Blind Sided

Published on 2020-05-23 00:00:00 by Loose Lips

Welcome to our sixth monthly Deep Cuts article, whose contributions date back to the project’s early days, a year and a haf ago. Lee was the first writer to send in writing that wasn’t tailored to one of my initial starter themes, something he had written purely for the sake of self expression, that he thought might suit my nascent project. We decided that Blindsided would be a great title for the theme, along with the prompt question ‘When has music caught you off guard?’ (Last month’s theme was Fantasy Realm)The personal nature of Deep Cuts writing, along with the fact that writers very purely do it for the love, means that it takes a long time to put articles together, you have to catch writers on the right day, in the right head space, when one of our themes provides a welcome source of expression. This theme got bumped up the schedule, however, by a surprising, enormous contribution from Nana. We usually limit contributions to 1 thousand words (1.5 if it’s a two-person conversation), but this incredible, auto-biographical 3.5 thousand word behemoth of a piece felt so essential, and so fantastically relevant to this quarantine situation of needing, that it felt right to include it in full (we’ve placed it at the end of the article).As always, music from all of the article’s writers is combined in the mix below, (this time provided by the fantastic Lauryn Harper, whose writing opened our fourth article, Wordless Tone), all the music is gathered in this helpful Spotify playlist, and our illustration comes from Trav.

Loose Lips · Loose Lips Deep Cuts 006 ‘Blind Sided

Lee Rayment2018 was wonderful and weird. Lots of work made its way into definitive forward progress. Projects, birthed from random thoughts and ideas, came to fruition. And just some weird shit happened. Not superbad-weird but weird-weird. Ya know?Earlier this year I was listening to music on the walk to the train and Song of Good Hope by Glen Hansard [at the start of this month’s mix] started playing. I’d heard it before, certainly. Yet this time I heard the opening lines and started crying. In that moment my hopelessness laid itself bare; the depth of my fears weighed upon me and I broke a little.And I know where you’ve been__It’s really left you in doubt__Of ever finding a harbor__Of figuring this out…And take your time babe__It’s not as bad as it seems, you’ll be fine babe__It’s just some rivers and streams in between__You and where you wanna be_Maybe this song is trite and vague and unoriginal. In that moment and even now—as I listen to this song on repeat—I struggle to find hope. I fear that I won’t find the strength to make the changes I want to make. I cower at the years of shame that has kept me hidden and bow to its power. I admit defeat.In the midst of that defeat, hearing this felt song felt like a hug reaching back through the ages to all of the parts of myself that ever felt sad or lonely or downtrodden. My tears were made of many years of pain finally recognized and seen.You’ll be fine now__Just stay close to me and make good hope__Walk with you through everything_Even in the face of years of pain and sadness and shame, I can’t help but hug myself from the inside and say, “I know it’s been rough, but you’ve done well. Keep going. You’ll get there soon.”Life is weird and wonderful. 2018 has certainly taught me that. So here’s to finding a harbor and figuring this (whatever “this” is for you) out.Lee Rayment is a photographer & performer. His cabaret show is called “‘Stiff Drink!?’ With Dr. Eustice Sissy (Psy.D), Presents: ‘Songs from the Heart’” Midway through a discussion with Will Soer about Will’s own music, he smiled and said in a firm, parental tone; ‘stop putting barriers between yourself and the audience.’Eve ParsonsWhen I moved to Bristol nine months ago, I only knew one person. It was very much a ‘plunge’ move – plunging into the unknown, the exciting, the deferred urgency of having to get one’s shit together. Needless to say this wonderful city welcomed me with open arms.One night a few months down the line, I found myself nestled in a sea of beanbags belonging to an old friend I had recently reconnected with. It was 4am and we had spent the evening smoking cigarettes and queuing music among standard narcotic-fuelled fuckery. We took turns bearing our souls (via Spotify), from the tunes passed down from parents to recent finds we adored.All of a sudden I was caught uncomfortably in between the opening three notes of BADBADNOTGOOD’s Time Moves Slow. [05:28] A pause. And like a wave, pulled in.I cannot recall another time I have been at the complete mercy of a track. This was crazy. Every word uttered hit deeper. Even the pseudo-optimistic chorus was disarming. For the first time in a long long time I cried, feelings from months gone by overcame me and both painfully and pleasurably flowed through this song with me.‘Running away is easy
