BEA ULL #2: lethalnezzle

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[sp4cetiger]

Wow, I don't think I'll be able to keep up this pace or writing standard. Keep it up, though, this is great.

[Guest]

So, as I foretold, today has been rather more barren that yesterday. In fact, just nearing the end of my first album of the day right now, but I did do quite a bit of late night listening in bed last night due to a call from my girlfriend saying she wouldn't be back until the early hours because she'd decided to take up her colleagues on their offer of a ticket to see S Club 3 after work (usually when she gets back from work I feel sort of obliged to stop listening to music and pretend to listen to her instead, so it was actually quite nice to have a few extra hours of music time, even if I should've spent it sleeping). That said, I like to play it relatively safe when I'm listening to music in bed. I don't want some shit that's going to jump out at me, so I went with a trio of quiet and beautiful recent releases: The Fun Years' One Quarter Descent (which the perceptive among you will have realised was actually the first album I listened to of the day too, back when my mouth just tasted of dog and not of dog and cigarettes), Julie Byrne's Rooms with Walls and Windows, and Richard Ginns' In Float (all 2014). The first of the three, One Quarter Descent, is quickly becoming a favourite. Light, tape-loop-esque cyclical little piano and baritone guitar moments drift and expand slowly over subtle background drones and some tastefully applied radio static. I fux with this shit. Seriously, get to it if you haven't already (I'm looking at you dividesbyzero, Defago, MrFrogger, Kool Keith Sweat, Norman Bates, etc.). The next up, Rooms with Walls and Windows, is a refreshingly delicate record, feeling as though a strong gust of wind could blow it away at any moment. A lot of the lyrics are totally unintelligible, but not because they get drowned out by everything going on around them or because of some effects-driven stylistic choice, but simply because they are delivered so quietly. She has a beautiful voice, and those lyrics that I can make out tend to be disarmingly direct and poetic without feeling pretentious, a little like a Frank O'Hara or perhaps a Heany minus the detail. This is lived-in, real-life music - a partially heard conversation from the other side of the bar, perhaps the most interesting you've ever been privy to, one that you wish you could be involved in but for the fact that you would only ruin everything that makes it so beautiful. God, how you wish you could make it all out. I'm falling in love with this record, in case that wasn't apparent. Finally, I went with In Float, a dusk-in-springtime ambient record that I really don't know how to describe. It's another of my favourites of the year, though I must admit that it felt a little underwhelming following on from the two previous records. All three are worth your time though. Anyway, as that record came to a close, I set my alarm and went to sleep. I'll regale y'all with tales of my day and possibly some thoughts on a few more albums a little later on.

[undefined]

[Kiki]

Can't find the Quater album anywhere. It's sold out on the artists website as well.

[Guest]

[undefined]

[Guest]

So I woke up today ridiculously early in order to get to the school I work at. It's the tenth most deprived school in Birmingham, and as such is pretty rough. You can guarantee a fight or two every day, and we're talking about 9-year-olds here. They're great to work with, and every day is different, but I'll be damned if that shit isn't mentally and physically exhausting. I sometimes surprise the rudeboys who go there with my knowledge of Jamaican slang gleaned from my dad's record collection and the all night reggae parties I used to go to in Digbeth, and this one kid was absolutely amazed today that I knew who Busta Rhymes was. I doubt he's familiar with Leaders of the New School, but whatever. I can't really be schooling 9-year-olds on early '90s hip-hop before they know their seven times tables. Priorities and all that jazz. Anyway, I got home pretty tired from a day of what was essentially just crowd control (made worse by the fact that it was raining all fucking day so the kids couldn't even go outside and beat the shit out of each other in the relative privacy of the playground), and figured I'd put on something that I was familiar with, that I liked, and that was both upbeat and yet pretty world weary. Something to match (and hopefully shape) my mood, essentially. And so I went with Neneh Cherry's latest, the Four Tet-produced Blank Project (2014). It's really cool, built around Neneh's instantly recognisable pan-Atlantic voice and Four Tet's neo-industrial percussion, by which I mean percussion that evokes the shiny new office blocks where the industry of today, answering telephones and inputting data, takes place, as opposed to percussion that evokes the run-down factories that litter British innercities where, these days, industry is conspicuous only by its absence. The album is kind of lacking in actual, memorable songs (bar a couple of real standouts, especially the collaboration with the ever-interesting Robyn, 'Out of the Black'), but I'm willing to forgive these two pretty much anything as long as they can maintain a listenable vibe, and on that front the album more than delivers. It's not an album that I can see being in my Top 40 come the end of the year, but it's one I'll be returning to every now and then when I feel like I did today.

Anyway, I figured that since I probably only had the time and energy to fit in one other album today that I should make it a new one, in order so that I could share the first-time experience with you. And so, after much deliberation (to be honest I wanted to listen to more of the same sort of shit, except a bit more subtle), I plumped for Biographs' must dissolve (2014) (their lack of capital letters, not mine). And it was great, for the most part. Quasi-ambient techno drowning in tape hiss. Its more chilled out moments, such as 'bird sings; we aren't free here; we're going the wrong way' (yes, I know that's a fucking stupid song title) and 'i won't ever do anything; i feel safe here' (again, I know), were really nice, full of glitches that felt like they'd been left out in the sun too long, and really just managing to get the most out of the slowbuild repetition that makes up so much of this sort of music. Just fucking cool, basically. It had its share of disappointments too, but even they weren't totally without merit. 'jagged fingers', for example, meandered along with no point at all for about three and half minutes before finally kicking into life, all glittery twinkles and broken printer percussion, like 94diskont on really good molly. Of course, it then faded out after about thirty seconds, a total dick move that served no purpose other than to leave me with the aural equivalent of blue balls, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't thoroughly enjoy those thirty seconds. Elsewhere, undoubted album highlight 'are we ever going to get there' and its relentless (if utterly subdued) four-to-the-floor beat and beautifully bit-crushed steel pans (though, if I’m honest, that’s more of a hopeful stab in the dark/tenuous attempt to add further meat to the “year of the steel pans” narrative I tried to begin yesterday than a genuinely accurate representation of whatever that sound actually is) managed to drum up a dreamy, selective memory of a midday rave at a sunburnt festival, relayed through really shitty phone speakers. Basically exactly the sort of thing I want in my life. It's an album I'll definitely be returning to throughout this year, and one that I can add to my bedtime rotation list. Gonna get going seeing as I have work again tomorrow, but I'll try and get a couple albums logged here if I get the chance at some point, and then I'm free from Thursday onwards to (hopefully) continue the pace I started yesterday. Peace.

[Norman Bates]