Sock Free Hideaway

BEATS OF LOVE

79. Every Cloud (Coastlines remix) by Simon Peter 

IT'S KIND of funny how folk connect with the tops. 

The tops being the higher ground where the locals convince themselves that they're in Saddleworth when in fact they're in Oldham just like me. My mum, as a young girl, used to walk with my grandfather regularly in her ill-fitting trench-coat over these tops. Yet in later life she became disenchanted with the memory. She may have seen me becoming more like him with my complete lack of ambition. 

I used to walk my much loved Raleigh Fourteen up the tops to Bishops Park myself before playing pitch and putt obsessively. I needed some sort of reward; I guess. Now the reward is the walk itself. My mother and uncle's ashes are both scattered by the nearby monument. Despite there being far better walks, there is nowhere else where the earth actually talks to me as I try to unlock my family's mysteries.  

This four tracker is amazing. Every Cloud is a meander through slight acoustics. Katie English's flute creates a beautiful undulating swell that sounds simple, but for such a lightness of touch to let in so much colour and warmth, it is truly a feat of nature. Something in the water in Flower Sound Studio I guess. 

However, this rework by the ever dependable Coastlines adds steel pan and Spanish guitar (cheers Juno). Taking it somewhere even more incredible. A masterclass in understated perfection for zoning out to after a long winter walk over the tops. The piano truly ascends and I'm left in shut eye paradise. 

If living felt this good every time the postie gave me a parcel, I might even die happy before they bury me in the lower ground of Moston cemetery. With my grandfather in the family plot nobody else wanted.