A Brief Reminder To - Rabelski LP - "Stickers on Keys"...The Winter Sounds...

Having been lured to the Manchester music scene from his Midlands hometown Leamington Spa back in 1994, Martin Roman Rebelski is a man keen to let his ear guide him, an approach which has served him well in the careful construction of Stickers On Keys, his second solo album.

Rebelski is in fact a keyboard player by trade but master of so much more. He modestly explains his aptitude as a mix of youthful curiosity and happy happenstance, 'When I was 16 I used to work in an old music shop demonstrating pianos, but I just ended up playing everything I could get my hands on. There were accordians, synths, glockenspiels - any crazy old thing.' This delicate aura of bric-a-brac completely surrounds the songs of Stickers On Keys, pieces of music built around instruments rather than by them.

Stickers On Keys may not be his first full-length but could be considered a debut of a different sort, being his premier release for new label Twisted Nerve. For Rebelski previously called Heavenly Records home before one man's enthusiasm tempted him the way of the Nerve. This was none other than TN figurehead Damon Gough, so enamoured with Martin's first album that he insisted Rebelski not only sign to his label but that he covered all the A&R as well. In keeping with the fashion of the company the deal was struck 'over a game of pool' and the long-term pals were now business associates; artist and entrepreneur.

Did me mention that Martin plays keyboards for Doves? In fact, a strong current of kinship runs right through Stickers On Keys. Fellow Doves-mates lend a familiar hand in Scallywag and In Space For A Day, with frontman Jimi Goodwin reverting to his old position behind the kit on Remote Control. New personal friend and string accomplice Lizzie Hoskin adds orchestral depth throughout and Roger Quigley (Montgolfier Brothers) joins Mike TV (Beats For Beginners) for various vocal assignments.

In the flesh, Rebelski is whittled down into an eight-piece band, but ten musicians and colleagues appear throughout the record to stir in their own flavours. Other strokes of detail and particular flourishes were provided by stuff lying around at home - the aforementioned glockenspiels, accordions recorders and such like. Who said on-the-job experience was dead?

It's an approach which Rebelski attributes to his love of Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Tom Waits and Aphex Twin, their influence yet more evident in the twinkling electronic starlight of opener Alka Seltzer and gentle, aquatic lullaby As The Crow Flies. Elsewhere Martin lets his ivories take centre stage, teasing out strands of melody like spinning silk through Magic Calculator and single Play The School Piano...info by Twisted Nerve.

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Long Island part I ...by... Lilly Dan

Long Island part I

sitting behind him. On the bike. The light change to red, and he breaks into a stand still, I kiss his back, I don't even know if he can feel my kiss through the fabric of his motorcycle jacket, but I kiss him anyway. Just cause his back is there and my lips are there and there's nothing to do but wait for the light to change again so we can go on riding. Slowly, every time we take the bike out, I'm getting more and more used to it, more practiced in it and I enjoy it more. When I just started riding with him, I felt as if I were in the passenger sit in a car, passive, just sitting there, on the way from one place to another. Slowly I'm starting to realize how, though I don't have an active part in making the bike move or navigating the course, my body motion, posture, are effecting the flow of the ride and are effected by it. I learn to shift my ass back when he speeds up so he could lean forward, and to role back, closer to him, when he slows down, for more stability. I learn to straighten my back every once in a while cause I tend to curl it and to hold more with my thighs and not just my arms. I learn to hold my hands around him, it a way that would keep me stable and secure but not hurt my wrists after half an hour if riding as it did in the first few rides I went on.

The BQE is heavy with traffic, even though it's about noon, parts of the roads are under construction, and it's slowing the whole flow of cars down, I've never been on the road in that direction - into queens instead of into brooklyn and as the road expand and the houses and buildings turn to a large cemetery and then a large area of industrial buildings I totally loose myself in the changes of scenery and just hold on to the bike and look at the billboards and highway signs and traffic.

We are heading to Long Island to some bike store, and then we head out to the beach, we stand by the motorcycle putting on our helmets and checking the map for the root we were to take, when some guy, getting out of the bike store looks at us and say "Good to see some people riding british bikes" he tells us about his 78' Northon and how he couldn't get it started the other day and had to bring it to the shop. He asks are were we are heading and give us direction to Jones beach and fire island. I can't even tell where all those places are, never being that far out of New York, but he nods and ask for more directions and there, having some destination in mind, we go on the bike again.

The road is all open, and he rides fast, probably faster then I ever went on the motorcycle before, it feels good, the wind from our ride, the air feels cool but nice. For a moment, I'm sorry I didn't wear a sweatshirt under the bikers leather jacket, but then i realize, I actually enjoy that coldness, the wind all around me, I arch my back and let the wind penetrate through my jacket collar and into my chest and betty till I feel like I'm riding the wind as much as I'm riding the bike, like it's touching all my body and going through me. The road is beautiful, I'm thinking back on a conversation between 2 people I heard a few weeks ago, about going upstate to see the leafs change in fall. And how though I knew it was supposed to be beautiful and I have seen photos of places in autumn and brown red trees, it looks totally different then the way I imagined it.

There are many types of trees along the road, I try to recognize them, to name them in my mind as my brain - too amazed by the beauty of it and trying to rationalize it, to make it comprehensible, already write an imaginary blog entry about it in my head - I realize that I have no idea what are all those trees are called, since I've never seen any of them before. Some of them are evergreens, dark dusky green and thorny, and then, some of the other trees are lighter shades of vivid greens, light grassy greens with small soft leafs, that are in different stages of metamorphosis into there naked winter phase. some of those leafs are light yellow fruity colors, some of them are sweet warm sun yellows, some are brown and crackly, some are beautiful crimsons and dark reds. in between, by the road, there are some low bushes with either leafs or fruits in vivid blazing red. and other bushes with dusky cold yellow leafs and branches that looks almost white, and behind them, willows or birches in gray silver shades and golden leafs. I'm amazed at the variety of colors, of all the different stages of the season change all at once.

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