BEATS OF LOVE

137. Bigger & Closer (Not Smaller & Further Away) by David Hockney 

IT WAS with trepidation that I entered the Aviva studio, thinking I was going to see another three-hour show. The last time I went, I saw Laurie Anderson. While some elements were compelling, the performance was sprawling and indulgent, going on far too long.

My relief was palpable as I discovered two of the three hours my missus had allotted to this were actually in the bar. The last time I saw Hockney in Manchester was his photographic exhibition, that left me a little cold. I like to see the artist's hand in the work, so I was even less drawn to this. 

However, despite massive reservations, once I found my viewing platform, it drew me in and I became mesmerised. Aviva for once made perfect sense as its vast space became awash with a vibrancy that was both colourful and high spirited. I couldn't help but observe the people below as my eyes scanned the dominant spaces and saw miniature people sat to attention, laid back with their phones, lent against walls, sprawled out on the floor, and knelt down playfully. It very much had a festival flavour. 

Lightroom's masterstroke is having Hockney's distinctively northern voice making pithy comments to guide us through his work with a sense of great purpose. An advantage he has over Van Gogh for sure is this artistic control. Artist Chanje Kunda noted that this gave the work an African flavour by evoking oratory art traditions perfected by the elders and passed down through generations. It certainly gives the exhibition its sense of reverence that means there's no casual banter, allowing the spoken word and image to coalesce. Prompting us to ask, 'are we seeing the work through Hockney's eyes or our own?' Probably our own. That said, the method helps us reach a better level of understanding his work without scrunching our faces in brain ache. 

What came to life for me were the photographs I had dismissed. Possibly because they lend themselves to reproduction, or most likely because I now know what foregrounding time and perspective means. Hockney is a great entry point for this type of installation, as his use of colour is joyful. His big themes, water, spring, theatre; dramatic. It's a great appetiser, as I'm surely not alone in wanting to view more of his actual work now. There is a great big book near the entrance, a more comprehensive catalogue of his oeuvre with a £4500 price tag. I'm guessing it's still there.   

I have my reservations about future installations working as well, but the three-year effort to realise this blockbuster art show needs commending. A blockbuster art show in Manchester. That's a first.  

BEATS OF LOVE 

136. On a Sunday by Nick Heyward

FINDING ONE'S way home after the party was always difficult and, more than once, I needed neighbours to carry my body through the door.

One particular dark episode, sunny Sunday strolling home, away from my good mate Bob's party where I'd just made the best of playing his records and was singing Candi Staton to myself, I bumped into my workmate Tim. A guy who'd just gambled his house away. Convinced the national wank a lottery would save him, only it didn't. 

Inviting him back to my mother's house to share a whisky was a bad idea. To then invite the more excessive remnants of the party, Bob's pal Nick amongst them, an even badder one. Finally, I returned home on the Monday with a copy of this, the single I'd bought off Tim more out of pity as I already had one and a David Holmes single bought from Vinyl Exchange. Just an ordinary Monday on the surface.

All I fully recall after my ill-fated stroll, though, is one guy leaving and returning. It leads to me collapsing on the Tuesday, needing a stomach pump. On my hospital departure, I recognised some faces congregating outside and learned that Nick had died. 

My time with Nick was very sketchy, to say the least. On every other occasion, it would've been a laughing matter. We parted ways upon my angry mother's return home on the Monday afternoon like naughty schoolboys, yet before Tuesday teatime he had died. Everyone, except those closest to him, was happy to buy into this myth of me leading him astray. I'm naturally prone to guilt, but eventually forgave myself, as being blamed is my burden to carry. 

I guess it's only natural to preserve the best possible version of folk when consigning them to memory. Tim, too, has sadly died, but not before finding family joy. I just hope he and Nick have found their way home.

BEATS OF LOVE 

135. Ultra Violet by Mark E

I HARK back to the hours, sat on cold floors listening to blokes (always blokes) mixing after hours. Mixing similar BPMs and similar records. Then, whenever the chance arose, I'd spin 60s tunes, which pissed people off. Shirley Bassey's Something excepted. 

Unless Fiona, Emma or Joanne beat me to it and they'd always spin something truly memorable. Then something else that sounded brilliant, but they'd be dancing and not mixing. I was always dying to know what they were playing. They turned me on to utterly memorable music like There's a Riot..., Stepping Razor, Forever Manna, Rune Lindbaek and Larry Heard's brilliant mid-nineties stuff and were effortlessly cool.  

When rehearsing for our joint DJ debut, I recall Jeff listening to my records and finding the dramatic point in which to cue on another record and realised he was actually doing it properly. I just danced then changed the record or if I was DJing, fade out the sound on one deck before cross fading. I sort of assumed that as long as the music delivered and the drama stayed in focus, I'd keep the floor and I was sometimes right. I took my influence from my three unsung heroes, who were actually poets and journalists when not partying. These brave women trod a path to make it easier for the next generation to find a collective voice. 

I'm pretty sure if we had a time machine and could play today's music at yesteryear's afters, there'd be loads of beige beatport DJ wannabes mixing away and then breaking the rare silence, Fiona would stagger across the room and drop this onto the deck in a no-nonsense manner. Enough said. 

                   

BEATS OF LOVE 

134. Gypsy Soul by Tommy Bolin

AFTER A brutal stretch, I needed to hear some warm, mellow, soothing grooves. This always makes me nostalgic as I reflect on my own golden era.

