B O N D P H O N E.
Words and pictures by Chris Lamb.

Though "new" is a bit subjective here: I'm listening to the not-quite released Love is All album, featuring the song "Felt Tip" which I stumbled over around this time last year in demo form. Ah, and there it is playing now, because iTunes runs on confluence, don't you know.

First impression on the final take? Somewhere between then and now, All is Love grew up a little. The demo was a slow and deliberate thing, like a wandering reminiscence along the outside of a scene you were never really a part of; pretty pop, too be certain, but a bit to precious for its own good. This new version has a necessary edge to it, swapping borrowed nostalgia for actual experience and the memory of it. Where the demo was all the stories your more adventurous friends told of their clubbing glory days, the album track is actual dance floor memoir, watching the next wave of ratty kids writing their name on the wall in thick Sharpie, claiming your old space as theirs a bit at a time. "Step right on the beat" indeed.

Which leads not at all to the news of the day: I'm creating a pseudonym. After years of thinking the idea of writing under any name but mine to be fundamentally silly, I've found myself writing for an editor who, for various reasons, feels his writers would be best served by a bit of anonymity.* Rather than stopping there, I've decided to create an entire person complete with personality and writing style to back up the name. Partly because I've never done it before, but mostly out of something Kieron Gillen said a while back on of of the forums I use, about how having more than one personality allows you full use of the range of emotions and styles. That's a poor paraphrase, but the idea is sound. Blame drink and lack of internet for the misquoting.

I haven't decided yet if I'll own up to work under the new name, but as there's no work to show yet I think I can wait to burn that particular bridge. I've discovered in the meantime that it isn't as easy as it looks, creating some one believable out of nothing. Reality has it too easy.