Communique from Paul Colilli, a founding member of Simply Saucer, about his new solo album Hieroglyphs of the Soul

"This new record comes out at a moment when there is a fascination with the end of times. This collection of music imagines what will happen between now and the final consumption of all things. Not zombies, vampires or apocalyptic visions of the cyber imagination. Rather, the music paints sonic portraits of the undecipherable signs that have surfaced on the material soul of the world. “Hieroglyphs of the Soul” is a journey into a future that is saturated with the past."

Elaboration from Paul,  nowadays a university professor teaching and writing on Medieval and Renaissance literature and philosophy:

"As I see it, our obsession with the past could be a symptom of a phase of senility our culture is experiencing. Or, if we intersect it with technological progress which is unable to look backwards, we are then experiencing a schizophrenic phase, like Nietzsche's minotaur, torn between two species. But if Carl Schmitt and Walter Benjamin are correct the the issue of retromania interfaces with a secularized political theology, where modern governmentality and culture in general are founded on the ruins of the ancient theological tradition. There is just no way to transcend the past.

"...In fact, my my own music, including "Hieroglyphs of the Soul", is informed by an unredeemable discomfort  provoked by the survival of the past".

On the album, "What's New, Vegetable Man", is addressed to Syd Barrett, but also references Nietzche's "without music, life would be a mistake", changed here to "a world without music is a mistake"

"where are you now, Vegetable Man?

in someone's book about you?"

Simply Saucer, a band often described as an ahead of their time  proto-punk outfit

Yet the original line-up with Paul C was "a six-piece, largely improvisational, outfit" and the name was a tribute to A Saucerful of Secrets.  So were they protopunk or late psychedelia?

Reminded me of the story I once heard that originally there was an idea of getting Syd Barrett to produce the debut Sex Pistols album... 

Here's the video for a "The Soft Ethic" off Hieroglyphs 

And here's a video of a mate of Paul's, Edgar Breau