Spooky (but not in a Halloween sense) playlist compiling

This month's F-Word Music blog post is now up on the site. Because we are well into the period I like to think of as Peak Touring (new university term, end of year lists pending, Christmas wish lists being compiled...) there has been an awful lot of stuff to cram in this time. 

By comparison, the playlist was pretty easy and came together almost immediately. I think I had to move, maybe, two songs around and that was it, it was done.

It was when I was listening to it back that I realised how very apt a lot of the songs are in terms of the past year. A lot are very pertinent to the #MeToo era and, most recently, the Kavanagh appointment in the US. I feel as though I've been stockpiling these songs in my mind, and in my Spotify lists, just waiting for the right moment to put them all together. 

Some are from new artists, some are from established artists. Some were recorded for major labels, some were self released. But what they all seem to share is a kind of conscious or unconscious commentary on the state of womanhood and the world in 2018. 

I'm really pleased that so many artists have tapped into their inner rage this year. It would be nice to live in a utopian world, or at least a more restful one, but that seems remote and, as with all art, music reflects that. And provides a source of inspiration and solace in a fucked up world.

Image is the cover image for Laura Gibson's new album Goners. It is out now. 

Analogue introspection, part 2, over on Medium...

On Saturday I published what I like to think of as part two of the writing generated during my week without my laptop. Or, my analogue introspection period...

The new piece is about vinyl, the peaks and troughs of vinyl sales and production, the vinyl revival, and 1990s cultural myths. 

It's actually quite a hard piece to sum up in many ways, and I'm glad I wrote it for Medium instead of trying to pitch it to a publication because, frankly, I think it would have been utterly un-pitchable.

It's the kind of piece that wouldn't fit into a music magazine because it's a bit too quaint/weird, but it also wouldn't fit into a women's magazine because it's too specialist/niche interest. It also wouldn't have fitted into a fanzine because I didn't write it in a fanzine style. About the only other place it could have found a home is in a section of experience based writing in an academic publication I think and, even then, it wouldn't have been published in its current form.

I think what I'm trying to say here is:

It's not that writing is hard in itself.

It's finding a home for what you want to write about that's the hard bit.

In that regard, I'm glad Medium exists.

Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash. 

The book pile

I have been to the library and, as such, the book pile has been fed.

Florence + The Machine, Tiny Desk session

To see a different side to Florence + The Machine, and stripped back treatment of some of the songs from High As Hope,  it's worth checking out the recent Tiny Desk session the band did for NPR.

I do like a Tiny Desk session. It's such an intimate environment and, while you can see that Florence is operating very much outside her comfort zone, she bears up well and the gig is great.

Florence + The Machine: Missing links, missing songs

Back in 2016, still very much on a giddy high from seeing Florence + The Machine headline British Summertime, I stumbled across three songs on YouTube by the band that I had never heard before.

The songs in question had clearly been uploaded illegally by fans and, mistakenly it seemed to me, flagged as being songs from the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album.

I scoured the internet looking for clues that the three songs - 'Pure Feeling', 'As Far As I Could Get' and 'Conductor' - might have been released as extra tracks on deluxe or international editions of the album, but I never found any trace of them on track listings.

I've always got the impression, from the scant amount of information I've been able to find online, that the three songs do date from the recording sessions for the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album. I did, eventually, track down 'As Far As I Could Get', which had been the B Side to the 2015 Record Store Day 12" of 'What Kind of Man', but I was never able to establish the origins of 'Pure Feeling' or 'Conductor'.

As is well known, Florence Welch was emotionally and mentally very unhappy at the time that the album was recorded. She later said that the incredibly beautiful, but harrowing, 'Various Storms & Saints', was a song that she campaigned to have taken off the album because she felt it was "too sad".

If she felt that 'Various Storms & Saints' was going to be too sad for fans, it's easy to see why 'Pure Feeling', 'As Far As I Could Get' and 'Conductor' didn't make the final cut: While the three songs are sonically amazing, they are also - emotionally - the sound of a woman in absolute turmoil.

