Featuring my Bristol Bucket List, Gerard Manley Hopkins and a brand spanking new song of mine.
Little Song for the Day of the Sun
Tag: music
Returning Spirits
We go to cinemas for a different view of the world we live in, or to visit an imagined world and escape the laws by which this one's bound. Like the best films, Mati Diop's Grand Prix-winning film Atlantics satisfies both longings.
Things of Feather, Flight and Bone
In which my post-sleep brain comes to life in the company of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's genius; we consider the internal monologue of St Cecilia; and my new music project is announced.
Call Upon Some Saints’ Assistance
When I last launched a recording project, Prince and Bowie were alive, and the 90s weren't back in fashion yet. Times's changed, my friends.
“Start in the Middle of a Sentence and Move in Both Directions at Once” – New Facets to Coltrane’s Genius
"Like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid", says Sonny Rollins. Maybe so, but for John Coltrane this recording was just another tape reel and another day in a brief, wondrous life.
Did You Say that Life Could be Better? Wye Oak – The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs
It’s a kaleidoscope of widescreen keyboards, arpeggiators and drums, into which axewoman Jenn Wasner injects high-voltage bliss at perfectly judged moments. Several points on the album made me inwardly conclude 'ah, this is what music should be'.
How to Lose Friends and Influence People – on how Middle Kids are secretly exceptional
As fuzz, distortion and stacked harmonies recur, you can tell Middle Kids are throwing everything into their debut.
Culture Me Up 