Poliphilos

Never has songwriting been such a journey as with “Poliphilos’s Party For The Poor & Betrayed”.

And right away I want to thank my produced Juho to staying with me as I tried to merge the impossible.

What I knew from the start that the “Eternal Echoes” album needed a “mentor song” – a track that described the encounter of a hero type of a person and a mentor that has secret wisdom to share.

So what would be a better way to make this idea audible than to mix the Chinese communist chant “East Is Red” with Nina Hagen’s “New York New York”, turn it into “West is Blue” with a lot of 7 and 9 chords?

We did try, I give you that. But there was too much friction.

Then I proposed heavy metal. Like “Carry on Wayward Son” by Kansas.

Didn’t work.

Or let’s make it comical. 8 bit computer game sounds with matching graphics.

Too far out.

There were other ideas, too

… and somewhere around there, after we watched Ruby Rhod’s entrance in the 1997 film “Fifth Element”, The Party was born.

It was to become a track on my album, yes, but it’s more like a play you listen to in radio.

So I asked Juho to write the party track while I wrote the script.

In the story, a hero on his way to meet his first challenge, passes by a never-ending and absurd Dionysian forest party, where the anthem-y “West Is Blue” plays on repeat. The MC of the party is the whimsical Poliphilos, who should be the hero’s mentor, but only want to keep the rave going on, because mad as the rave may be, he knows that dancing and singing liberate frustrated employees of the late stage capitalism more than trying to be all rational.

The scene also resembles the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland, although this tea party is on steroids. The humor emerges from the contrast between the chaotic party unraveling to the beat of a modern house music and corporate jargon, while maintaining Poliphilos’ sophistication through worldly references.

Finally, the “advice” Poliphilos gives the hero isn’t a tool, but a permission to embrace the disorder. But it’s the hero himself who draws this conclusion, because asking for advice in this party is as useful as asking advice from the Cheshire Cat.

Later on “Eternal Echoes”, the hero does discover his true power through his encounters with the female characters of “Free To Fly” and “European Son“, who turn out to be the real mentors.

Next, we recorded the lines, but I needed the voice of the hero for that.

“Juho, would you be my hero?”, I asked.

Juho was hesitant, but he agreed to try – and I’m glad he did, because he. is. a. magnificent Hero!

Smooth, cool, confident. Very Disney!

And not only that: he played the role of several other characters in the song, too!

You, sir, got some talent!

Second, in the Party you can hear “West Is Blue”, a bonus track only available in Bandcamp. “West Is Blue”, indeed, was meant to be the actual Mentor song, but one thing lead to another and here we are.

The initial “West Is Blue” melody was based on “The East Is Red” (东方红), a Chinese revolutionary song that became one of the anthems of the Chinese Communist Party and Mao Zedong era. The song represents the collective revolutionary spirit and remains one of the most recognizable pieces of Chinese political music, embodying themes of national unity under Communist leadership.

I then turned it upside down with Juho, added a beat inspired by “Lift off” by Dombresky, and now “West Is Blue” serves as the pulsing heartbeat of the hero’s awakening.

The driving bassline and circus like sound effects, of course, create the sound space of the mad forest rave, but they also describe the urgency and energy of the hero’s call to adventure. Thus, it becomes a metaphor for the transformative fire of finding one’s own inner voice and self-discovery in the face of an absurd world. As disco liberates the body, “West Is Blue” liberates the spirit.

Meanwhile, song’s background story is based on “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”, where a mysterious figure comes to transform a community. The Piper is a trickster mirror—a fusion of Dionysian chaos and corporate sleight-of-hand. His flute is a a tool of control and a glitch in the system, exposing how capitalism repackages and productizes rebellion. Poliphilos knows this. If we had a flute and played it like Krishna, he’d know the flute’s song is the algorithm’s lullaby, and the rats are us — willing participants in our own exploitation — which only makes sense in this crazy world of ours. Still, anybody can leave the party at any time – and join, too, because it’ll never end.

To conclude, once again, this song is layered with meaning, but it certainly flies by itself like the rabbit flying through the circle of fire in the cover art!

Edit 20.8.2026: Today I realised that I myself am the hero, too!

I’ve been struggling to define what is it that I’m doing here with my art and who should I speak to. During another helpful chat with Issy Hughes from East West Records it dawned on me: I am the hero, too! I’ve sought advice from here and there for various aspects of my art (and I sincerely thank all who have given it!), but as an artist I just need to do my thing and whoever finds it interesting will stick around.

“That’s the way to do it”, said Issy.