'Pure Feeling' is an incredibly catchy piece of guitar led pop, in which Welch is singing towards the higher end of her range throughout. The lyrics seem to concern an almost obsessively intense heartbreak that is haunting her to the extent that she is in mental and emotional freefall, the overall effect of the song being to showcase a particularly naked form of vulnerability which makes for a distinctly uneasy listen.

Similarly, the sprawling 'As Far As I Could Get' begins with Welch singing softly and sadly before upping the tension and unleashing the full power of her voice. This is total romantic devastation wrapped up in the stylings of post Patti Smith stream of conscious, with Welch trapped in California, surrounded by sun and palm trees, struggling to come to terms with a particularly traumatic break up.

There's a photo of her in her recent book, Useless Magic, that seems to really sum up this period: Welch is pictured lying by the side of a swimming pool that is lit by brilliant sunshine, far too bright and glittering for the picture to have been taken in the UK. She is dressed scruffily in shorts and a t-shirt which bears the slogan 'HELL'. Her face is turned away from the camera, gazing at the blue water in the pool, her hair is tied back, one hand trails in the water. She looks both haunted and absolutely miserable.

This sense of being haunted is perhaps at it's strongest in the song 'Conductor' which seems to go beyond sadness into anger and, finally, to reach a sort of rueful acceptance. As with it's two sister tracks (I can't help but think of them as interconnected...) the sheer naked honesty draws you in, even as it makes you feel slightly uncomfortable.

Welch has always been a refreshingly honest performer. That this is combined with a love of privacy and tendency towards anxiety can't help but, I suspect, make her professional life difficult. It doesn't seem to stop her though. Just as the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album was the child of Lungs and Ceremonials, 2018's High As Hope very much builds on the work begun by How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. Not just sonically, but also lyrically and thematically.

I can understand why 'Pure Feeling', 'As Far As I Could Get' and 'Conductor' were not more widely released, just as I can understand why 'Which Witch' didn't go beyond demo stage. Those songs are jaw droopingly good but they're also incredibly dark and there comes a point, it's to be suspected, when a move towards the light feels a saner option in the long term for any performer. That doesn't mean that darkness is no longer a part of Welch's work - clearly it is - just that there are points when it feels right to say 'No'.

Writing in analogue

A few weeks ago Madison the laptop, (so called because she is a MacBook Pro. Previous laptops were Adele the Dell and Penny the Patriot... I can anthropomorphise anything basically...), developed a hardware problem that meant a trip to the Apple Store.

She was in Laptop Hospital for 7 days, meaning - thanks to my lack of any other device - that I was essentially without a computer for 7 days. My friend Bethany recommended sending over some digital grapes to her virtual ward in the Laptop Hospital, but I refrained. Instead I spent most of the week dancing around my flat to my collection of 7" singles, and writing.

I had no urgent deadlines for the week ahead and, as such, decided that there was no point in being cross about the situation. I decided to see what I could achieve by taking advantage of the situation, and the time it provided me: I was going to do nothing but read books, listen to music, and write freehand for a week.

A lot of what I wrote about during those 7 days was distinctly analogue in nature, not to mention messy and pretty freeform/stream of conscious. It was definitely worth doing because it meant I wasn't digitally distracted and could just... write.

Some of the stuff I wrote isn't finished, and may never be finished, but the first piece to emerge from this period of writing is now up on Medium, a little piece on the joys of home taping that I managed to finish in time for Cassette Day yesterday.

I met up with David Wilkinson, Natalie Bradbury and their friend Maureen at 8th Day during that 7 day period. When I mentioned to David that I was effectively tech free for 7 days, he sighed "That sounds like heaven".

It wasn't quite heaven, but it made for a quieter week, and a lot got done. I kept on top of my emails by walking over to my local public library and logging in roughly every two days, but I didn't spent long on that and I didn't even attempt to tackle my promo pile: That got blitzed the day I got Madison back.

