Promises

 

Promises is the introduction to a fresh chapter in the story of ENTRANCE (Guy Blakeslee). An artist’s artist, ENTRANCE is a musician with the blues running through his veins. His newest creations add up to a set of rich, cinematic songs featuring expansive orchestration and imaginative story telling, as unique to himself as they are, at times, evocative of Townes Van Zandt, Scott Walker and Gene Clark. Among his fans, he counts the likes of Spike Jonze, who featured ENTRANCE’s interpretation of Skip James’ “I’m So Glad” in the film Her. 

As with all new beginnings, there is an element of return. For Blakeslee, resurrecting the name ENTRANCE signifies leaving something behind. This time around, the sound of ENTRANCE dramatizes the tension between time as measured on a clock and the felt experience of it.  Everything has been stripped away except the essential: the focus is on the voice- the words and the feeling.  

Says Blakeslee:

“I’m interested in communicating a shared universal experience in an era when ‘individuality’ is a championed product.  I once approached songwriting as a coping mechanism for my own personal struggles. However, now I have shifted my focus to the exploration of a collective understanding.

The whole record is about the interplay and conflict between inwardness and outwardness, revealed as a personal obsession through a rigorous daily practice of automatic writing. Waking up and immediately documenting the intricacies of my mental world has shown me what a freak I am - but also what I care about.  

‘Promises’ in particular was inspired by Stephen Hawking, who in spite of being the acknowledged expert on the nature of time, still constantly changes his views and has to admit he doesn’t really understand it. Time is a constant contradiction in all of our lives. We have to live within its bounds, and yet experience it in myriad ways, marking our milestones on cross cultural calendars, in disparate time zones.  Such paradoxes were on my mind when I wrote the lyrics:

"time is a cruel yet forgiving friend

who slaps your face and then holds your hand

leaves you starting from scratch all over again

in the ruins of your best laid plans.”