Sunday, 8 December 2019
Songs of the year, number 24: Pale Honey - Set Me Free
It's been a largely quiet year for Pale Honey, during which Tuva and Nelly have been "Writing songs, studying and working" according to their website, while Anders has been mixing and producing. They are working on their third album, the follow up to 2017's well received Devotion.
'Set Me Free' snuck out about a month ago and it instantly excited me, with it's insistent bassline and anthemic melody, this is a tune that will endure. It also bodes well for album number three, which we should see in 2020.
Saturday, 7 December 2019
Songs of the year, number 25: Allie X – Fresh Laundry
Canadian singer/songwriter Allie X is a bit of an electro pop superstar in her home country, but I must confess to not having been aware of her before the release of this slice of hypnotic wonky pop. Her biog on Spotify says she has been compared to Chvrches, Ellie Goulding and The Knife pre their Silent Shout album and, while I wouldn't normally quote from someones online biog, this does feel like a spot on description of what she's about.
'Fresh Laundry' is a slightly odd song, it's strange, beautiful and intriguing and, as such, I look forward to hearing more from Allie X in 2020.
Friday, 6 December 2019
The songs of the year list
Tomorrow I embark on my annual songs of the year blog marathon.
Before doing so, I feel compelled to mention that two of the songs in this years list were released in November 2018.
Given that I start compiling the list in November each year, and given that I'm only accountable to myself for the list, I've decided that this is OK.
Before doing so, I feel compelled to mention that two of the songs in this years list were released in November 2018.
Given that I start compiling the list in November each year, and given that I'm only accountable to myself for the list, I've decided that this is OK.
The big end of year round up post
Welcome to my annual end of year round up!
Rather than write a long, epic post, I've decided to slim things down a bit this year. As such, I'm not doing a list of gigs of the year (because there were too many good ones...) and, having given the matter some thought, I'm not providing a list of pieces I've written this year. There was some discussion on Twitter about this custom last year and I can see why people find the practice a bit obnoxious, so I'm sacking it off.
Also, because it seemed to go down well last year, I will be posting my songs of the year list in a series of day-by-day posts again. There will be 25 this year, and number 25 will be up online tomorrow.
12 albums of the year
12) Starcrawler - Devour You
11) Helen McCookerybook - Green
10) Honeyblood - In Plain Sight
9) The Regrettes - How Do You Love?
8) Hatchie - Keepsake
7) Miss June - Bad Luck Party
6) Ioanna Gika - Thalassa
5) Siobhan Wilson - The Departure
4) Billie Eilish - When we fall asleep where do we go?
3) Bat For Lashes - Lost Girls
2) Gazel - Gazel's Book Of Souls
1) Self Esteem - Compliments Please
12 books I've read and loved this year
Yrsa Daley Ward - The Terrible
Molly Bloom - Molly's Game
Hannah Ewens - Fangirls
Amy Raphael - A seat at the table
Stella Gibbons - Pure Juliet
Hilary McKay - The Skylarks War
Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones & The Six
Amy Engel - The Roanoke Girls
Lucy O'Brien - Dusty
Nick Rennison - Bohemian London
Celeste Bell and Zoë Howe - Dayglo
Jordan Mooney and Cathi Unsworth - Defying Gravity
I think my overall favourite podcast this year has been Best Pick, the podcast that watches and discusses every single Oscar winning movie in random order. While every episode is riveting in scope and detail, it's worth noting that they're just as entertaining when the film disappoints as when it exceeds expectations. As such, listening to them eviscerating Gladiator is just as much fun as hearing them get excited about It Happened One Night. Their recent take on Gigi was a good one, but a favourite episode for me this year has been their take on Casablanca.
The BBC's Brexitcast has obviously had a lot of good material to work with this year, and while I can't remember which episode it was that featured the Dutch mascot for the Netherlands Brexit preparations, I did find their Saturday Night Leaver episode to be particularly hilarious. On a more serious note, the international collaboration with the World Service's Global News Podcast was particularly powerful.
There's been some really good takes on work in podcast land in 2019, particularly in the areas of women and work, freelancing, and finances. Is This Working? was launched this year by Tiffany Philippou and Anna Codrea-Rado, and it featured a particularly powerful episode about class with Vicky Spratt, plus a very useful mediation on getting fired. There was also An Honest Account, Rachael Revesz' podcast, which covers the finance end of things, and included an episode with Anna Codrea-Rado about freelancing and finances, plus a powerful take on debt and being working class with Jasmine Andersson.
