Human Code

Tracks

• Human Code05:19

Mock Deer follows up the confrontational Contempt for Others with a second cut lifted from the Perceptions EP, due out in April. Human Code, released digitally on February 11th, hints at the breadth of the EP, its wistful melancholy and introspection contrasting well with the first single.

Written in the darkness brought by the depths of winter and while dealing with a bout of illness, the honesty is arresting. Songwriter Ricky Damiani explores his own fragility, the physical and emotional processes of ageing, and their relationship to the gaining of experience.

Hobble down the stairs and drink a cup / It’s a whole ritual thing
Being alone, it don’t much hold its own / I even want the phone to ring.

With one eye on the future, Damiani is rooted in the present as he embraces a personal perspective in his observations of the mundane: he is unafraid to remind us of the universal fears associated with age which are already a reality for many in our society. He still has time, however, to poke fun at our obsession with the pursuit of perfection, or our desire to appear to have achieved it: “We all long for that pretty picture, you know the one, you know, where blossom falls like snow”

Once again, the production and the organic arrangements – these recordings were made in a mobile studio in the Italian alps during the winter of 2019 – serve up a fresh, loose sound that makes connecting with Damiani’s reflections on the human condition an easy and satisfying experience.