BEATS OF LOVE 

157. You are the Place by Shilpa Gupta 

MASSIVELY INDEBTED to my missus Factory International family. Their support following Ma's sudden death has been incredible.

I slipped out of the house for a second visit to this highly emotive multilingual sound installation. It encouraged me to lie back, immersing chill-out style to the fractured tender voices that moved nearer and further away. 

Lamenting voices singing about the personal  as stored in memory, echoing the Rochdale community in all its brilliant diversity. Gupta's clever attempts to strike discord, the ever moving lightbulbs and microphones, brilliantly show that the harmony which sits at the heart of this most vulnerable of choirs cuts through anything. Their verses get to the essence of what makes us human. Our vulnerability so often masked is what unites us and not constructs of power like flags. Celebrated in a plethora of different languages, it sounds less like a sound tapestry and more like a meaningful whole. 

I'm an honorary migrant. I feel the same shrill in my ear going past an immigration solicitor's office, and that same dread when the far right is in the news. My Nigerian family is mainly abstracted overseas, faces on the phone, where the remove during emotional crises is greater felt. Especially at this sad time. 

I laid back on the floor with small pools of tears in my eyes as I meditated on what could be and not what is. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

156. Ghost Assembly DJ set 

I EXPERIENCED social trauma at 28. A before and after, for sure. Clubs before always created a bit of stress and I always needed a livener at home beforehand, as I was no longer anonymous. I was very much the village idiot of clubland. I had a reverence for clubs and there was something ritualistic that, with hindsight, replaced the importance the church had been. 

After was a nightmare, I was trying to walk into the same clubs but on pills for my nerves. A hesitant introspection replaced a fearlessness of character, and I craved reinvention. To compound matters, the redundancy that was going to get me back to the metropolis never materialised, so I became bitter in my bungalow.

Hard to believe that I could now sit watching Wimbledon after work in the same bungalow, indifferent whether the missus wanted me to join her at MIF 25 or not. She did, so after showering and deciding my freshly cut hair looked flat, I put on my Horsebeach cap and headed out to meet her. My only consideration. 

When I got there, I did my usual pacing around and read that Abigail's Ghost Assembly was DJing as part of Dave Haslam's takeover. Despite the missus working the following morning, she agreed to stay, as I had a lot of warm fuzzy memories forming in my mind of my time in the Boardwalk and beyond. 

Abigail was entering the scene as I was exiting, but I always find her hiding in the same corners as me on the very few occasions our paths cross. I know that diffidence and have massiv respect that this set is laying bare her studio work and exposing it to folk a bit like me. The rustiest mover for sure, but her twisted hypnotic beats worked a treat. Tweaking memorable nostalgic touches like vocal stabs and harmonicas into unique and sturdy backbeats creates a lot of natural spark. De Laatste Rit is the catchiest, but there's definitely at least two more acid tinged shufflers that are equally trance inducing. Transcendence has never been so short and sweet.

I found myself completely knot kneed by Haslam's opener, the frenetically brilliant Company B's Fascinated, so called it a night. My first public dance since covid. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

155. Steady Weather LP by Torn Sail

I'M SORT of mystified by the one policy obsessives. Through Christine's e-mail, I helped get my labour MP to actually vote against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill,  but it still went through.

Now, hearing a whiff that the tories or reform will repeal it, she's now asked me to pressure them to a manifesto commitment. Like those two parties will ever comprehend human experience. Fuck politics, I'm still processing Ma's sudden death, whilst the missus attends a prearranged funeral, so I'm feeling out of sorts. 

Thank God for a bit of sunburst and a timely reminder from Huw that he was hosting a listening party for Torn Sail's third album Steady Weather. Huw has unwittingly helped me cope with life because he should be much more popular. If he has the grace to persevere with not being, then I can persevere with the trials and tribulations of my life. I ponder the reasons for him not being and can only find the hazy intensity of the music and an uncompromising approach isn't hitting folk immediately. It says a lot about the modern music listener.

Nick Drake needed future listeners to become much more popular, and maybe Torn Sail does. Thankfully, Murray Scott is carrying on evangelizing where I left off and whilst the listening party was intimate, everyone seemed blown away. I was in the back garden and everything was swaying gently in perfect harmony with the mesmerizing guitars. Huw had conceived his three LPs as far back as 2019 and he made the third sound darker when discussing it, like a massive divergence. Thankfully, it's as warm and sunlit as it is, sprawling and epic. I won't badger on coz everyone knows I love this band, other than to say not a guitar strum is unnecessary.

I'm still sort of mystified by Torn Sail. Mystified why they aren't much more popular coz they're still amazing and fully comprehend human experience.  

https://tornsail1.bandcamp.com/album/steady-weather

BEATS OF LOVE 

154. Ma

SO LUCKY, I had two selfless mothers so quick to love and so slow to judge. Brillant paradigms of how to live life fully. Religious yet liberal-minded, they made fairer and better choices than the rest of us and had a value system that earned respect. 

