Safe in Mind

Safe in Mind is the title of the first song released from Venture of Belief. It debuted on New Reality Records, on March 4th, 2024. It is a low-fi, sub-base, electronica track with a vocal melody drizzled sweetly on top of it. I wrote it with Fuzz Townshend. If you know anything about bands from the '90s when this song was conceived, you will understand why those who support it include information about my co-creator Fuzz. He was a member of two bands, Pop Will Eat Itself and Bentley Rhythm Ace. He still is when not busy with his TV show, Car SOS. If people write about my previous work they almost always include the name of my first band delicious monster too. I can live with the 90s link if its purpose is to include a brief history of creating original music. I suppose it can’t hurt to be connected to such groundbreaking originals. Yet I don’t believe this information would make anyone fall in love with the song. Promotion can too easily appear to be saying, it’s ok to like this, they are somebody. I feel a little uncomfortable with that. Do you get into music more if it’s better connected? As a dweller in underground art, I feel inclined to tell you a more intimate story about the song. Safe In Mind originated when Fuzz gave me one continuous beat loop he had made and asked if I could work with it. There wasn’t time to re-arrange or cut and paste the loop. I listened to it only once to create the top-line melody. I then wrote a lyric to ski jump across each section as it came. We recorded the vocals in Fuzz’s friend's loft in Moseley, Birmingham and he mastered the mix in his living room. There wasn't a recording budget, it was DIY. By coincidence, we both had a few weeks to spare and nothing else to do after splitting from our major projects of that era. We became two people locked away in a platonic creative hub, healing from a singularity of states that didn’t really suit us. We were both people who worked better with others. We had known each other previously. Fuzz was the first drummer in delicious monster. We knew the same people. He would amaze me because he always charged a fee for his input on anything he worked on, that was unusual then. It took me years to learn how to do that. I didn’t apply his work ethos to the hours I spent on these sessions. I caught the bus, turned up with my bag of fruit and smiled my way through it because I have to make things to feel alive and Fuzz is charming company. Ten songs were created. I entrusted them to him and walked away. I understood that it was a collaboration. You put the hours in, and the rewards come later, that’s how it works. I had no idea how much later. Jump forward to 2019, and Fuzz presented me with two of the songs backstage at a Poppies gig. He handed me an MP3 player with them on and said I should use them if I wanted to. Hearing the song again triggered my emotional connection to that time. I had written the lyric about my tendency then to fantasise rather than risk relating and to imagine instead of engaging. That was a safe mind space for me during those younger days of delight and disillusionment. Of course, staying safe wasn’t a healthy option, which is why this Venture of Belief eventually began. That lyrical reveal is the only reason it was important for me to include this song in the Venture of Belief collection.

https://rachelmayfield1.bandcamp.com/track/safe-in-mind