At the music end of things, Canadian punk DJ Siobhan Woodrow launched her podcast, She's A Punk this year, which included many powerful portraits of punk women around the world, including this episode with War On Women's Shawna Potter. Woodrow has recently announced she's taking a break from the podcast until the start of 2020, but she certainly doesn't sound like she's done yet. Far from it.
There was also a fascinating discussion about the ten year legacy of Florence + The Machine's Lungs over on Never Marry A Mitford, a searingly powerful in depth discussion about the state of music education in UK schools on Reasons To Be Cheerful, and a fascinating, and frequently very funny, epic discussion about music and literature between Florence Welch and Rebecca Lucy Taylor over on The YourShelf Podcast.
In the realm of politics and related matters, The Next Episode discussed what happens when you effectively no longer have an MP and The North Poll provided a refreshingly non London centric take on politics. In the US, Reply All explained why that viral tweet about feral hogs wasn't all it seemed, and the TFGM Podcast provided a suitably sober take on the second anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing.
Catching up with the women who were expelled from school (Precious Adesina, Refinery 29)
The uninhabitable city: What happens when heatwaves become the new normal? (Hettie O'Brien, The New Statesman)
Work isn't working: The real reason more women are going freelance (Anna Codrea-Rado, Refinery 29)
Peterloo 200 years on: The Manchester bloodbath which left 18 dead and changed the course of British history (Dan Thompson & Damon Wilkinson, Manchester Evening News)
"We need this film now more than ever" (Nic Crosara, The Overtake)
Secret life of a fashion week peon (Lacy Warner, Narratively)
The 11-year-old girl taking skateboarding by storm (Joe Henley, Narratively)
The diver who brings up the bodies (Sunaina Kumar and Farah Mohammed, Narratively)
How more than 12 students at one university ended up dead by suicide (Hannah Ewens, Vice)
How communism prepared me for a no-deal Brexit (Joanna Hosa, Financial Times)
How to feed a protest movement: Cooking with Extinction Rebellion (Dan Hancox, 1843)
'I'd rather see a white doctor, if you don't mind' How patients can hurt doctors too (Neha Maqsood, Rife Magazine)
The four huge issues being overlooked in the General Election debate so far (Jennifer Williams, Manchester Evening News)
Second image by Ross Sneddon on Unsplash
Third image by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
Fourth image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Monday, 11 November 2019
Louder Than Words festival 2019
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| Principal Hotel, Manchester by Jamie Wilson. Creative commons licence |
This evening was day one of Louder Than Words.
I only went to the middle event of the three, which was Edwyn Collins and Grace Maxwell in conversation with John Robb. It was a very funny, moving, gentle conversation between the three of them, with Grace not speaking over Edwyn, but with him. They clearly work as a team and it made for a slightly meandering, gentle interview, but one that was no less articulate than any other LTW opening night conversation.
After the interview and Q&A, Edwyn sang while a young guitarist, Patrick, played. I remember hearing Edwyn being interviewed on the radio a few years back when he was just starting to perform again, post brain haemorrhage, and I think he said then that he finds the singing easier than the speaking, and that's how it came across tonight too: He's much more fluid when he's singing, the years just drop away and you can see the young man from Orange Juice again. Needless to say, he got a standing ovation at the end.
It was Jo Wood afterwards, with her Rolling Stones memoir, Stoned, and what with not being interested in the Rolling Stones, I decided to leave and see how much of Podcast Radio Hour I could catch instead. I got on a 192 very quickly, and it was a fast moving one so we zipped along nicely. We got milkshaked in Ardwick and I had to explain to a young man who asked me how far we were from Reddish that he'd got on the wrong bus. Other than that, pretty uneventful really, save for the steady trickle of milk running down the windows on the other side of the top deck. They hit the window so hard I felt the thud and for one sickening moment thought we'd hit someone. But no, we'd been hit by a high velocity milkshake instead.
