Safe in Mind

Safe in Mind is the title of the first song released from Venture of Belief. Debuting 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. Fuzz 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. 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 heard 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 either; it was DIY. By coincidence, we both had a few weeks to spare and nothing else to do after splitting from our major bands of that era. We became two people locked away in a platonic creative hub. We were both people who worked better with others. Fuzz had been the first drummer in my band 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, which 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 got on with 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 Pop Will Eat Itself show. 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. 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 reason it was important for me to include this song in the Venture of Belief collection.

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