Sock Free Hideaway

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.