It’s the leaving that’s hard’Sometimes I play this song on repeat and still feel those pangs of emotion. Of course, I’m thinking of a person. I’m thinking of a place, a time. But the feeling is ineffable. In between dejection, longing, desire, regret. Playing this song has become a sort of act of recognition – recognising the parts of yourself that you don’t like to visit. The choices you’ve made with consequences you’ve ignored. Perhaps it’s even a way of processing.With all of it though – both difficult and nurturing – it was the best gift a friend could have given me.Eve Parsons is a huggerWill SoerDiary entry from me, written on 9:30am, 27/01/2014, unedited:So my first 9am lecture of the year is a fucking Library Resources lecture. This guy thinks that none of us have the faintest idea how to search for information on the internet, and is giving us such wonderful insights such as the notion that broad search terms will cause you to have too many search results.On Saturday I raced on the Thames with UBBC. It was probably the most exciting sporting experience of my life so far, didn’t even hurt that much due to the pure adrenaline; at one point we overtook the boat who started 20 seconds before us and it was just such an intense feeling of power seeing them disappear behind us. The exchange was about around 6 hours of travel, 3 hours of setting up/derigging/waiting and an hour or warming up/rowing back to the start for 13 minutes of racing, but it was worth it. We were in matched 8s so neither boat got an amazing result, but it was still an awesome experience.After getting back we went out to Lizard Lounge; the grottiest, cheapest and thus most perfect nightclub in Bristol; I drank somewhere around 20-30 units of alcohol which resulted in me kissing a lot of my mates and taking a lot of blurred selfies…I also had an awesome musical experience driving back: put iPod on shuffle and tried listening without looking at the artist name etc, came up with some really wierd songs I never knew I had but are awesome; most interesting one was Little Bit – Drake x Lykke Li: [23:00] since I was listening thinking ‘weird, they sound like Drake and Lykke Li but that would be such a weird collab, must be soundalikes or something’ but it turns out it’s off his first mixtape. Other revelations were John Gacy Jr by Sufjan Stevens, V V Brown’s avante garde extremes and a really odd Clams Casino instrumental.It’s weird, reading this diary entry; six years later. I appreciate the inclusion of Clams Casino, an enormously original, creative producer, whose music kind of sounds like the experience of being blindsided, contributing an emotional weight and intensity that played a massive part in Hip Hop’s recent emo renaissance. Asap Rocky, lil b and Mac Miller all spread their creative wings over his beats, wiling their way into a kind groovey paranoia.Having said that, I stumbled upon the diary entry whilst searching for some note about John Wayne Gacy Jr., a track that immediately came to mind when I read Lee’s starter contribution for this months article. It feels weird reading it in retrospect, knowing that everything was about to change for me, I sounded so happy!Every now and then, within that bizarre year of taking a sport veeery seriously, I had the occasional, hyper euphoric / hyper zoned out musical moment, on those long drives and agonizing row machine tests. The kind where you feel all that music can do. All team members reported the same thoughts at a certain stage of a test, wondering ‘how can I justify quiting, am I just gonna lie about my back’, and then your teammate screams ‘COME ON / DO YOU WANT TO BE IN THE TEAM / HE’S TIRING YOU CAN TAKE HIM / THAT’S RIGHT HE WENT OFF TOO HARD YOU’VE GOT STAMINA / etc etc’, it’s like being in a movie or something. At the end of one particularly intense 2 minute session, Doves’ Jetstream came up, its drama building for 160 seconds until sliding into a rhythmic breakdown, totally surprising in its seriousness and grace, I felt like I saw God.The other track that totally blindsided me that year was Mine by Beyoncé. [17:08] I remember downloading it because I was intrigued that she had done a track with