5 Tewns Vol.22
Read Time: 5 mins
Another week ends, another weekend begins, and I’m back with another collection of weekly music picks. It’s been a week of insane highs, in the form of heroes returning and the ongoing lows of continual war and misery beamed into every timeline— mine at least.
Stoker of daddy issues and all-around good egg Wes Baggaley, posted this excerpt from an interview with Shane Embury (Napalm Death) today, which perfectly encapsulates the mood:
“music means everything to people with nothing.”
So, let’s get on with it, shall we?
Boards of Canada – Tape 05
I don’t really know where to start with this one. I’m not even sure if it’s an actual song or just a promo clip, but yesterday, like many other middle-aged serotonin-depleted folk around the world, I spent over an hour repeatedly watching the video for Tape 05, with all the goosebumps and tears you’d expect from someone like me.
I believe strongly in the deification of music. You need to feel small sometimes. And as a long list of my heroes have already passed (James Brown, Andrew Weatherall, Brian Wilson, David Lynch, MF Doom, D’Angelo, Prince, and many more), I’m dangerously deprived of awe. Thank the gods for Boards of Canada
Over 3 minutes and 21 seconds, Tape 05 channels a spectrum of dread, reverence, and hope. If you read this blog, I know you’ve heard it, and I won’t blather on about the music, but even if we find ourselves teetering on the brink of the forthcoming apocalypse, I’m glad we finally have a soundtrack…
Wendy Eisenberg – The Ultraworld
It’s been a folk-heavy week, and one of the tracks that has been living rent-free in my head is this complex folk/prog/bossa nova-ish piece from Wendy Eisenberg. Drawn from her latest self-titled album, this stunning track seems to evoke Slapp Happy, Henry Cow, Jim O’Rourke, Lambchop, Caterina Valente, and a touch of Joanna Newsom all at once. The recording is honest and warm, and the arrangements are sublime. There are many stand-out tracks on the album, but this one is my favourite.
Youngsta – Plastic People
Though I’m undoubtedly the correct age, I never went to plastic people. I regret this now, but my natural aversion to London and the fact that I lived in Kernow at the time meant it never transpired. Back then, I liked to think of myself as a kind of Bumpkin ambassador for the sound — particularly dark garage — regularly playing tracks by Youngsta, Horsepower Productions, Reservoir Dogs Inc., and so on to uninterested locals and chatty posh students around Kernow, Devon and Somerset. So, when dubstep pioneer Youngsta’s homage to the seminal clubnight dropped into my inbox the other week, the dopamine rush was immense. The rhythms are tighter than my wallet, the blips full of strange alien soul, and the bass is a growling serpentine monster. Proper soundsystem music, I’ll have to pull the decks out of storage!
Amos – Vanish / Jai Yeng
Taken from Amos’ forthcoming album, Lost a Letter From The Alphabet on West Yorkshire’s Plague Records, Vanish/Jai Yeng is, as the title suggests, a song in two parts. A mad collage of drum rolls and waltzer-ready Trance synths bombards your ears; it’s big, proggy, and has the aura of a Northern English Cannibal Ox, with Amos delivering visceral lines about modern relationships and social media, “It’s like these people want you to know how much they’re in love, more than their partner.” Then, the turntable dies as do the trance synths, and Vanish transforms into Jai Yeng, a more classic-sounding Italian OST style beat. I won’t play sample spotter, but it’s a cracking album, and it comes out on International Workers’ Day/Beltane, so buy it!
Jake Thackray – The Remembrance
Inspired by this week’s incredible guest selection from Stone Club’s Matthew Shaw, I’ve been dutifully trawling my own folk collection, as mentioned — It’s been a while. June Tabor, Nick Drake, Pentangle, there are too many to choose from, but perhaps the most fitting for us right now is Jake Thackray’s The Remembrance. Though adorned with the beauty of his guitar playing, this song brilliantly portrays the cruel irony of pride and its weaponisation by political leaders in the pursuit of power. Regardless of political bent, they try to divide us and convince us that our imagined borders and our beliefs are ours alone and something worth dying for. Worth killing another human for. They want to trick us into fighting their wars.
Don’t get fooled.
Fight War, not wars. Jake Thackray puts it best in the final verse:
“Remember the shock of the ambuscade,
Remember the terrible fusillade,
And how we all looked up to see
The curious face of the enemy,
Who was young, and shabby, and seemed to be
About as foreign as you or me…
I never did catch what the poor sod said
When he made sure we were dead.
This was a couple o’ shakes before
We got killed in the war.”
Respect in every aspect x