Saturday 9th December:
Day two of Louder Than Words began with Lucy O'Brien in conversation with John Robb about Dusty Springfield, the revised third edition of her biography having been published earlier this year. An evocative speaker, Lucy managed to bring both the book and the subject to life very satisfactorily. She also talked about the history of the book, and it's three editions, and how her perspective on Dusty has shifted from viewing her as a victim to a survivor, a battler. Someone asked a question I'd often thought about when reading the new edition, namely how did Lucy choose what to include and what not to include as regards Dusty's private life. There are other biographies of Dusty Springfield, all written after her death, and some of them do focus on her private life over her music. Similarly, we can all cite examples of overly salacious biographies, whether of Dusty or other stars.
Lucy did a good job of explaining about how her focus was always going to be on Dusty the artist, and that she chose to try and balance Dusty the artist with Dusty the private woman, but that she didn't want to write a book where the talent would be overshadowed by the life.
After seeing Lucy talk about Dusty I next went to see Matt Everitt talking about his book, The First Time, which is the book of the long running interview series on 6Music.
I have to confess that my interest was mainly piqued in this case because Matt has interviewed Florence Welch for the series, and she is in the book as well. Although she wasn't one of the interviewees he talked about, it was still an interesting and entertaining listen, with some really absorbing tips and hilarious anecdotes. He was very much the funny, slightly self-depreciating, debonair raconteur, and I enjoyed it very much. It was also, interestingly, a bit of a masterclass in interviewing, which I also appreciated.
After that, I nipped out for dinner at 8th Day, and had a particularly fine bangers and root veg mash with minted peas and mushroom gravy. I also had a Rasperry Dazzle smoothie, which I promptly spilled on myself. I think this has happened every single time I've ever ordered that particular smoothie at 8th Day, with fairly disastrous results. Fortunately I was wearing a pink jumper on this occasion.
Upon returning to the palatial halls and suites of the Principal, I went to see Lucy O'Brien again, this time interviewing Graham Duff about his book, Foreground Music. Graham is a comedian and writer but I hadn't come across his work before, probably because I don't watch TV. Foreground Music is a book of memoir structured around 15 gigs, and the bits he read made me want to read the book because he is very good and taking you back to a specific time and place, making you live it. This included the horror of a Cliff Richard gig he experienced aged 10, and a riot at a Joy Division show in Blackburn as a teenager. It's a simple but effective concept for a book, but it's one that seems to work well so I will read the book, and keep an eye out for his other work too.
'Is Extinction Rebellion A Return To The '60s' with Leslie Tate and Sue Hampton proved to be a bit of a puzzler, in that it actually felt like two talks sandwiched into one. I didn't find the first half un-interesting, but it did feel a bit like Leslie was labouring the point in terms of describing how the sixties were, and how he had experienced them. It felt a bit like being talked down to. I found Sue Hampton's half of the talk to be much more engaging as that was the half that dealt with Extinction Rebellion, and their involvement in it, and she is one of those people whose enthusiasm for a subject is infectious. If they do this talk again, I think they might want to re-think the structure a bit as it's a really interesting subject, but it didn't entirely come off for me.
He's a great raconteur, and while many dark moments were touched upon, there were also some amusing anecdotes and funny moments, including a suitably weird Nirvana interview and the discussion of early 1990s sub scenes - "Fraggle is definitely due a revival" - There was also the touching recollection of him and Jo Whiley jumping up and down in the lift across four floors of the building at Radio One after they found out they'd been given the The Evening Session show on a permanent basis.
There were a number of harrowing moments, including his recounting of the Richey Edwards 4 Real interview incident, and what it was like to broadcast in John Peel's slot the night Peel died. I could tell in both cases that he was re-living it as he talked, and he came across as slightly haunted in both cases, and definitely upset when talking about Peel, which is understandable. If you listened to that show at the time, a show I seem to recall he did with Maryanne Hobbs, another child of Peel, it does sound like two very fragile orphans trying to hold it together.
He went downstairs to sign books immediately after talking about it and I thought I'd try and take his mind off this rather dark ending to the conversation by joining the queue at the signing table and taking the opportunity to remind him of the time me, Daniel (I'm Five fanzine) and Carl (Fancy Biscuits fanzine) once descended on him at an Angelica gig at the Roadhouse in about 1996 and he took away copies of all our fanzines plus a really rough live bootleg we'd made of Automatic playing at the Night & Day. Not the most scintillating of conversation gambits, but it was a nice memory for me and wanted to say thank you.
