BEATS OF LOVE 

50. Nothing by Sandals

AS EVER, what should've been a straightforward experience of a pinched nerve took an unfortunate detour which culminated in its diagnosis happening in my local A & E.

I caught a chill by dressing for summer whilst working late, then travelling home in winter. Fucking spring is infuriating. The chill was soon joined by a cramping pain reverberating from my wrist but finally settling on my left arm after radiating around my right for an evening. Great, the precursors to a heart attack, so I was advised to get checked out immediately. 

Just to add to my stress, the bloods came back double the preferred number, so I had to undergo all the heart tests a second time. A further two and a half hour wait. Thankfully, I didn't need to phone the missus to bring my PJs, and I was finally allowed home. Albeit still unable to retie my shoelaces.   

Now onto the pinched nerve. What a shitty business. Depriving me of rest and my marriage of peace. The missus took to the sofa, sick of my wailing. The dull ache has faded with the inflammatory steroids, but still tricks me into feeling like my arm is being pulled off. Sciatica has come to the party too, holding my legs captive and so the book on King Tubby I was engrossed in has been pretty much left unread. Whilst pH's universally praised compilation was dozed off to mid afternoon, meaning a further sleepless night. It was only after finishing my final shift that I felt some light relief, but then came the chills again.  

Fully under the duvet, I put on the Sandals debut LP and their prophetic warbles, rolling rhythms, deep-beats, and rock infusions really sound alive in my fatigued and plagued mind. Recalling my one visit to their brilliant club, Tongue Kung Fu compels me to smile momentarily as I was a fish out of water at the best of times, but that night. The band was probably the wrong post-code and too bohemian in attitude to crossover, but their livelier jaunts sound like a mystic-jazz focused Chemical Brothers. Justin and Buzz B's influence is floating about somewhere too, making it sound like a weighty philosophical record. That said, it's hard to cite who is actually influencing who. 

The more darkly downbeat tunes like this LP version signpost Massive Attacks direction of travel with Mezzanine. It's still ridiculously catchy and sounds so relevant right now. Neil Barnes and Paul Daley really sprinkle a bit of light touch magic, which makes it proper shine on an otherwise incredibly daring LP. I keep playing it on repeat so my condition must be improving.   

Right now it's a toss-up for which I recommend more, this, or Naproxen.  

BEATS OF LOVE 

49. Everything Flows by The Low Drift 

LIKE EVERYBODY up North, I enjoyed walking around the local quarries and waterfalls during Lockdown. The missus was furloughed, and I had to keep her fit. However, there was also some glib satisfaction in imagining the generations that had trod on that earth before. With their big smelly feet.   

The Low Drift came to be out of a sense of higher mission, then came to accept that the fragmentary and complex nature of nature actually necessitated a more meandering approach to their song-craft. I entered covid making succinct points about all manner of stuff, then slowly just got more and more confused and uncertain about absolutely everything. 

These short songs play like sensory impressions and really speak to my own state of unravelling about the natural landscape surrounding me, which is full of remnants from the cotton-industry. More barren red bricks than red foxes, so not all that natural. 

Their cottage industry vinyl pressing is a top drawer package replete with its great sound, artwork, lyric sheet and pamphlet. I'm all for persuasive writing, and, reminiscent of Cope's antiquarian odyssey, Morag Rose almost tempts me into a psycho-geographic stroll. Until I remember how utterly shagged out I feel after a week's work these days. I'm all for undertaking the dream elements of her endeavours, though. 

This song has to be my pick coz it shares its name with my favourite Teenage Fan Club tune, and pretty much plays like a perfect folk-pop dreamscape before rather brilliantly running out of things to say. Like the "Baaa ba baaa, ba ba-a baaa" pioneer Julian Cope, it is all the better for it. We all want to hear our perfect pop talk about making coffee, which is why we all love Lesley Duncan, but to hear the line 'soot on a tunnel wall' sound so organic and natural is truly mind-blowing. The mining industry really is ingrained into the Valleys. A part of nature.  

This special trio fastens itself to ideas that will stand the test of time, and play music with a stark simplicity and beauty which is sadly lost on the many people I see dipping into less ambitious wormholes. 

Maybe tomorrow's people will understand it all better. 

  

 

   

BEATS OF LOVE

48. Goodbye Donkey Jacket by Brown Fang

OUR CIVILIZATION is fragile. Already stripped of nationalized infrastructures and industry, the great economic banking heist of 2008 was so severe that pensions, pensioners, legal-aid, average earners, students, the disabled, amenities, the unemployed, vital services, immigrants, the lower middle-classes, and, our high streets, all got tossed into a tory bonfire.

Covid illustrated that just as Corbyn had been saying, austerity, the measure that selected what should get tossed into it, was a choice after-all. It's no coincidence that its victims and their families were then tossed onto it, too. Just as it's no coincidence that all these smouldering factions, rather than rising up in solidarity, are now divided up against one another.