I successfully resisted the internet until 2007, fully aware it would supercharge my record-collecting obsession. Then, the Open University bought me a computer. Soon after, Psychemagik, Moonboots, and Lexx dropped a series of mind-blowing mixes. Before long, communities like Aficionado, Melting Point, Red Light Records, and Is It Balearic? emerged, unleashing a flood of game changing slow burners.

Pretty sure this slow burning fire was a Melting Point post. This great record I'd hitherto avoided as Deep Purple crossed that line. That line where my eclectic taste morphed into musical snobbery. That line that I now realise chalked out my own musical ignorance. I now let no stone go unturned when lending my ear, coz Bolin plays his acoustic with an understated drama that makes this flickeringly beautiful winter warmer so damned memorable. It was actually a toss up between this and the mighty Alexis, an earlier tune he wrote which is also brilliant, but the hot flamenco lead outro break sort of won it. 

Yeah, it has been a brutal stretch where I've had to compromise to stay in employment. Thank God I have this warm, mellow and soothing tune playing on the stereo. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

133. Gift From "La Mer" by Hajime Mizoguchi

THE ENIGMATIC Arthur Russell is the reason we all love a cellist. His recent reissues are a wow, go buy! 

Fellow cellist Hajime Mizoguchi employed everything but his cello when creating the cuts on his debut album. Halfinch Dessert only uses it to add in colour and depth. Reminiscent of Basquiat, whose found material became both an alternative canvas and an integral part of his early work.

Mizoguchi, like Russell, had non-classical alliances. Notably Seigen Ono of Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence fame, besides advertising industry experience. Prompting Diego Olivas to note, “Hajime loved to make music that was contemporary and accessible, but in a way his music had a lot of ruminative and big-hearted romantic melancholy that one would shake off making purely technically-proficient music.”

This move away from sheet music towards more abstracted imagery was liberating as it embraced a digital technology that still sounds so now, like this understated beauty, that floats along on a soft cushion of airy percussion. Sounds he created to induce sleep following a serious road accident that left him in severe pain with whiplash. (Cheers, Diego, again.)

Sounds that decades later still soothe troubled souls like mine with its masked complexity and warm energy. I'm halfway to dreamland.

BEATS OF LOVE 

132. Burning World by Loop

GREAT, BEING old and online coz you can order Imagination's debut album with this elusive Loop twelve and not bat an eye. There's zero judgment or side-eye from snobbish store staff.  

Before the rift with my father, as a reward for passing tests he set, he played Subbuteo with me. We had the throw-in takers and corner takers and my father actually headed brilliant goals past my shaky defence. I never got to find out how he did that. 

He only ever watched me play actual footy once and, despite scoring a hatful of goals, I got substituted. He simply said to me 'you're a goal hanger and don't know the offside rule.' Devastated, but he was right. I just lazily marked the most useless defender who flattered my absolute averageness. 

Sacking off the footy and getting lost in music gave me my proper sense of identity. Something that went beyond criticism. Realising Jeff, who up to this point was some plain scruff, liked the Mary Chain, changed everything about our relationship. I had a musical ally. My kid sister and Bob loved a lot of my records too, and this also gave me the confidence to alienate them. 

They'd hate this lengthy hypnotic delight, for example. Less nihilistic and less of a sensory assault than their later work, it instead uses a more colourful bass motif and a tambourine to snake-charm effect. The Field Mice cover actually creates a proper song out of it, but isn't as bewitching. I prefer this less energised Loop and have some sympathy with folk who play their later 45s on the wrong speed. I can sit back in a comfy chair and nod out to it. 

Brilliant, being a digital fossil means I fall into a fresh, unhinged internet wormhole every seven days. Finding this record now proves the magic is alive, unlike modern footy, which feels utterly fake and boring.

 

BEATS OF LOVE 

131. The Beauty in your Body by The Lilac Time

ALWAYS CHAMPIONED the underdog. It explains why I've got a soft spot for Stephen Tin Tin Duffy, who threatened to take off countless times but spent his musical career bubbling under. Kiss Me was the high-water mark of an otherwise forgettable synth-pop run, earning its place in my mate's ghetto blaster. He only grew fascinating when he returned with The Lilac Time. Mind you, not fascinating enough to actually buy his music.

However, when Sifters put their sophomore album Paradise Circus in the racks for buttons, years later, I bit, and discovered this, my perfect comedown track.

Baffling why on a sunny Saturday afternoon I'd get back to the flat and lie star- shaped across the bed and sleep happily, but by Monday night I'd be coated in sweat with insufferable liver cramps, needing countless pillows to support my curled up, aching, body. It was pre-empting this and hating myself that the tune's slowly unfurling beauty came to life. 

Whilst still awake, before I became beset by fear, its pastoral elegance relaxed my tired mind. By the time the banjo and organ really kicked in, I could even pathetically romanticise my sorry state. Someone says it rips off Leonard Cohen, but I don't care. It helped me out big time. 

Only after seeing a fairly famous DJ post-afters curled up in the same discomfort as myself did I realise that there are no better-class drugs for richer folk. That was day one of my determination to quit completely. 

Finally recovered and kicking back in a comfy chair, I still love playing this fascinating track. It's my perfect comedown song that sounds even better straight.