The Kubrick Stare is a simple thing.
It's that unsettling shot you see in so many of Stanley Kubrick's films. A character tilts their head down slightly, looking up towards the camera. It's not quite rage, and it's not necessarily madness. There's something much quieter going on. Something unsettling behind the eyes.
I've always been drawn to that feeling.
And, eventually, I decided to name a music project after it.
Where It Started
I started writing music when I was about fourteen. Mostly instrumental stuff. Over the years I played in a metal band, a punk band, an indie rock band- anything loud, really, provided there were guitars involved.
But no matter what I was working on, I always found myself trying to push something more atmospheric into the music. Something hazier, a little less conventional. It didn't always work, particularly when the rest of the band had rather different ideas about what we were supposed to sound like.
I think I knew even then that the music I really wanted to make needed its own space.
I didn't start writing lyrics until I was nineteen. Up until that point, I'd been perfectly happy letting somebody else handle the singing while I concentrated on the guitars.
But if I wanted to make the kind of music I loved- something immersive, atmospheric and a little detached from the conventions of a typical rock band- I couldn't keep hiding behind being "the guitarist". I needed to start writing songs, not just guitar parts.
And that meant doing something I'd spent years avoiding.
Writing lyrics.
I'm still a guitarist first. Songwriter second. Lyricist third.
I suspect that order is unlikely to change.
Why The Kubrick Stare?
I never particularly wanted to release music under my own name.
I've always liked the idea of a band being something more than the people involved. A band name can represent a sound, an identity, even an entire world. It gives the music somewhere to exist beyond whoever happens to be making it.
A solo artist's name says, "this is who I am."
A band name says, "this is what we are."
And while The Kubrick Stare is largely my own creation, I've never thought of it as simply a collection of songs I've recorded by myself.
It's a project I've been quietly developing for years, with its own identity, its own direction and, eventually, its own conclusion.
There's a much bigger picture behind all of this.
But we'll get to that.
The Sound
I've never been particularly comfortable putting The Kubrick Stare into one musical genre.
Shoegaze is probably the most obvious comparison, and it's certainly one of my biggest influences. Bands like Ride and Slowdive have had an enormous impact on how I approach music, particularly when it comes to guitar textures and creating a sense of space.
But I don't think calling TKS a shoegaze project tells the whole story.
Shoegaze is a fairly specific kind of music, and while there are elements of it throughout my recordings, there's plenty that doesn't really fit the description.
There's the colder, more mechanical influence of post-punk bands like Joy Division and Ist Ist. The melodic sensibilities of indie rock and new wave. And a fascination with synthesisers, drum machines and electronic music that has become increasingly important to how I write and produce.
Some tracks lean heavily into guitars. Others barely need them at all.
And I'm quite happy with that.
Guitars will always be central to my musical identity. Players like Johnny Marr, Mark Collins and James Dean Bradfield have had an enormous influence on how I approach the instrument, although I'm generally more interested in what a guitar can contribute to an arrangement than how impressive I can make myself sound playing it.
Not that I don't enjoy a good guitar solo.
There'll be a few of those.
But most of the time, the guitars are there to create texture. Layers of sound that repeat, overlap and gradually become something much bigger than the individual parts.
I don't particularly want to spend the next several years worrying about whether something I've recorded fits neatly into a genre.
I'd rather just make the music I want to make.
And if somebody eventually comes up with a convenient name for it, that's their problem.
Something I Can't Quite Explain
There's a particular feeling I've spent years trying to capture in music.
It's not quite sadness. But it's not not sadness either.
It's walking home after a brilliant night out and suddenly feeling strangely empty.
It's lying in bed with headphones on, listening to a song that somehow makes the room feel bigger than it should.
It's sitting alone in a silent field, with nothing particularly wrong, but nothing feeling quite right either.
Nostalgia without comfort. Being lost without necessarily being in despair.
I don't think there's a single word that properly describes it.
And perhaps that's why I make music about it.
The Kubrick Stare is, above everything else, a cathartic project. A way of taking thoughts and emotions that I struggle to articulate and turning them into something I can actually hear.
I'm not necessarily looking for answers, or even closure.
Sometimes I just want to understand what I'm feeling.
The Bigger Picture
One thing I've always loved about music is the world that can exist around it.
Albums that feel like complete experiences rather than collections of unrelated songs. Singles with B-sides that reveal something different about an artist. Artwork, videos and little details that gradually build a recognisable identity.
I think some of that has been lost.
Don't get me wrong. Being able to record something in your bedroom and release it to the entire world without a record label is an extraordinary thing. I wouldn't be doing this without that freedom.
But I do think the convenience of modern music distribution sometimes encourages artists to release things as quickly as possible, rather than spending time building something around them.
I'm interested in the latter.
Everything released under The Kubrick Stare will connect in some way. Sometimes musically, sometimes lyrically, sometimes through the artwork or the wider story.
Some connections will be obvious. Others probably won't become apparent for quite some time.
And that's deliberate.
I've got a fairly clear idea of where this project is going, including how I want it to end.
But I'm not going to explain all of that now.
Where's the fun in that?
A Beginning
So that's The Kubrick Stare.
Or at least, that's as much of it as I'm prepared to explain for now.
I'll use this blog to talk about the music, the recording process, the artwork and whatever else I think might be worth sharing along the way. Some posts will be quite personal. Others will probably involve me spending far too long discussing a guitar part that nobody else has given a second thought.
But I hope that, over time, these little pieces will help build a clearer picture of what I'm trying to create.
I'm not particularly interested in telling people what the music is supposed to mean. I'd much rather you found something in it for yourself.
And if it leaves you curious about what comes next, then I think I've done my job.
The stare isn't about shock.
It's about what's happening behind the eyes.
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