Brexit is basically the promise that they can get tougher still on some of these factions by escaping existing legal frameworks. A promise from a tory government addressing people it has already tossed into a fire might as well be a lie. Similarly, news, written to appease the same people, might as well be fake.

The British public simply can not conceive that the tory party can be so brutal and they need to believe in some unfortunate accident instead. And in some hope of a remedy. Tragically, civilizations take fucking ages to burn.

And because of that simple fact, I will post this splendid song to listen to as we slowly smoulder away. A song on a highly cohesive album that the good Dr Rob on Ban Ban Ton Ton describes rather brilliantly in the link below.

https://banbantonton.com/2022/04/01/brown-fang-sherwood-pines-nunorthern-soul/

BEATS OF LOVE

47. You Set The Scene by Love 

I ACTUALLY solemnly lay on my bed dying after swallowing a jar of sleeping tablets, playing The Spacemen 3 whilst my mates played Subbuteo downstairs. It would've preceded the Kurt Cobain suicide by a few weeks, but before the first side of Playing With Fire had even finished, I dashed downstairs in a mad panic and phoned for my own ambulance. To much laughter from my pissed mates who simply carried on. Four days later, I was walking back home after narrowly avoiding the psychiatric ward. 

I didn't know it back then, but I was actually knee deep in love for the first time in my life, but only with the idea of being in love. It took that extreme measure to recognize that it actually was wholly unrequited. What my mates were telling me all along. The fall-out from the sorry episode galvanized me as I finally became myself again. Still hopelessly confused, and self-obsessed, but definitely me.  

What caused me to flip was the fall-out of a violent altercation with someone I wrongly identified as my nemesis. He was built like a gorilla and I was jealous coz he was sitting with the girl who should've been in America with me. This had all been arranged on our only date. The fact he was a bully gave my jealousy some cover, but my mates saw right through it and knew I'd fucked up. 

The old bill informed me that I needed to stay sober as any further altercation would be seen as just another a drunken brawl. I was duly ready to say goodbye to my teeth, nursing my orange juice, when sure enough he predictably charged toward me, but then, to my surprise, a boozer full of mates and regulars kicked the shit out of him before he could get to me. 

Playing Forever Changes all the time gave me the courage to face him again. This epic closing song, in particular, became a daily mantra of sorts. I was back from the dead and intent on facing each day with a smile, certain that luck was now on my side as I finally left town. 

Many folks that I knew weren't lucky enough to live to see Arthur playing the Academy on the most mind-blowing Monday night gig ever, period. Especially poignant as this wonderful song re-worked its magic on me and I felt born again, again, listening to those trumpets despite them being replaced by guitars. Hairs on the back of my neck stood on end for days after.   

Formed out of fragments from three unfinished works, it still consoles someone with its sheer force. Everyone else is highly wary of, which embodies its outlaw nature. If I'm still lucky, it'll be my deathbed song. 

       

BEATS OF LOVE

46. Over The Wall by Echo And The Bunnymen

I FOOLISHLY thought I was lucky to live in a short bubble in time that afforded me a relatively easy life, in what was already patently obvious to me, the late stages of a failing capitalist society. Then came the crash. Then came a bang as right-wing populists took the world over. And now comes the wallop. Existential threats are everywhere and a real uncertainty prevails.  

For some perspective, Ukrainian DJs were record shopping on Monday morning and fleeing their homes that very same weekend. Almost everyone likes their national flag now that everything has tragically escalated. My old workmate Lisa was the victim of a suicide bomb and it has left a massive big hole in our town. Almost everyone went out and got a tattoo. Unable to comprehend it all, let alone respond appropriately, we are instead trapped in an age of futile gesture.    

Existential questioning used to be the norm in a confused clubland, but nowadays in this post truth abyss, we bizarrely question things far less. We either die after living, or we draw the curtains on our own internal drama and exist in a state of total inertia, trying to make ourselves already dead with our futile gestures. And then we die. 

A home for most of us is a trophy for all our surrendered time. All the effort and love of family reflected back in brick and glass. Mainly glass. All those dreams of a haven are shattered in an instant. Now everything has escalated to a lot of folk. Their home is forgotten as quickly as every breath of new life which suddenly makes living momentary. Escalation is insane coz by questioning a great number of conflicting forces (an exaggerated sense of national-pride, faith, hopelessness, despair, and courage), some folk actually come alive.  

If you've fed your brain with totally fearless art, reality becomes charged with layers of meaning that bring about a dynamic understanding of life. Unlike a home, it can actually inhabit a person and serve as a call to act. 

I really hope and pray that with faith and courage prevailing, these people caught up in escalating tensions can soon once again enjoy things like the fearless might of this song. An antidote to the futile gesture if ever there was.