Track By Tracks: The Medea Project - Reflections (2023)

1. The Ghosts of St Augustines (MMXXII and Video Edit):

We were approached by Andre Harrison and Claudio Ravanelli of Phat Mandem Productions, with an idea for a music video that combined elements of theatre, renaissance art, and a bit of visceral horror, and immediately felt that The Ghosts of St Augustines was the perfect track to match their vision. However, the music video format requires a much shorter time frame than the track in its original format so we needed to provide an edit for them. The Ghosts of St Augustines originally was released on Sisyphus, our debut, and this editing process gave us the perfect opportunity to revisit and refine the track. As musicians, the two of us have grown immensely, and taking this into account, we could add some new sonic elements, which felt to us like it added the final missing pieces to the original composition and it would keep the video edit interesting with some parts of the track now absent. Once we’d revisited and polished the full-length track, we could then edit the piece to fit the length of the music video, this in itself was a very daunting task as we had to retain the core but condense it down to approximately four minutes.

Musically it now soars higher than previously but still has those grainy, gritty elements of the original and we feel the edited version has still managed to capture the essence of the original without compromising the original vision.

Originally unsure how to release this and the video, the idea of the Reflections EP was born.

2. Cain (Tiamat):

When we write new songs we take a very organic approach, sometimes Brett will come up with an instrumental part or Pauline a rhythmic passage, but most often, we both get together in a room and experiment with sounds and ideas until something grows out of it. Occasionally we find ourselves stuck in a sonic space and to clear our heads we will mess around with songs we both know and love. Cain was a perfect example of this. We had started writing for album 2 but found ourselves in a bit of a musical rut and unable to get out of it.

We started playing around with a few different tracks we knew, to reset ourselves and decided we really liked how we’d managed to interpret Cain, combining some of the more gothic elements of the original with a harshness that we feel just added to the track, simplifying it for performing as a duo, but not losing its essence. This track itself is a tricky one, as modern Tiamat walks this very fine line between dark and light, and if you step slightly too far in either direction that balance is lost. We then added the chaotic synth elements to further enhance the harshness our interpretation had brought into the song.

3. Warhead (Venom):

Our management, Imperative PR, has always wanted to hear us perform this Venom classic as they felt that Pauline’s drumming style and it would complement each other incredibly well. When we started working on Cain, we decided we might as well do Warhead at the same time so they’d stop asking us to do it.

We sent them a rough band room recording, under the guise of “Ok we’ve done it, stop bothering us”, and they loved it, so when we discussed how we would release the video for The Ghosts of St Augustines, the idea of this EP was born, with Cain and Warhead being the other tracks on it.

The recording of this track and Cain was very bittersweet for us as well, as the studio we had grown to love was unfortunately in the process of closing down so this was the last time we got to spend some quality time there, however, it was a great way to say goodbye to the space.

4. Nightmare/The Dreamtime (Motörhead):

We were offered the opportunity to appear on an Antichrist Magazine YouTube compilation of Motorhead covers and felt that this would be a great way to extend ourselves and step completely outside of our comfort zone.

Originally we wanted to do one of the classics, namely Orgasmatron, but unfortunately were too slow in reserving it. We then spoke to Imperative PR on possible deep cuts to look at, and this quickly became the forerunner. Harkening back to Lemmy’s days in Hawkwind this track is far more airy and gothic than the in-your-face rock that is the hallmark of Motörhead. We approached this track in the bedroom as a bass and drum interaction, playing around each other. In itself this is quite different from our normal approach as most of our writing is done with a guitar painting the broad brush strokes. Once we had the basics down, we started adding layers of guitar turning this into quite a dark, almost acid-rock-infused rendition. Not quite what most people think of when they hear the name Motörhead, but that’s the beauty of interpretation.