our old kit bag and smile Man to boy we break the fences down
5.	Asylum 03:52	lyrics	buy track
Everybody's got an axe to grind in my town They'll steal the light out of your eyes if you let them So I just put my headphones on Surrender to the song Asylum Home is like a warzone they don't want me Work is only worth the leisure it affords me That's the kind of poverty The middle class boys feel Asylum When I bow beneath the force imposed upon me Feel like a dead man dragging his corpse behind him Between the rhythm and the blues The needle and the groove Asylum
6.	Blue Remembered Hills 20:23	lyrics
Please won’t you bleed for me Oh please I feel like a boy band feels Lame As crippled as Mel C’s Tears Chauffeur me Cradle me Mum and Dad Save us from the secrets of love Part 2: Home time Home time Shorts and scuffs and beans for tea Welcome home you silly thing I’ll put the kettle on Down here Nestled in the family tree Waiting for the shifting sands The land of make believe Bells ring us out and back in again Gently now in the night time Wear your nice thick coat in the cold and rain Wear you armour inside out (now) Can’t wait Hope this year it snows again Christmas time is here at last Give me presents now Hells bells Ring out for the jilted sons Those abandoned by their dads On this Christmas day Part 3: Cuckoo My Daddy had a nervous breakdown Living down South in a boarded up bungalow My Daddy went home and he never came back To the family were the heart is meant to be At sea I guess he never liked me I’m just a big fat cuckoo Living up North in the never never never land Snakes in the grass with a cap in my bloody right hand For the family where the heart is meant to be At sea I guess they never liked me I’m just a waste of space Listen to the old psychological shakedown Gone to a new home, gone and they’re never coming back To the family where the heart is meant to be Gone to sea I guess they never liked me Eyes that see stars Say that’s too far Broke backs breed scars Scars leave their marks Part 4: Mummy’s boy Days of good intentions don’t last long Days of separation make you stronger Times like these I wished I was a girl I’m lost in the queue And you are too The laughs behind the backs of fat boys hurt But funny when you know they wear your skirts down Oh the perverts cry to be their Mums I’m lost in the swirl Of my imaginary world Sometimes here Sometimes there Sometimes flying in mid air And it’s only naïve fun when the dress is covering your son Like a Mummy’s boy Part 5: Come Unto Me I knew a girl she was as sweet as can be But when she showed it to me I didn’t know how to let go She pulled my head down to her parting and said I’ll teach you how to give head I didn’t have a fucking clue though She fished a spoon up from a hole in her tights And offered me the first bite And I said Oh no She hunched her skirt down to her ankles and said Well here be dragons my friend So drink deep Down into the dell Where lonely children cry at night Dampens down your dog days Spinning songs to give you light Here come the kings of the pubescent kids They’re singing come come come unto me My sister’s shoes smelt fusty and used And then she got me confused With all her distant pleasure She lit a pipe and then she gave it to me She says it comes in handy In finding old mans treasure Here comes your Uncle he’s a wheeze chested man With eyes the colour of phlegm And he says I love you love me He goes down then he comes back again You feel his breath on your skin He’s breathing yes yes yes yes Here come the stars and they know who you are They sing of sex in their cars And fucking with their guitars And at the time you were naïve and blind And they were so unrefined That they would take what’s offered And those who thought they were innocent times Nostalgia made them go blind For all those modern lovers And now we view the world of top of the pops As something falling like rocks On Savile’s shit stained covers Part 6: Real Britannia So Britannia’s a lush Drinking all of that stuff Staring over the sea Welcome sailors for tea I don’t mind if you’re poor Huddled masses for sure Come one and come all Come along to the ball Take this middle class boy Find me a new kind of joy Don’t be angry with me I’m a mirror you see If I’m a turn on to you Well I fancy me too ‘Cos despite all the harm Hands have done to this charm I don’t blame all the wrong I’m alive and I’m strong Scream sweet nothing’s to me Scream like the wind to a tree (ii): Past present The endless sun Cross country runs The glam rock beat The 3 day week The waist high grass The P.E. class The Oxford bags The woodbine fags The past is a shining sea that’s drowning me So I get my kicks from those who fall like me Into the deep blue The dentists drill The panty thrill The Cub Scout pledge To do my best The asphalt graze Those lazy days The pencil case We’re lost in space The past is an endless dream of troubled seas So I, I’ve always been kind to those who dream like me Nostalgia hooks us Pilsbury dough boy Plays with my toys Action man The kicked tin can The tiny tears Derailleur gears The airfix plane The Hornby train The past is a part of me, informs these words So come follow the paths you fear to tread That leads to blue remembered hills

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released May 1, 2020

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Ultrasound London, UK

Ultrasound are an English indie rock band. With roots in the British underground psychedelic and experimental rock scenes of the 1980s and early 1990s, the band emerged in 1997 and soon gained attention for their "operatic prog-glam ambitions" and "violent reworking of the idiosyncratic compositions of Captain Beefheart and the staged ambisexual pop idioms of the likes of David Bowie ... more

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