New single - The Unexplained

Breaking off from the extremely occasional updates of our thoughts on the Protect & Survive album tracks, here's a new song. We hope you like it. Download from the usual Hidden Music website via the 'Music' link over on the right.

The Unexplained was a partworks mag produced in the UK in the early '80s. Ghosts, UFOs, Kirlian photography, out-of-body experiences, the Cottingley fairies, spontaneous human combustion... A monthly fix of paranormal paraphernalia tagged "Mysteries of mind, space and time".

Being far too young for it, but also being far too phoney-brave to tell my parents to stop having it delivered because it was scarring me deeply, I went through a long phase of trying to sleep with the light on and my eyes wide open, listening for things under the bed. Wonderful food for the imagination, terrible for attention span at school the next day.

Worst were the reader letters on the back page. The anecdotes, with their sign-offs from provincial towns, seemed more plausible for their intimacy. I remember a story about the ghost of a haggard old man sitting in the bath which made me terrified of going into the bathroom without reaching around and making sure the light
was on first...

Now I'm all grown up and sensible and sceptical, I miss the part of me that could be so profoundly affected by this kind of stuff. The song is a sort of tribute to those mysterious formative forces - and more...