You might recognise Micko, leader of Micko & The Mellotronics, as Micko Westmorland – formally of The Bowling Green and his key role in cult 90s movie Velvet Goldmine. He’s assembled a cast of players with his Mellotronics which includes former Siouxsie & The Banshees / The Bat Cave guitarist Jon Klein, along with long term collaborators Terry Edwards (Sax/Trumpet) and Dylan O’Bates (Violin) to bring his musical visions to life, and we’re delighted to share one of them, in new single ‘The Fear’.
“I wanted the song to have a perilous feel” says Micko on The Fear, “to try and capture a superstitious dread but to temper that with the defiant optimism of the message.” It Certainly has this weird and wonky almost theatrical bent about it, the guitar laughing as the violin hints at impending doom and trumpet gives it this stilted feel. It draws you in though, almost as if once hooked you can’t escape. Nor would you want to.
Lyrically, the song deals with phobia and philosophical ideas of free will, with Micko explaining ‘I was looking to both affirm the positive and compound the idea that unknowns are negative. I have an author friend in the states called Georg Eifert, who’s an eminent psychologist. He wrote a book called ‘anxiety happens’, which I was reading at the time. So a lot of those theories and ideas came into play and influenced the writing.’
