BEATS OF LOVE 

182. You Retreat in Time and Space by Boards of Canada

THE PRECARIOUS labour market began with Thatcher, but Blair embedded it, importing US-style agency work and creating a two-tier economy: security for those already settled, instability for everyone who came after.

Bair then embraced the freedom of movement and cheap labour for business. Adopting the right to settle rather than merely the right to work, a policy choice that encouraged far greater numbers of European migrants to put down roots. Meanwhile, successive governments bombed across the Middle East then expressed surprise at the refugee flows the right was already weaponising at home.

Until the economic crash one might have forgiven folk their anger; after it, they voted for the very austerity that bled them dry. Austerity was a supposed temporary measure that got a minority extremely wealthy at their expense. It is little wonder that Brexit, the Covid contracts, the Russian energy windfall, and Truss's budget all followed in sequence, each one another extraction by the same minority that had become addicted to exploiting public credulity. Farage's method is simpler: amplify the grievance, then quietly hold the door open for the very people doing the robbing. 

Reform will need three full terms before it can govern the way it wants. The way Trump can at the moment. It will invoke the threat of civil unrest to intimidate both the courts and the Lords into compliance. Before the courts and the Lords finally yield, enough folk will concede that they've fallen for bite-size misinformation on social media and voted, repeatedly and badly, for a generation. 

If only Labour had the sense to ban voters from social media, they might at least encounter reality before they're asked to judge it.

BEATS OF LOVE 

181. Failure is Always An Option: Glorious Adventures on the Beta Band Front Line and Other Tales by Steve Mason

BY 1997 I was so pleased to hear the Beta Band's Champion Versions EP rewinding everything back to hearing Loaded for the first time, as I had become truly jaded with going out clubbing. 

I was lucky to catch them live early at the Roadhouse and Uni so witnessed the idiosyncrasy and humour that made them so special up close. I travelled far and wide to fall under their spell of redemptive eclecticism. Getting red-eyed with them in South after their farewell performance in Manchester. I knew they were going to be missed, especially by me, as I was already feeling old by then. 

That his best music is fragmented, unselfconsciously, ditto his best writing. Seeping out in candid tales haphazardly revealing a droll humour. Tales that thankfully encompass more than the Beta Band years. He downplays his bravery by reassessing everything on today's terms. You bemoan the fact that selling out is an outdated form of practice and with that realisation; I come to see why I'd feel so old in 2004. 

He's especially hard on himself when letting us into the drifts of his mind. It's a little too near home but his brilliant gift for story telling makes even the most depressing episodes highly entertaining. The peaks and troughs of his life don't come at you in linear and obvious ways either, instead springing out of the pages in a surprising manner. 

So pleased to read this, rewinding everything back to hearing the mighty and magical Champion Versions' EP for the first time. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

180. Tracey Emin: a second life  & Nigerian Modernism: art and independence

A TATE double-header began with the predictably packed blockbuster Emin exhibition.

No sooner are you in than a big screen recounts her teenage time in Margate. I'd seen excerpts of Why I Never Became a Dancer (1995) on the South Bank show and felt the revenge footage a little hollow in its mockery. I still do. 

She was the most endearing YBA artist, the one we could relate to. And it was a blessed relief to reach My Bed (1998), the most compelling conceptual self portrait bar none and the reason for her lasting infamy. Everything else was a little less tender than I'd hoped and less fearless. That said, not taken on standalone merit but shot through the prism of a personality cult, the work is engaging and not without reverence.

The effect was that when I visited my favourite spiritual space, Rothko's Seagram Murals (1958-59), I was a little less transported than usual. Fortunately, I immersed myself in Nigerian Modernism after a strong coffee a little later. Art that added to a pro-independence fervour that I'd seen in books suddenly had more vibrancy and purpose scaled up.

The Zaria Arts Society room, a melting pot of learning and leisure, is wild. The Black Orpheius magazines look so now but it's the paintings which radiate the colourful essences of a nightlife that first introduced us to Fela and the original fat bottomed girls. Whilst Ben Enwonwu's impressive room contained the expressive and dizzyingly rhythmic Monotony (1948), causing me to enthuse, I had to listen to the missus, who most admired the work of Nike Davies-Okundaye. 

It's fitting that, as the Tate double-header ended, this trailblazing woman who valued the workshop culture of passing on folklore tradition should reverberate around my head, reminding me of Emin's textile-influenced work. While vastly different mediums and cultural contexts, their work is highly personal and evocative. Both are part taught but self-developed, which is why they're so original, I guess. 

Their motifs hold personal significance and are not merely decorative. European tutors encouraged a self-expression of style, which makes a work like Davies-Okundaye ultra vivid The Finger that Feeds Never Lacks (1979) so unique. Created long after the tutors had fled the civil war of the late sixties, it epitomises a constant need to create inherent in nearly all artists. 

Davies-Okundaye helped charge Emin's work with much more emotion. Something that only happened later on the tube, reflecting.