Looking back on this period now, a few weeks on, I almost miss being largely tech free. My mind felt quieter somehow, and life seemed a little slower and less stressful.

Kenickie - Hooray for Everything (Stay In The Sun)

I have been trying, and failing, for about a week now to write a piece about Kenickie. I think the reason that I've been failing is because I'm conscious that that I pretty much said everything I needed to say about the band at the time, and I've realised that I don't actually have anything new to add to that.

2019 marks the 20th anniversary of the band's split. As is widely known, Marie Du Santiago and Emmy-Kate Montrose formed Rosita shortly afterwards, releasing a couple of singles before splitting up. Years later Marie would turn up in Sunderland folkies the Cornshed Sisters.

Johnny X, meanwhile, was in Frankie and the Heartstrings and is now a famous producer. Lauren Laverne, it need hardly be mentioned, is a very successful radio DJ, presenter and founder of The Pool.

But back in 1999 they were still Kenickie and they released what was to be their final single, the Saint Etienne esque 'Stay in the sun'. It was OK but it was overshadowed somewhat by the catchy indie pop of it's B-Side, 'Hooray for Everything'.

With it's arresting opening couplet ("You thought that I was only glitter, but that doesn't make me bitter. See  I've been in the dark, and I still shine") it unwittingly marked itself out as the ultimate kiss off from a band about to split up. It has everything in it that was great about Kenickie: Catchy tune, knowing lyrics, sparkle, good riffs and oodles of charm.

I have been trying to find some hidden wisdom about the band through re-listening to and writing about their B-Sides. They did release some good ones: 'Girls Best Friend', 'Brighter Shade of Blue', 'Cowboy', but I found that 'Hooray For Everything' was really the best one. It summed up the whole Kenickie package so nicely that, in the end, there was nothing else to say.

Belinda Carlisle - Summer Rain (Official Music Video)

It was only while I was watching this that I realised how badly the video has dated and the way in which it is both quintessentially eighties but also no longer feels like it does justice to the song.

'Summer Rain' is, apparently, one of Carlisle's favourites of her solo career, and I always felt it was the strongest single and song from the Runaway Horses album.

What's interesting hearing it now is the way it seems to hark back to an earlier era, to artists like the Shangri-La's, while mirroring the themes of a contemporary song such as Madonna's 'Pray For Spanish Eyes' (Like A Prayer and Runaway Horses were both released in 1989). It also anticipates a song like Lana Del Rey's 'Blue Jeans'.

In each case, there's that element of slightly vintage melodrama, of harking back to the past, of a sort of 1950's and 1960's hinterland that they all invoke that's very evocative and powerful. It's the kind of theme that will come around in pop culture again and again, but 'Summer Rain' is a particularly great take on it.

I have seen the future, and it is fucking terrifying...

Last week, I saw the future... and it was:

Funny

Weird

Complicated

Morally ambiguous

Absolutely fucking terrifying

Let me explain...

Last Wednesday I saw Future Bodies, a theatre collaboration between Unlimited and RashDash which is partway through it's run at Manchester's HOME.

The show runs until 13 October so, with any luck, if you are in the Manchester area between now and then, you might be able to get a ticket for it. You can read my review for The F-Word here.

Image of the Unlimited/RashDash theatre production of Future Bodies for HOME courtesy of Mike Barnett at HOME. Used with thanks. 

Godley & Creme - Under Your Thumb (1981)

I've been fascinated by this song for a while.

I inherited the 7" of it from my mum a few years ago when she was clearing out her vinyl and it's the combination of ghost story and post punk Stopfordia that I find particularly fascinating.

They totally should have filmed a post Joy Division esque video at Stockport train station at night for this one.

I did some googling to see if I could find out anything interesting about the story behind the song, but there just wasn't anything, so the idea of it being a semi true story seems unlikely somehow.