Despite their family commitments, they were both charitable. Not questioning why someone needs help, but questioning how they can help. My mother was the lynchpin of my UK family. Without her, we have channeled a more worrying nature, eroding trust and untying the bonds between us. 

The missus' mother 'Ma' was the lynchpin of my  Nigerian family and its wider community. She came to our wedding in November, imparting her wisdom to us in a short window of time whist freezing her socks off. I saved her from a hard fall when she lost her footing on the elevator in Next, but she saved our marriage by instilling the same strength of the spirit as my mother.

With her sad passing, I instantly feel privileged to have had Ma in my life. I'm mindful of the massive vacuum she leaves behind and the worrying nature of the remaining family. Like my mother, she lent an ear to every family member, and either resolved problems or supported us through difficulties. Despite their fleeting help to family members recovering from alcoholism or gunshot wounds, they would both rather have been celebrating the birth of a child. They both did it with a smile and elegance, despite knowing the heartache of widowhood. It's a strength and resilience that I don't see in myself or any other family members.

I will forever regret not flying us all out to Lagos to reunite when Ma was in the health to travel. It's pretty telling that every Sunday she asks after mother's surviving partner. Only on Sunday we were describing the care home he has just moved into. I wish I wasn't keener on playing records than staying on the phone longer. Like me, the missus has lost her mother and best friend and I suspect, like me, all her siblings have too. The pain makes her vulnerable and I can see the child in her, which hurts me. 

I just pray Ma has found perfect peace and the rest of us can honour her memory by giving more and receiving less. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

153.  Do You Like Worms? (Roll Plymouth Rock) by The Beach Boys

BRIAN WILSON was another saviour. I practically owe Pet Sounds my life as very little else reflected at me from my intense feelings of introspective alienation in the late 80s. 

Set-aside and bullied mercilessly into creating by a jealous father, he set the band apart. Understanding intricate harmonies whilst tapping into the pop zeitgeist. Still today the pinnacle of good-time music. 

Retiring from the stage in 1964, the experimentation evidenced on Pet Sounds; wild harmonic melodies, richer orchestration, and soul searching emotive lyrics, still had buckets of commercial appeal but culminated in a proper work of art. Complexity made to sound simple is never easy and takes true genius. Exchanging 4 boxes of records in the mid-nineties for my CD box set was an easy decision. 

A Smile bootleg and Domenic Priore's Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile! The Beach Boys, which documents the madness surrounding the sessions, were essential to every self respecting music freak. Then in 2011 Capitol finally unloaded all the sessions onto CDs. I found a higher state of grace because of the way my understanding of the world was being set to this heartfelt and mind-blowing music. I can now die happy. 

In the fallout of his aborted masterpiece, bandmates, accustomed to success, played the retro circuit to packed stadiums. His touches of genius on Wild Honey, Holland and Surf's Up whilst mainly laying on his bed full of barbiturate and fast-food are still brilliantly creative. With the conservative brand established, Brian played the part of the led astray leper for years. 

That it took until 2011 to let the faithful hear the Smile sessions in all their studio glory tell you how conservative the brand was. More tragedy surrounded his life than his death. In death, those that know understand deeply just how important it was that the competition for pop musical supremacy took place. That Wilson felt tortured into surpassing the studio achievement of the Beatles means we've all benefited. 

That I have a favourite out of all his pure gold is a minor miracle, but this was the tune I played in my head post-op when I realized there was no morphine drip as promised.

BEATS OF LOVE 

152.  Bryter Layter LP by Nick Drake 

THERE WAS an actual real time just prior to its studio completion when this product threatened to sell and make everyone involved in its production thrilled.

A time that evokes the challenging positive words spoken by Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in actual real time just after the TET offensive in Vietnam. Words that cut through to society at large. In both cases, times then, of optimistic bravery.

Cutting himself off from the security and safety of Cambridge to decamp in the capital, Drake's more urbanized lyrics appear to suggest he felt dwarfed rather than looming large. There's a vulnerability but determination in his voice. A drum kit changed the studio dynamic with Fairport players, amongst others adding to his distinctive finger picked guitar, creating a more upbeat sound. That said, Kirby's arrangements maintain that distinctive wispy pastoral elegance that marked out his debut. 

We all recall playing tunes to amazed small pockets of folk and trying to figure out how to scale up. Forget the dark stuff. This is a careerist record and all the better for it. One that searches out pop tones and scales things up perfectly. Forget the theorized accounts of its delay and subsequent commercial failure, but bask in its breezy majesty. And let that reticent but compellingly transportive voice whisk you off.