Drake, leaving it on my iPod ready to come up on shuffle a week or so later, at which point I had to restart it after two minutes because I hadn’t been paying attention; wait whaaaaaat was that Sampha? It was at a different part of the year, when my long distance relationship felt like a vital lifeline, one person who didnt banterously tell me to shut up. Still one of my all time favourite songs, like top five.See this is the thing about Drake, his stardom and the quality of his best music comes from a sense of timing, knowing when and how far to push Hip Hop’s notions of masculinity, knowing which nascent internet styles to cosign, knowing when to bring in a particular side of his vocal character, bringing out a track’s flavour like salt. In Nana’s contribution (later in the article), she talks about hating communal dancing; ‘I mostly just want to close my eyes, to be left alone to do it and for everyone to be okay with it.’ This reminded me of one last Drake blindsided moment, on mushrooms, on a warm, muggy Berlin afternoon, in About Blank’s garden terrace dancefloor, at a queer femme event named Room 4 Resistance. My friend and I had been feeling a bit self conscious shuffling about in the afternoon sun, but over two hours, the DJ (Deadlift, who contributed to our first Deep Cuts article) gradually loosened us up, peaking with a blissful remix of Drakes Controlla (above), one of my all time favourite dance tracks, light-footed but joyous.Alongside editing and writing for Loose Lips (Deep Cuts is his baby), Will maintains a blog and radio show named Out Of Body Pop, covering music thats accessible but zoney.RuthanneStay caught me completely off guard. I would have considered Post Malone trap/hip hop, I only knew the hits like Rockstar, which are a certain type of song, but what I loved about Stay [37:26] when I heard it, it reminded me of Oasis and that rock era in the 90’s, Jeff Buckley, Coldplay, and I didn’t think he had that type of style in him. It stands out completely for me off his last album and feels like a real classic. Anytime I play it for people who don’t know, they’re always so surprised it’s him. I feel like with his current releases he’s stepping more into this vein of music and I love that.Ruthanne has written hit records for everyone under the sun; Niall Horan, Britney Spears, Tiesto, Professor Green, Jojo, you name it. She’s that friend who’s always keen to hear how you’re doing, to talk through your emotional issues, whilst in the studio she pushes vocalists to be emotional, to place theirself in the song’s situation.Nana Fani-KayodeOld Dogs and New TunesWhen I started this article, the idea was to describe incredible pieces of music that, seemingly, come out of nowhere or somewhere incongruous and reflect on the emotional impact on me.  So that would include tunes I have stumbled into, music or genres I thought I knew then get turned around by an artist, collective or producer doing something boundary changing or a so called ‘guilty pleasure’ that I revel in. This proved more layered than I first thought. Rather than an autobiographical review it became a reflection on how ‘we’ keep these unaccounted-for moments alive and, more importantly, keep the antenna as wide open as possible to receive those signals; how do you keep the passion to discover alive as you get older and resist retreating into musical corners. So, this is one-part reflection, the other part review and the rest a love letter of a sorts to those beautiful moments that only become more spectacular the further away I get from them. The times when you detach from what you know, get taken to somewhere beyond excellent and at the centre of those moments are some immense people, mostly old dogs, who just blew me away.In the age of the algorithms, curated playlists and DJ compilations, how do you know when something is out of the ordinary and captivating, what barometer do you use? Where does it even come from if your tastes are fully catered for. This is not criticism of modern music listening, I am fully aware that music lovers everywhere will scour high and low to search out the good stuff. Instead I want to think about how do you stumble across never heard of ingredients as you get older and settled, how do you get taken by something stupid good and crazy surprising?Being blindsided by a piece of music is a special, spectacular thing. A perfect moment. Whatever way you experience that joy is deeply personal; for me it’s a physical thing. Its deep and unbounded, it’s a full body feeling. On many occasions this has been a little