The queue for signings was massive so I mainly sat by some scenic foliage in a very comfy chair on the landing until most people had gone, then lurked at the end of the queue as he was finishing up. When I reminded him of the gig, his eyes lit up and we talked about Angelica and Manchester gig venues for a bit, which was really nice.
After that, it was time for the club cultures panel, which was themed around the idea of can, is, and should dance music be political? Because today marked the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, and we had a German national and resident of Berlin on the panel, there was a lot of fascinating discussion about German techno and how the fall of the wall impacted the music scene, and access to music.
Alas there was also a very agitated gentleman in the audience who kept trying to ask questions thinly disguised as attempts to pick fights with people. He left after a while though, presumably because no one would play. A milder moment of conflict occurred when another man in the audience tried, a bit smugly, to claim that only real political action counted for anything, and that politics in music was a waste of time. His argument was thoroughly and decisively shot down in flames by a particularly combative Rhoda Dakar, which just goes to show that you should never mess with someone who's been involved with Red Wedge.
On the way home the bus was full of rowdy teenagers so I put my headphones in and listened to Innocence's 'Natural Thing' (apt) while watching a young girl with a delightful smile draw hearts and write in Arabic in the condensation on the bus windows.
Sunday 10th November:
Whereas Amy didn't have a lot of problems getting people to talk to her in 1994, for this book, she did. It seems that the main reason why she struggled this time is that the big stars are so much harder to reach these days. There are so many walls of protection, so many gatekeepers between star and journalist that it meant including the likes of Beyoncé, Solange, and Björk (who is included in Never Mind The Bollocks), was just impossible.
I can see that people who want to read about the big names, and what their take on music and feminism is, would be disappointed by this, but for me the books focus on less well known performers adds to the books charms. I'd rather hear Christine and the Queens, Georgia, Emmy The Great and Kate Tempest on feminism and music; it feels more fresh, and their views are unlikely to have been over reported.
The conversation itself was a fascinating one, both riveting in detail and supportive in nature. This was definitely my highlight of the weekend, and about the only thing that would have made it better would have been if there'd also been an event today that involved Hannah Ewens and her book Fangirls. I definitely feel that Hannah is doing for fans what Amy and Lucy are doing for artists and it would have been good to have both sides of the female music experience side by side.
Interestingly, there was a lot this year on the virtues of working for free, despite Barney Hoskyns campaign. Also, a number of folk on the panel were people who'd started their own platforms and publications. There was a bit of a discussion around print vs online, but I don't think anyone came down firmly on one side or the other really.
I made the unusual decision to speak during this discussion as I've been thinking a lot about why paid music journalism is so hard to get and how, in the past year, I've found it much easier to get paid journalism that isn't music writing. Despite having much more experience as a music writer.
The answers that came back were the kind of thing I expected, but I felt better for saying it even if no one could come up with a solution for me.
I decided I wanted dinner afterwards so I ventured out along Oxford Road to Patisserie Valerie, where I discovered all of the sandwiches and bread based things were off limits as sourdough contains egg (I did not know this). On the bright side, I did discover a very fine burrito bar about two doors down, so it could have been much worse.
Next up was another journalism panel, albeit a slightly different one, with a much more historical angle. This one was Simon Frith, John McCready and Mark Sinker talking around the themes of Mark Sinker's book, A Hidden Landscape, which is a history of the music press from the 1960s to the 1980s. I was thinking that this must be an area of history that's been well covered already, but apparently there's only about five histories of the music press in book form - it just so happens I've read and own two of them.
There was a lot of noise next door in Clock Room 6 during this discussion, which made it hard to hear what was being said all the time as over the dulcet tones of messrs Frith, McCready and Sinker, it basically sounded as though Monty Python were putting on a Punch and Judy show next door with some help from The Clangers and a troupe of clowns. In actual fact, it was Evil Blizzard in conversation.
Towards the end of the panel discussion there was a touching moment when the panel and the audience fell into reminiscing about ritual pilgrimages to distant shops to purchase the weekly, and monthly, music press. The panel were talking about the sixties, seventies and eighties, but I was doing the same thing in the nineties to buy NME, The Zine, Sun, Zoom, Spark and The Trigger. A woman in the audience said she'd had a similar ritual 16 years ago when her granny would buy her Kerrang! each week alongside a magazine for herself, and they'd sit together, reading their magazines.
