“Lost” is an older song, one of the earliest to earn the Mappa Mundi label. It was originally envisioned as a rock song with loud, driving guitars, but then when I started this whole Chamber Pop experiment it turned into one of our clearest examples of that. For this series, however, I wanted to try to strip it down again, with the piano taking (some of) the string parts. It’s still got the distorted ukulele but it’s weird for me to hear it without the string arrangements. Someday, when the Song of the Fortnight process is more streamlined we’ll do another version involving the best of both worlds!

Lost by Mappa Mundi

This song came together a few years ago, after a period in which I had to stop playing altogether for a while due to wrist injuries from practicing too much. Oh, cruel irony! Needless to say, that was a bad time. However, it eventually forced me to think about what it meant to be an artist, and specifically what that meant to me. Eventually, this whole spate of material came out of that period, and this song especially became, in some ways, a thematic call to arms for Mappa Mundi. Or what would become Mappa Mundi. Or what is becoming Mappa Mundi.

Therapy sessions aside, you recording geeks may be interested to know that the effect at the end is actually created with a muted trumpet and tinkering with some digital delay. I just bought a real acoustic (or semi-acoustic) delay pedal, so I can’t wait to expand on that idea. Yay, psychedelic trumpet!

As always, please let me know what you think in the comments, and please also feel free to download/share/whatever these tracks. Use the buttons on the right side of the player.