problematic; think buses, libraries, shops, once outside a church. It could be swaying, a maniacal grin, waving my hands as though conducting some shadow orchestra, foot/finger tapping or tuneless humming. It is pure, utter, joy so I rarely feel embarrassed when it trickles out in public. I mean how could I? Even thinking about those moments fills me with warmth and brings my sense memory to life. A gift from my Mother; my earliest guide, before radio before TV she tuned my ears and fed my passion.My earliest memories of being taken by these feelings goes back to when my family and I were living in Nigeria. I would have probably been about 6 or 7 and can remember being overtaken by music, because of my Mother. She loved music, adored dancing, and, luckily for us, had exceptional taste and appreciated many different genres; which probably explains why my own tastes are so varied. Growing up I heard all sorts, classic, experimental and modern, Afro, soul, pop, reggae and the list goes on. This was the soundtrack to my early life as we moved through the onomatopoeic streets of Lagos. My mother drove us from home to school, from school to swimming club, from the club to our grandparents, to the beach for weekend trips and on. So, you see, the soundtrack was extensive and impactful.I first heard the laid back, hypnotic voice of Michael Franks on my way to school in the early mornings on the way back home maybe The Beatles, Prince, Michael Jackson or solo Tina Turner interspersed with Nigerian Hip Life think Commander Ebenezer Obey, The Black President; Mr Fela Ransome Kuti [whose Lady comes in at 20:57], to the dizzying vocal prowess of Operatic Soprano Jesse Norman, the raw alien power of Kate Bush; the list goes on. If my Mother had a music philosophy, I think it would be ‘Just feel it all the way through’ which is definitely something I adopted. Her ability to be consumed by music was infectious then and awe inspiring now. I think she gave me my first set of tools, I developed them over time but she set my initial baseline.That baseline took me to the far-out edges of my journey into music, the accompanying sounds and back again. The point between then and now has become so finely crafted that it’s hard to be really, truly blindsided by something. Maybe the idea of the ‘fine wine’ is applicable or maybe it’s just cynicism and a setting of the mind, because music, wherever you fall in the spectrum, is so deeply personal. The listener becomes emotionally anchored and it can be hard to let go or move on. Think of all the conversations you might have had about a genre not being good as it was, an artist who steps too far out of their lane and is in turn deserted by fans who are bound to something that became a soundtrack to their existence then find it near impossible to forgive when a new direction seemingly emerges from nowhere. It has happened in the all music spheres a few that spring to mind; Justin Timberlake’s dabbling with alternative rock had him torn to shreds and unflattering comparisons made with Bon Iver, John Lennon’s so called rejection of The Beatles to experiment with Yoko Ono was met with disdain and dismay, Snoop Dogg’s wandering into Katy Perry’s candy floss kingdom had many fans hissing, Dizzee Rascal’s calls to ‘Come and dance wiv me’ and his mate Calvin Harris met with blank stares and extreme lowering of speaker volumes, muted in my case. Fleetwood Mac’s transition from Dirty Blues to Country infused Folk Pop, even At the Drive-In’s transition to The Mars Volta had some diehard fans muttering in short term confusion.So, it gets harder. As you get older you have to make a concerted effort to retune your attitude and that in itself is no small feat. A friend of mine recently suggested one way to do this is relisten to the music that defined your early sensibilities, listen to those tunes without moving and pick out all the things that are wrong with it from a ‘musical’ standpoint for example over use of strings, over produced vocals, over dubbing on live albums, spiralling guitar solos, hyped up synths etc. The thought of that makes me recoil, it sounds like the emotional equivalent of self-flagellation. Imagine re-listening to Illmatic with a deliberately crafted pitchfork, ready to rip apart the raw emotional outpourings of a young lyricist confounded by the inequality and discrimination he spied around every corner. In short, no thanks. That album inspired me, pulled me out the very earth I walked on, teleporting me to the US and educating me about the struggles that young black American