BEATS OF LOVE 

115. Sometimes by James

THE MIND is strange, or at least mine is. I have this crystal clear image of a guy at my school enraptured on the stage with James in one of their oversized tee-shirts. 

I've never seen James live, and the only possible explanation for this crystal clear memory my mind holds is he was instead invading the stage as The Man From Delmonte supported the Fall. It would help explain why the life affirming anthems of the era sung with frenzied passion on a bed of proper adult musicianship sailed clean over me. I loved the unpredictable intensity and warmer intimacy of less accomplished smaller gigs. 

With age, this momentous song now feels alive in me as, outside of Weatherall's interpretations of their work, I've never really experienced the band itself at the peak of its powers. Cheers to Matt Best for sharing this might online. It's truly heartwarming to know that the Beehive Mill was their practice space as round here mills became warehouses, stifling creativity, before finally being razed to the ground. I was going to treat myself to a vinyl copy until I realized I could add the CD to an existing order for just 50p. The fact I keep spinning it means it's super value for money coz you can't buy a chocolate biscuit for that.

The mind is wonderful, or at least mine is. For, despite having some serious water cascading toward me, I can completely escape myself and still get lost in music. It hasn't failed me yet.   

BEATS OF LOVE 

114. One Goodbye in Ten (Album mix) by Shara Nelson

BOB STANLEY wrote a moving piece in the Guardian about his friend Shara Nelson.

Not known for a profligate lifestyle, instead she unassumingly but magnificently touched us with songs she co-wrote, so the news of her deteriorating mental health was tragic. And yes, I concurred Bob was right. When famous men lose their minds and behave uncharacteristically oddly, they get labelled geniuses which help them cope with the public shaming. Women have no such support. The fact she has kept a dignified silence speaks volumes. 

Despite being a major part of quintessentially the Massive Attack arsenal, this track fully realizes a Motown influenced sound the Saint Etienne boys had been trying to master. She never impinges but contributes to a greater whole and as a result, Stanley and Wiggs have never crafted a better song. The timeless soaring strings still get me every time and the warmth of her soothing voice, like a fine taste of Remy, put me in my happy place. Great pop music can be as effecting as any work of art and its exponents don't need to be capricious or contemporary. They just need to know exactly what they want to do.

Thank God Shara heard Only Love Can Break Your Heart and began to hear this absolute dynamite. For this alone, she deserves countless blessings. 

 

BEATS OF LOVE 

113. Reflection on the Crucifixion of Our Lord, Jesus Christ by John Littleford

WE SKIPPED film class to attend this talk in my local church community hall. It's fascinating to learn about the other life of people and even more fascinating when they turn you onto their art.

John's crucifixion series took inspiration from Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece with its Triptych design and contemporary theme, but moved toward abstraction. I'm not really into moving towards something, but thankfully the last work he displayed was more figurative and, thanks to the massive success of Oppenheimer, more now. Inevitably, physical texture is less dramatic when mixed-media art get photographed, so I came away wanting to see the actual works.

His Great War figures, sympathetically painted, are climbing over the trenches to meet their fate. This he only alludes to, more mindful of today's more meditative viewer, who could easily assess graphic war imagery. Grünewald was fearless in depicting a plague infected Christ as a figure of empathy. The site of the commission being a hospice where plague doctors walked about in the protective masks that influenced the beak like creations of Hieronymus Bosch. Inflicted patients desperately needed hope. The intended site for John's is a modern day unimpressive parish church. Possibly ours. Yet we, too, still need hope. 

Depicting the second atomic bomb because its cloud lends itself to encasing Christ better is odd, but that's the problem with schematic figurative art, I guess. Thumbing through the delightful draughtsman ship of John's sketch-books is fascinating coz you see how reworked his Christ was before he arrived at the Gauguinesque figure. A figure dwarfed by the famous sentence of reconciliation 'Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.' These words of God still have great global force. The 20th century made horror inescapable while introducing collective shock and mass spectacle into society. The 21st century, with its Millennium dome, the first building in history to put a gun to its own head and pull the trigger, summarizes this state of overkill we now live through.

It's why when this series escapes John's attic and bubble wrap, it will be important. Important for the church when it finally becomes more radical in defence of social justice, which it must, to offer people an antidote to their feelings of intense hopelessness.