Waiting Room - Fugazi

By Tim Murray
Illustration By Joss Murray (click to enlarge)

You know how it is? Waiting for a delivery can be the most mind-numbing and frustrating of ordeals. Having to sit in all day and wait because the delivery company can only give you an estimated delivery time of between early and late. It's like watch very boring paint dry. Well you should see what its like ten years from now. You wouldn't believe it.

Due to significant population increases, the number of deliveries has gone up threefold and add to that the increase in traffic on the road, deliverymen can only give a timespan of a week in which they'll come. People have to take holiday off work when buying a fridge and I've heard of people quitting their jobs just to get a carpet laid.

This is where I'll introduce our protagonist, our man. He's been waiting for a sofa for seven days now. He's been a patient boy. In fact, the room he is sitting on the floor in is completely empty. His old place was involved in a freak fire incident and it, and all its contents, went up in flames. This is his new one bedroom apartment but he has nothing to fill it with. With little else to do, our man has been picking out the dirt and dust that fill the gaps in the floorboards with his brown fingernails and piles of the mucky crap are collecting around him. His red, rimmed eyes stare intently at the blank, white asylum walls as if they could see through to the room beyond. But they can't.

He stands up, like he does every hour or so, knocking over the piles of muck in the process and leaves the room, the apartment. After locking the door, he marches to the phone box at the corner of his street to call the delivery company and inquiry where his sofa is and they answer like they do every hour or so, “We'll be with you as soon as we can Sir.” The receiver is slammed down recklessly. A pan of water begins to boil.

We return to the room a few hours later. Things look the same but the atmosphere has changed. Instead of the air buzzing and walls closing in, a calm has settled over the space, even filling the gaps in the floorboards. There is blood on the floor. A trail that leads us to a body, sprawl across the floorboards. A man in overalls who is hold a pen and a clipboard, waiting for a signature but our man has signed the back of the deliveryman's head with a hammer. There is also a sofa. Our man is sitting on it, cross-legged. Content and waiting.

Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - Beyonce

by Tim Murray

Fractured Skies - Parts & Labor

By Tim Murray
Illustration by Mark

I look back at Earth as we speed away from it at an unimaginable velocity. The once vibrant blue planet is now a murky ball of grey. Shrouded in constant cover of cloud. A graveyard.

I'm not sure how many other ships got away when we did. We left so quickly. The ship's engine is rumbling, sending uneasy vibrations throughout the entire vessel. This must have been the oldest rocket in the neighbourhood but it was the only one that would work at such short notice. It's paintwork is peeled back, revealing rusty brown bodywork underneath. Let's hope its screws and rivets hold out for the journey.

If you listen really carefully, you can hear the ship's computer working overtime. A series of bleeps and crackles as it's navigation software tries to manoeuvre between cosmic debris and space rubbish.

The Earth is tiny now. The size of a five-pence-piece and as I stare at it intently, I'm sure I see a break in the blanket of deadly cloud. A clean vein. A lifeline. Have we left too abruptly? The slit grows before my eyes, fracturing the dull surface of the planet like the windscreen of a crashed car.

Maybe the sky is falling down like the story we were told as kids about the chicken. The end of the world. Or maybe the planet is healing itself now that the last of us have gone.

I call the others over, telling them to hurry as in a minute or so the earth will be too small to see, and we watch in amazement as the cloud curtain draws itself back to reveal the blues and greens of Mother Nature. A final farewell to us, the players who used her stage for so long, so destructively.

We stand there, staring out of that small round window, long after the blue dot faded into the speckled backdrop of everything. We are alone, rushing through the cosmos in a rusty, rattling spaceship with no clue as to where we'll end up. Hoping it's as beautiful as the place we've just left.

Ten Thousand - Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir

by Joss Murray
Illustration by Tim Murray

Well I’ve been hammering this axe into this big oak tree for ages now. What started off as a kind of whack sound has become more of a deep thud. My pace has become metronomic (about 140 thuds per minute, but who’s counting). My axe is blunt. I don’t care. It’s pretty cold in the yard. Quite early on I tried to make a fire. The wood doesn’t burn. I carry on hammering never the less. My sore throat asks for water, I give it cigarettes. My blistered hands bleed. My back throbs. My eyes sting. I could stop, but its fun. I enjoy it.

All of sudden the sun trombones down on me through a gap in the trees, there’s a jangle of banjo from the old fellow who lives next door and tambourine sounds come from the throat’s of a nest of starlings.

I keep on hammering. Thud. Thud. Thud.

I trample off into a day dream about slide guitar and whiskey, which makes my axe feel heavy and my pace slow, but it’s rhythm never drops. This axe is full of energy, it’s my dodgily tattooed arms that are drunk. The axe is as sober as a new born.

I carry on hammering, now drunk as a drip tray at the end of a busy night. The sun has gone. The cold has come and my wood doesn’t burn. I carry on. At some point I hit what an athletic man would probably call ‘the wall’. I call it being numb, but for whatever reason this numb wall of mine has put a spring in my step. I decide, quite pretentiously, that my day’s work has taught me something about the spirit of misfortune, which brings a smile to my dry mouth. The tree falls for the last time and I lie next to it, content in my drunken slumber.

Merriweather Post Pavillion - Animal Collective

By Tim Murray

Illustration by Kate Bellamy

As I dip my head under, the world turns blue. The bright sunlight, filtered by the tinted window of water, gives this new landscape an eerie atmosphere but that's not what scares me most.

I dive down further, evacuating my lungs as I go. I turn around to see the bubbles rise like clear balloons and burst on the surface. Pop. A shoal of minuscule fish dart past my eye line and disappear into the blue. I try to follow them but my shank-like limbs aren't adapted for this environment.

Looking down, I wonder what could be below me. A sunken ship. A cruiser maybe or a yacht that capsized and fell to the depths below. It's hull cracked and creaking under the pressure of gallons of water. It's radio still broadcasting mayday signals like a lost child in a silent crowd, echoing off nothing. Or maybe there's a whale, one of the big ones, just metres underneath me where the eerie blue turns black unknown. Maybe it's rising like a huge blubber bubble and I'll be unable to get out of its way. Helpless. This thought sends shivers through me.

I hear it's call. A low, deep bellow that comes from the basement of the ocean and moves every molecule around me, like they are dancing. I suck harder on my oxygen mask to calm myself and more bubbles float to the top. To escape.

I wish I was going that way instead of hanging here, like a motionless puppet whose strings are attached to nothing. I feel vulnerable from every side and angle. All directions pose an unimaginable threat. My heart is pounding in my chest like a tribal drum. I need to stop myself concocting these images so I start humming a tune, its bright and cheery. It makes me think of the surface and my life there.

I start heading up, following my bubbles. I am a bubble. I feel light and jubilant. I break the surface and almost carry on going up. I feel the sun on my face and take my first breath of freedom. I have escaped.

Welcome Again

Quite alot has changed since I first created A Sonic Reaction. Initially the idea behind the site was to create more of a music website than a music blog, a vault of reviews, features, interviews etc. but I realised that there were already loads of those sprayed across the net. And I probably couldn't do it as well as places like DrownedInSound, Pitchfork, The Line Of Best Fit etc.

So after a long think, I came up with a new idea. How about if I post art that is inspired by pieces of music. Literally sonic reactions to albums or songs and the reactions can take the form of anything. From detailed drawings to quick squiggles, epic stories to 5 word reviews, essays to post it notes, photos, collages and everything in between. Pretty much anything goes.

I'm hoping this will become a place for artists and writers to display their work and I will be able to link back to their own website or email address. If you want to get involve then send me an email at heyitstim@hotmail.co.uk.