Stranger Than Fiction
After leaving school in 1986, Michael Hill, Michael Luscombe and I started a small band called Stranger Than Fiction. As fans of what is now known as 1980s New Wave; bands such as Split Enz Talking Heads and the like – we created and recorded our music for a very, very small audience. (a picture of me at about this time Nick’s Old, Original MINI)
Using a four-track recorder, we knocked out a quick album called A Carriage Off the Track. After I purchased an eight-track recorder, and as many effects units as possible, we quickly re-recorded two tracks from the first album and two new songs in an interim release.
The major, and to be final album, was called Happily Marooned. The two tracks below are my instrumentals from this album. There are other songs, but as I didn’t exclusively write them (I co-wrote lyrics and music) I am not going to publish them to the world without permission. One day I will be brave enough to publish the lyrics I wrote. This was a lifetime ago, and it’s been difficult enough to gather courage to publish these tracks!
To complete the story, we drifted apart. My eight-track is in storage in Adelaide. I got married. Life goes on. In 1997, Phil Mills remastered my only cassette master onto audio CD. In 2003, using Adobe Audition, I cleaned up the audio and created the versions below.
As was not a vocalist, I largely stuck to instrumentals. The keyboardist in Split Enz and the originator of ENZSO, Eddie Rayner, was my personal guide to the acceptability of this from an acceptability point of view. Songs such as Albert of India and Pioneer (lead in song to Six Months in a Leaky Boat) acted as thematic pieces for the band’s album releases.
On a Pilgrimage started life titled Isolation, but was renamed as it sounds like a movement song.
download MP3:
Isolation is my attempt at a 100% orchestral piece.
download MP3:
The music on this page is ©1987 Nick Hodge, and can only be used for personal listening pleasure.