BEATS OF LOVE 

179. Goodnight Jack by Saint Etienne

MUST CONFESS to thinking I owned Weatherall's sublime Mix of Two Halves remix of Only Love Can Break Your Heart for donkey's years. My US copy told me I did, despite it sounding nothing like the reviews I'd read. 

I even sited a UK copy at a party and felt sorry for the host as he hadn't got a lovely shrink wrap sleeve with his. Fast forward to the internet and I'm shelling out over twenty pounds for that UK copy because the US version misprinted the track listing and doesn't include the Weatherall mix. Obviously, I love both, but this song helped me find a bit of perspective on my traumatic life.

The only person I hated more than my father was myself, but sat with this in my headphones on a form in Didsbury Park, I actually smiled as I reminisced about him. The lines 'Behind the wheel of my Capri It seems it like no-ones noticed me. And now you're coming out from work, And deep inside I feel so hurt' really resonated as I recalled his company car, a gold Capri. He was definitely not a gold Capri man. When my mother stayed at the hospital to receive blood, we were both totally useless and at the mercy of my younger sisters, who fed us. Shortly after her return, he walked the dog, only to come back looking ashen faced with just the lead in his hand. 

My mother, despite being poorly, left the house, frantically calling out its name. Course it heard her voice and came running towards home. I still smile, recalling the sheer relief on my father's round face. The song marked the start of me being kinder to us both, infusing a much needed warm memory. 

Songs do that. Pure and simple. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

178. Halucifuge (Freaky Chicken Peck) by Freaky Chakra

MEMORY CAN be cruel. Wincing as I reflect on my first failed attempt at DJing back in February 1994. 

It mattered to me coz I still recall the tunes I played to my imagined audience that sounded groundbreaking and brilliant.  Then the very same tunes in an actual Oldham boozer a week later with Jeff and Tim. 

Freaky Chakra's tremendous Halucifuge (Freaky Chicken Peck) shouldn't follow the mighty Augustus Pablo. It didn't, as I was so dumbstruck with nerves I had to tap Jeff on the head to cue it up. I ended on a sort of high with U-N-I (You And I) awe inspiring Don't Hold Back The Feeling (Key Trip Dub) but they did not ask me again.

They weren't perfect. Tim would play anything to entertain (i.e., Jeff's overplayed commercial records), whereas Jeff liked to play more credible tunes. When this partnership played the Wigan Pier with more than a smattering of record company freebies that Jeff got first dibs on by account of driving, tensions snapped. Tim measured his superiority in keeping more heads on the dancefloor than Jeff, despite having next to no records. Real DJs don't count heads they build relationships with their music. 

Real DJs sound like their home cities, apparently. If I'd at least sounded like a large town such as Oldham, I might not be wincing, picturing the puzzled expression on folk's faces.  

BEATS OF LOVE 

177. Human Love LP by E.R. Thorpe

HAD THE good sense to ask Emma to support Huw Costin with Torn Sail way back in 2013 after Paul suggested it. She didn't disappoint, her songs had a beguiling depth.

Only a lowly framework; stool and guitar hindered her. Now, amidst a Nottinghamshire renaissance, extra enthusiasm is at hand to broaden the framework and really prize open the textural depth of her creations. 

Hard not to get emotional hearing Red Dust and Dinner For One in this new light as songs that cradled me during tough times now sound even richer and more memorable. Brilliant players do that. They help realize her fullest potential, creating a  hell of a cohesive spin. It's truly important. We downplay the importance of life affirming music passed down through generations in our world of sound-snippets. But we need artists like Emma and long players like this more than ever. 

Pic - Joseph Eid

Reminded of Abu Omar who smoked a pipe, listening to gramophone records in his ruined Aleppo bedroom, refusing to leave the city despite the destruction. I expect he was listening to something truly enriching like this. Something that places life itself in better focus.

My favourite songs keep changing, which is always a good sign. It repays faith in Jim's production skills as he's handed back to her one mighty album. 

https://erthorpe.bandcamp.com/album/human-love-2

BEATS OF LOVE 

176. Reverend Black Grape by Black Grape

THE MISSUS was in Nigeria for Ma's funeral when Lent began. To compound my worries, I had her physical ID with me and couldn't get any clarification whether she needed it to travel back now that everything was digital, despite asking two solicitors. 

Attended as many masses as I could during Lent and what I thought would be a chore has strengthened my faith considerably. It was just under twenty years ago, on Good Friday 2006, that I went back to church. 

Unsurprisingly, I've got to know some parishioners since. If right wing dogma sits well with their religion, then this masterpiece, the last great TOTP moment, lampooning the hypocrisy of organized religion whilst sounding funky as hell, sits well with mine. 

The Jesus I know hates the commodification of religion, encouraging instead heart led relationships over rule led ones of obedience. That two self-confessed smack heads who had been all but written off could draw on their catholic and gospel heritages to subvert both the religious messaging and season while creating the finest comeback single bar, none is a testament to a wider corroboration. Danny Saber, take a bow. Heart led and unruly, the results are miraculous. 

Course the missus got back with just digital ID. My feverish Lenten prayers answered.