That there's been no challenging positive political voices, cutting through to society at large since Luther King and Kennedy is truly unfortunate. That no one has bettered Drake's stab at jazz infused folk/pop isn't. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

151. Find Your Eyes by Benji Reid

IN 2019, ahead of the A Thousand Words retrospective, Benji wanted his work unpacking as he felt wrongly that dyslexia held him back. As part of the writing team tasked with that, our mission was to turn a fraction of his Instagram followers into attendees. 

Volunteering was tough, finding it difficult to write for commercial ends and not simply offer jejune opinion. After the opening night drew on the usual pool of art connoisseurs and affiliations, I felt a sense of failure. Justified after returning to the gallery shortly after to find all his photographs had gone and deciding then that the unpredicable nature of gallery life wasn't for me. 

Slap bang in the middle of MIF that same summer, I also promoted Antoine. Seeing that dream evaporate, too. That it has taken this long to attend Benji's Aviva show isn't surprising, then. What is, is how utterly enthralling it is. John McGrath needs thanking for getting Benji back on the stage. A stage that comes alive as the artist narrates his lowest ebbs and inbuilt structures that surround black masculinity to create in real time some of the most captivating photography you'll see all year. Transforming these dark themes over three acts into a challenging triptych of hopeful wonder. 

the Missus and Benji

Interplay between photographer, director and performer is now made explicit. Articulating his multi disciplinary practice as a Choreo-Photolist, better than anyone, demystifies elements of his practice. The process is the performance. It evolves autobiographically, taking us on a journey from sharp monochrome intensity to a gliding colourful vibrancy. There's still a self restricting quality which is trademark Benji but the three graceful performers, themselves defying gravity, really make his work even more spectacular.

I was nudging the missus as she clapped with his star performer mid-flight, but it became infectious and a responsive part of the show. Probably exclusive to tonight. After Benji even gave us a few moves, no doubt spotting his pre-imagined Instagram attendees.  

BEATS OF LOVE 

150. Studio Electrophonique : The Sheffield space age, from The Human League to Pulp By Jamie Taylor. 

FEEL I know a lot more about Sheffield thanks to reading this. 

I loved reading about Southport and Blackpool in Bedsit Land: The Strange Worlds of Soft Cell by Patrick Clarke. The places that shaped their eccentricities and work ethic, and his vividly painted picture of maverick teaching methods in Leeds, the springboard which gave the group the confidence to take the stage. Then it unravelled. 

Only James Young's handling of Nico has handled waste and decadence with the irreverence to make it laugh out loud funny. Clarke, with the protagonists closing up on the subject, didn't even make it interesting. This is masterful. Everyone and everything is fair game for Taylor's observant wit. Every page is a work of wonder that is both provocative and warm. His tendency to apologize prior to snipping at his prey is very effective. 

Refreshingly, everyday folk are every bit the equal of artists which help when making the goings on in Ken Patten's Sheffield council house the thread, but other peripheral places and people also fascinate. He has a gift for sitting you in the room to really convey memorable sensory perceptions on fellow obsessives without allowing sensitivity. Obsessives unafraid of work and standing out from the crowd. 

Keeping Sheffield as his focus creates unlikely asides and bedfellows; Ken Patten's daughter Michelle, hobbyists and academics, fanzine culture and indoor markets, decline and invention, Brutalist architecture and glam styling, to name but a few. Less reliant on maverick teaching methods while counterbalancing economy with imagination, gave folk the front to repurpose past art movement ideas and really push themselves over the edge, often toward the mainstream. 

The great challenge was to gravitate them back toward a nondescript council house. That there's no unravelling, just a riveting read from start to finish, is a minor miracle. 

BEATS OF LOVE

149. Blush by Wilson Tanner

NOT AT all sure what Starmer's modus operandi is. 

I now know the depth of anger first hand that the disabled feel toward him. My labour MP has supported us for a decade as we navigate tory obstacles, only to find fresh penal measures put in place by Yvette Cooper. We expected social justice as an antidote to tory cruelty. Softer tones after years of harshness. Instead, we get more of the same.

Off the hoof Blairisms without the charm offensive. Mentally we go zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, after two minutes of his News 24 cabinet clones speaking to the media. One week they're paraphrasing the Clegg/Cameron alliance by falsely insisting the economy runs like a domestic household, the next, the harsher tones of the insidious Farage by cutting foreign aid. Sadly, when labour comes to power, accepting the wrongheaded notion that politics has distended into a state of emergency, they adopt tory statute.

Without reason and in no time at all, they've become the very people they opposed but still wooing no bigots and racists, and that is terminal. The NHS will have to be world-beating to win back voters. Voters who disliked tory u-turning dislike labour hypocrisy more. What could be more hypocritical than pledging 28 billion  for green initiatives one month and abandoning net zero targets the next? I know, campaigning with Waspi women one month, then abandoning them the next.