men were facing in their own homes and neighbourhoods. The sophistication or properness of the music was unimportant the impact was everything. Music did that. Not a history lesson or a provocative documentary or social commentary, just straight up listening to it over and over and over again. Why would I ever want to part with that? Even the way I came across the album was random and that too added to its beauty not an algorithm or a curated list just somebody sharing their passion with me because the sensed a like mind who might be open to it. So how do you push past the musical profile and get musically mixed up?One of my tried and tested favourites is the music collection of friends, family, romantic partners; its old fashioned but beautifully effective. When you are young your parents’ music imprints itself upon you, with friends you exchange ideas based on common interests and with romantic partners for some of us it’s the bassline for what you have in common, the question of whether your union can go the distance. One of the most beautiful things I ever heard came from the last. At the height of a relationship that didn’t ultimately go the distance, I was blissfully overtaken by the beauty of Bjork. I was still at University, heavily into Hip Hop and experimental street music, sceptical about my attraction to a sweet indie boy. I rifled through his music, CDs, vinyl, playlists looking for the hidden things that had not come up in our flirty conversations. He was pretty much as advertised; astute, eclectic and stereotypically boyish; musically he favoured complex guitar-based music interspersed with lots of Drum n Bass, so all fine. As I gave up the snooping a silver gem popped out; literally. Bjork’s
Homogenic. I knew of her, had heard of The Sugar Cubes, accidentally spied her at couple of cool club nights and knew she was an immense talent, but it was a surprise coming from him and I had not heard the album. After that Bjork became a lifetime passion. He did not, but in spite of that small detail; he changed my life.That album led to a lifelong relationship with an artist who continues to grow and push out of her lane. Homogenic was raw, confrontational, emotional, poetic, operatic and still, deeply, introspective. Something of her reminded me of Kate Bush, familiar but by no means comfortable, she shares that kind of raw alien otherworldliness, but that’s where the similarity ends. Homogenic embraces the structure of classical composition, a discipline fostered in the earliest point of her training, and lays the foundation for a spiral of musical genres seemingly blended into each other, electronic to pop to hip hop to triphop to operatic and continues to soar beyond, the term Volcanic Beats is so aptly coined for her. Homogenic had this ability to move between the big and the small for me. One moment it is loud close up to your ear then it picks you up in an Oz style twister, confronting you with speed and depth. That album made everything feel and look alive. I often go back to it when I have trouble pinpointing confusing or contradictory emotions; it’s not that it makes everything better, it makes it okay for things to be complicated.My standout tracks are always hard to pick out: full disclosure I’m contrary and moody but, for today the standout tracks are: Joga and 5 Years. Both share a sense of contained, beautifully orchestrated chaos amplifying lyrics that tell stories about love from different emotional standpoints: on Joga it’s the all-consuming power of love; well known to be an ode to her native Iceland. It is a love that moves, shapes, comforts and electrifies, articulated in the lyrics, echoed by the rise of the strings and set against the backdrop of volcanic beats. On 5 Years, the rumination on love is physically smaller, human and far more ferocious. A minimalist beat-driven track to amplify that ferocity, along with infuriation, not just anger as a result of a breakup but also exasperation. She screams ‘I dare you to take me on, I dare you to show me your palms, what’s so scary not a threat in sight, you just can’t handle, you can’t handle love’ The frustration at knowing that the other person was never an equal, never weighted enough to be able to handle the full truth of the other’s being and that time has been wasted. The imagery of the fight falls in line with this classic sensibility; beautiful, full of fire and unapologetic, it’s always in the Top Ten tracks of my life. Thanks again Indie Boy.When the relationship did come to an end, I continued to find solace in that album. After