My final event of Louder Than Words 2019 was Modzines, which was Daniel Rachel talking to Eddie Piller and Steve Rowland about their book Modzines: Fanzine culture from the mod revival. I could tell it was going to be a good event when, despite sparse attendance, a discussion broke out amongst the crowd as to the geographical origins of Fred Perry, with me and two guys who run a Stockport modzine maintaining he was from Stockport and no one believing us until Eddie Piller had googled it. I feel this set the tone for the event somehow, in that it was a small audience but everyone there was really interested and engaged. Both speakers were passionate about their subject and well informed, and Daniel is a skilled interviewer who successfully kept the conversation on track and brought out the best in them. It was a funny, engaging, informative and entertaining close to the weekend.
Sunday, 10 November 2019
New piece, of which I am insanely proud
In the main, this has been done through conversations with people on Twitter and through subscribing to a range of newsletters for journalists and freelancers. My three favourite newsletters are Anna Codrea-Rado's The Professional Freelancer, Sian Meade-Williams' Freelance Writing Jobs and the Journo Resources newsletter, helmed by Jem Collins.
In addition to klaxoning jobs for journalists, Jem has also been looking to extend the team working on the site. With this in mind, I applied late last year for an editorial assistant job on the platform that was part time and remote working with the added bonus of London Living Wage. I didn't get it but Jem sent back a really lovely, long email in which she explained why I hadn't got it and that she would like to work with me at some point in the future.
At first I thought she was just being nice, but when another opportunity to work on the site came up, I applied again. Although I didn't get it, Jem reiterated her desire to work with me and asked if I had any ideas for articles for the advice section of the site.
Journalism Twitter had been awash with an ongoing debate about personal essays in the wake of the Caroline Calloway/Natalie Beech piece for The Cut and, while I don't write personal essays myself, I was very interested in the ethical debate that the piece seemed to have ignited. I pitched an idea around this to Jem and, to my joy and surprise, she loved the idea and gave me the nod to proceed.
I loved researching the piece as it gave me the chance to approach a range of writers and editors, many of whose work I'd been following for some time. People were very generous with their time, and I really enjoyed emailing and talking to them about the complex issues around the personal essay as a format, and how to write and commission these pieces of work responsibly.
The completed piece was published last week on Journo Resources, and I am insanely proud of how it's turned out. Jem is a terrific, friendly, attentive editor to write for and I look forward to working with her again.
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
Tuesday, 22 October 2019
Gazel's Book of Souls
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| An artist and her work |
"The first chapter in the musical story of a teenage girl who travels through the subconscious, meeting the covert spirits that govern the different areas of the human psyche."
You could be forgiven for being wary.
As it turns out, Gazel's debut album Gazel's Book of Souls, does live up to its composer's astonishing description.
A mixture of electronic soundscape and traditional Turkish instrumentation, the result is a beguiling, haunting feast of imagery and sound. It's rare to say that an artist is a true original, but she really is doing something different here. There are rock guitars, ritualistic dance soundscapes, and atmosphere aplenty and Gazel really has succeeded in creating an entire sonic world that the listener can fall into and inhabit.
I missed the opportunity to see her live on her recent tour and I can see that it might take a while for such an unusual, unique artist to get the recognition she deserves, but I'm hopeful that more and more people will discover Gazel, and her unique and beautiful debut album, and give it a listen.
In addition to creating a series of beautiful, layered, carefully crafted sonic soundscapes, the videos released to promote recent singles 'You're Not Funny', 'Rain Is Coming' and 'Walk On Land' have been similarly otherworldly and gorgeous.
The video for 'Rain is coming' (above) is perhaps the most obviously tied to the expressed journey through the psyche, and it sees Gazel observing a younger version of herself as she undertakes a quest for meaning.
'Walk On Land' meanwhile, with its summary feel and steel drums, is a glorious melange of dancing and swirling flowers and fabric that I'm hoping will lure in some of my fellow Flow's who read this blog.
This is an album that deserves to be discovered and treasured. It has the potential to grow into a classic and should be appreciated as such.
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