BEATS OF LOVE 

163. Biko by Robert Wyatt

AFTER WATCHING in awe and wonder, Beverly Glenn-Copeland spellbinding his audience, by splashing colour and hope, it inspired me to reflect on politics and the personal. 

Then I heard this while exploring some Afrobeat online. The prolific Man Power turned me onto Robert Wyatt a few years ago. A voice I was once resistant to suddenly mesmerised me by its rough fragility. Paradoxically abrasive and tender at the same time. 

Whether it is simply the voice or the subtly penetrative Adrian Sherwood production that makes the stripped down anti-apartheid anthem sound less tiring here than on Peter Gabriel's longer, more intense original, I can't say. Maybe it's not hearing bagpipes but a haunting, austere minimalism. Another case of less is more.  

The effect is more disarming as we get slowly hypnotised by the warmth of the simple electric organ before having to face some harsh truth about reality. Steve Biko's brutal torture and murder was brazen and harrowing, with many arguing that South Africa's collective consciousness still hasn't recovered from. It explains why the system of injustice and brutality survives at the end of apartheid.

That Wyatt can splash some colour, and hope is possibly down to his musical genius. Or just maybe Biko's spirit is still alive and well. A symbol of resistance.

BEATS OF LOVE 

162. This Is What She's Like by Dexys Midnight Runners

THE CONFERENCE season finished with Theos think tank's annual lecture, delivered in compromising tones by Andy Burnham. Who lacked the conviction necessary to fully explain his Third Way of doing politics. 

Prophetically concluding his post lecture Q and A by saying we should 'prepare for a very dark road ahead.' Very defeatist, from someone with more than a modicum of political power. Akin to losing at musical chairs by sitting down before the music even starts.

Luckily, as an antidote to such resigned political pessimism, here, the optimistic music never stops. I'm reading Kevin Rowland's disturbingly candid autobiography and spinning Don't Stand Me Down a lot. Starting with a song of greatness. The Occasional Flicker exuding the uncompromising confidence that comes with having a great but muted dress style and the musical talent to reach beyond oneself. That this exhilarating even more original effort eclipses it epitomises the valiance at its heart.  

To start the greatest ever twelve minute song with a rich accented conversation about the elusive topic of love is absolute genius. To then weave said voices into a musically uncompromising vocally harmonic Pièce de résistance, whilst not forgetting the violinist or to mock the English upper classes, is as insane as inspired. It's both as catchy as hell and utterly opaque. Fully expressing a third way of doing popular music. 

If any song proclaims 'we should prepare for a very sunny road ahead', it is this.