the pieces were reassembled, I was left with a newfound confidence in sharing my ideas about music, alongside a curiosity about what other people were listening to. Sweet IndieGuitar Boy and his ownership of Homogenic paved the way for that, I started at life journey. I think that experience set the stage for The Rocks, a pair of lifelong roadies and musicians in their own right who I met at bar in South London, who made remade NWA, Public Enemy and DAS EFX for me. The Rocks looked and dressed the part. Long shaggy hair, spiky beards, endless amounts of denim, leather and sheepskin mixed together, rough hands held a pint for every story with a rolled-up cigarette on the side. All seemed standard and fitting until the DJ played Fight the Power by Public Enemy and they both sang along to every word, spitting back and forth in a style that could have won them a top spot at a Hip Hop Karaoke night, belting out, at the top of their united voices,  the legendary line ‘Elvis was a hero to most But he never meant shit to me’ nodding in a perfect union of headz. Mind. Blown. What followed a night of discussions and debates about appropriation of music that was far ahead of current critiques, and an understanding of the street music of Black American Youth that was nothing short of extraordinary and challenging in so many ways. They predicted the hijacking of so-called Gangster Rap and called out the ‘knob head’ labels for fuelling the so-called East West Coast divide. I had more fun talking to The Rocks about Hip Hop than anyone since. They treated music, not just the music they were traditionally affiliated with, with reverence and spoke of its ever-changing face with knowledge and were simultaneously in love with, bemused, horrified and turned on by the whole thing.  They have become my unappointed musical godfathers whose attitude continues to influence me and challenge me whenever I think I have become ever settled about something before really knowing it.So, so far listening all the way through, surprise, sheer abandon and defying categorisation leads nicely to John Peel – in fact it doesn’t but he has to feature somewhere. That man’s voice was a juggernaut in my musical journey and again he just defied it all by just calling it music in spite of genre or lack of it. John Peel was a force for most people who were fortunate to have been around to listen to his shows, see him pop up on Glastonbury, watch him discover new talent and generally get stuck in. I am contributing one memory. He presented a show on Channel 4, despite countless scrolling I still cannot remember what it was called but two things stuck with me; the first was Peel sitting in the bedroom come studio of a young producer featuring the talents of a young female singer, the track had a soul garage vibe, and they blew his socks off. Peel was effusive and full of compliments about the talents of both. In the same series he was at a gig and it was going off, young people jumping about and Peel firmly rooted to the spot his arms characteristically folded across his chest loving every minute of the gig and the fans. Yes John. Yes. That is a vibe that defies words. That image stays firmly rooted in my head, though I only recently, truly learned to just let go and enjoy a gig in my own way, without anyone else’s blessing, permission or sanction.So, as inspired by John Peel, what comes next is the part about waving your hands in the air and dancing like you just, don’t, fucking care. Bestival, really cannot remember what year, but I do remember that I was sick and tired of having my space invaded while dancing. I LOVED being with my friends, they were and are great, but I hate collective dancing. I always have. That does not mean I don’t like parties or festivals, I just don’t like making it alright for other people when I dance. Us busting a few lyrics together does not mean I want to dance with you for the whole song. I mostly just want to close my eyes, to be left alone to do it and for everyone to be okay with it. There was a tiny moment on second night of the festival, I stepped out of the Dance Tent to have a cigarette and a breather. The air was rancid so I moved away to gasp where it might be cleaner; I ended up in The Polka Tent. It was a symbolic untethering; I literally stumbled into a so sound so joyful, masterful, soulful and visceral I feel untied by it even now. Bitori Nha Bibinnha by Bitori**, [30:37]** I realise now that it was a leftfield choice considering the tent was dedicated to gypsy punk. It was all the clean air I needed.Bitori