When the hugely influential Cardiacs front man and musician Tim Smith sadly passed away recently, many of us were fascinated at the news the same day that a comet had passed eerily close to the Earth, and we were convinced that he’d jumped on and hitched a ride to some place far up in the sky.
Swedish musician Melpo Mene poses a similar question in his new track ‘Get A Rocket’, notably that “If someone is going to heaven, shouldn't we get a rocket rather than dig a hole”. It’s a nice idea, and maybe I’ve also inadvertently stumbled upon a way of selling on the stock of 5,000 jet packs I have in my garage?
Anyway he’s been gone for so long from the indie music scene that he might actually have been building a rocket or a jet pack, if it wasn’t for the minor complication of him being a successful composer / songwriter based in L.A., most notably co-writing and producing Matt Simon's "Catch and Release,” the Deepend Remix of which went #1 in Europe and has close to 300 million streams worldwide.
‘Get A Rocket’ is the first track from a brand new Melpo Mene album, a follow up to his 2012 release ‘Behind the Trees’. He also released albums in 2004 and 2008, and I’ve really enjoyed catching up with his old material today - he’s a thoughtful songwriter, with an ear for a good tune.
That’s clearly demonstrated in ‘Get A Rocket’. The opening is pretty understated, but then the flowing melody, somewhere between Thirteen Senses and Coldplay, takes over the track, and there are so many nice elements to this – particularly in the latter stages where there’s a lovely guitar contribution, as if millions of stars are twinkling in the sky above us.
This is bang in the middle of the Indie Music genre, and should have widespread appeal.
Writing about his music writing he says, "I enjoy writing music from a helicopter perspective about the general human experience. I don’t usually write to latch on to current debates. Like stick figure drawings on the wall of a cave, I imagine my music capturing the basic experience for someone to maybe accidentally find in the future.”