Starmer's modus operandi is to make a mockery of us by tinkering about with the austerity designs of his predecessors instead of even attempting to win an argument. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

148. Hamlet Hail to the Thief  by William Shakepeare Adapted by Christine Jones with Stephen Hoggett, Music by Radiohead, Orhestrations by Thom Yorke

THAT THIS 424m building is host to some of the most precariously balanced hats I've ever seen is no surprise. We're still dressing like teenagers. Shakespeare's play needs no introduction. It resonated with my younger self as I went mad after my father died. And resonates still.

The correlation Christine Jones makes between Radiohead's spiked existential angst and Prince Hamlet is as opportunistic as inspired. With Yorke on board to orchestrate their work with fresh players and dialogue sacrificed for dark choreography, it could be called a dumbing down exercise.

That said, would I rather be in a smaller theatre watching a faithful three hour production? My answer is a resounding no. The play will still do the rounds five hundred years from now, but this deconstructed version is of its time. Edited for its overworked audience, it provides a sugar rush rather than great depth. Yet Samuel Blenkin's bereaved prince is utterly captivating and convincing. Spinning around the smoky austere set with pathos and energy in equal measure, he helps concentrate on the mind, emphasizing his most resonant words with an idiosyncratic thump. 

The music interjects at the right time and Yorke occasionally cleverly chops the vocals, which allows for meditative phrasing. Something a faithful reproduction doesn't permit. To hell with plot development. What the peripheral characters lose in dialogue they make up for in expressive movement. The music is a device to prize open what is timeless and weighty, re-contextualising it to accommodate the hurts and betrayals of the everyday. The democratization of culture means a big trade off. With so many of us now able to read and write, so few of us actually read and write what endures. 

Preferring instead fragmentary manicured noise, the effect of too much invigorating choice, and this adaptation is perfect in celebrating that. And for this reason, it gets a thumbs up. 

 

BEATS OF LOVE

147. How to Disappear Completely by Radiohead   

I HAVE something in common with Farage. A bad experience with the NHS. 

Unable to afford Harley Street like him, instead waiting during six months of misdiagnosis before getting referred to a private clinic. Despite knowing I was ill. Arriving at the hospital before my notes, they informed me there'd be a morphine drip by my bed. There wasn't. Then a further six months' wait to discover that my testicular cancer wasn't life threatening. 

Some time later, a specialist at Christies told me I was susceptible to cancer, so better quit smoking. I did, unlike Farage whose still adamant in public that the doctors have it wrong. After five years of follow-ups, finally getting the all clear was a great experience with the NHS. Again, unlike Farage, who hasn't forgiven the NHS and Indian doctors for misdiagnosing in the early stages, I still feel a deep gratitude. 

Hitherto, I had always wanted to be born earlier, but thank God I wasn't. Prior to the early seventies, mortality rates were high, but now. Worth noting, because Farage has angrily peddled this myth about the NHS nearly costing him his life. Using public ignorance to create a headline out of a non-story.

A familiar pattern emerges; folk who didn't know the survival rate is over 90% probably think stopping a few dinghies and a few thousand people from building a life here will make everything great again. Convinced wrongly again that there has ever been a point in history when the working poor ever felt great. Farage exploits all ignorance, controlling the political temperature with falsehoods.

Like his idea of deregulation won't lead to working in poorer conditions for worse pay and longer hours, or replacing an irreparable NHS with a fairer model for us all won't cause controversy and death. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

146. Determination by Dean Parrish

MISTER WHITEHEAD, a balding, lanky, short fused stereotypical PE teacher, introduced me to the adolescent delights of dancing in his aerobics class. Get Up and Boogie was the track that stirred things up.

No idea what the goo in my shorts was, but thought I'd better keep it to myself. I was already called a wanker quite a lot. I hated PE and was truly gutted when those classes ended and I had to try my hand at Rugby instead. 

It's fair to say there's always been that same crazed element to my dancing. Crazed and slightly off key. Mastering dancing comes after lots of internal counting, which forces a remove from the listening experience making it cerebral. I like an instantaneous hit to both my ears and body. No remove and no mastery. And no brainpower. 

I struggle with the northern soul dancers in the now, but love sense stirring tunes like this more than ever. The old folk wear the same tops as dart players and the young folk dance impassionately like line dancers. There was a time in a sweat soaked mecca when appreciation for 60s soul sides like this was dead cool when folk were actually living for it. Or in the nineties when Baldie was doing his thing.

I take my dancing inspiration from Mister Whitehead's wonky aerobics class, who could see despite my ability I appreciated his music. Thankfully, not realizing quite how much.