is the moniker of Victor Tavares, a Cape Verde accordion player who plays a musical style called Funana_._ Funana grew out the music of African slaves, banned by the Portuguese Colonialists who saw it as subversive, driven underground until independence in 1975. I cannot help but think there is a sort of sweet poetry that this once outlawed musical form provided the fresh air I needed at a point of emotional and physical breakout. Alone, I danced myself stupid to this song, making no allowances for anyone into my dance space. This rousing track demands fully body immersion, the accordion and the beats sound like they are in a contest for the most whirring arms and stomping feet, until the room spins and maybe you puke. It’s the kind of track that you would need five minutes to recover from before the next one, if you are doing it right, and sunshine, not that you need sunshine to listen to it but for me it invokes sunshine. Fresh air fully loaded and freedom calling.So that is three quarters of a circle. It would not be fully complete without a ‘guilty pleasure’. We all know what it means; a tune that is considered bad, plain wrong, naff, cheesy, too easy and even cheap – I am sure there are lots more, but they are the mainstay of the nasties thrown at the guilty pleasure. The thing about a guilty pleasure is that it releases you from the confines of your ‘should be’, it just is and there is nothing more to it. Unburdened, beautiful and often full grin inducing. Even the most hardened will find a section somewhere where it repeats to the point of obscene so much so that it tickles, or a lyric so earnest, raw or ridiculous it will have you shouting it out because it will not be contained. The guilty pleasure, for me, reminds me of my need for simplicity amongst the complicated. The best have pure elegant simplicity, they don’t forget musical sensibility or act as topsoil. When I asked a few close friends to name their guilty pleasures, they all admitted these were tunes that were born out of simple, human mostly embarrassing -moments, but when brought out into the light they shone through, stimulating all the feelings that all lead to joy, incidentally. A few from the assortment; a hardcore strictly Electronica consumer admitted a shy love of girlbands from the 1960s right up to The Spice Girls, All Saints, Sugababes and Mystique. In turn a couple of life long headz grinned heavily when they admitted to knowing very single word to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing those were the top two selections for all the obvious reasons. I offer ‘Nothing else matters’ by Metallica, ‘Black Velvet’ Alana Miles, ‘Me and You’ by Cassie, [14:50] ‘Crossroads’ by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, ‘Criticise’ by Alexander O’Neal.So that is where I press pause on this love letter. From my Mother’s ‘Feeling it all the way through’, to The Rocks stepping out of the box, seeking out the random and unexpected, Peel’s dancing like you just don’t care and standing by elegant simplicity of a guilty pleasure, are all simple tools that work best but can be used as standalone items too.Below are some tracks that fit into some if not all of these categories but mostly they came from continuing to embrace this cobbled together music philosophy, each caught me off guard, pointed to something interesting to come and, most importantly, stayed with me. Some for their emotional depth and vulnerability; ‘Four Ethers’ Serpent with Feet, ‘Jasmine’ Jai Paul, [9:52] ‘No Romance’ Tirzah_. O_thers for sheer attitude and musical guts; ’Deep Sea Diver ’Angel Haze_, ‘Attitude’_ LeiKeli ‘Have I’ Little Simz_,_
‘Final Form’ Sampa the Great, [12:28] ‘Party here’ Octavian, ‘Money store’ Deaths Grips. For sheer musicality from start to finish; ‘Sink’ Sudan Archives_, ‘Praxis’_  Thiago Nassif_, ‘Mrs Chombee takes the plunge’_ The Herbaliser [2:40] and lastly,  ‘O mi Babbino’ because it’s Maria Callas and she, like Jesse Norman, are heaven sent other worldly beings who build entire universes when they sing.Nana works as a tv producer, taking initial ideas and seeing if they have legs. Mix Tracklist:Glen Hansard Song of Good HopeThe Herbaliser Mrs Chombee Takes The Plunge (DJ Food Re-Bake)BADBADNOTGOOD Time Moves Slow feat. Sam HerringJai Paul JasmineSampa the Great Final FormCassie Me & UBeyonce Mine (Feat Drake)Fela Kuti LadyThiago Nassif Na Fenda Aberta de umLykke Li Feat Drake Little bitJames SometimesBitori Bitori Nha BibinhaHarvey Sutherland I can see (Rings around Saturn Remix)Post Malone Stay

Written by Loose Lips