Playlist - ‘Where You Are Not How They Are’

I’m sure any one of you who has spent any time on the interpipes will recognise I’ve conformed to a stereotypical, archetypal piece of online behaviour where someone sets up a blog or a website, does half a dozen posts in a first flurry of enthusiasm, then goes completely silent.. Normally - I suspect anyway - out of total disillusionment when they realise the world wasn’t waiting for what they presumed were all the witty and incisive insights they were sharing and in fact, may never have taken the time to engage with them in any way at all! In my case it’s been for the best part of a year and really through distraction rather than disillusion. Obviously, the world has by no means stopped or held its breath because I’ve stopped writing anything and it doesn’t mean I haven’t had news just because I haven’t put it on my website but I’m glad to say that real life gets in the way of my artificial online life so I don’t spend as much time doing this kind of thing as I might have to if it was my job.

Recently I’ve had cause to be online enough, listening to music, to assemble a playlist on Spotify that nobody asked for: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5mmb0aRlrf2ytbkFxlCD9B?si=5fa9b3469f7b426a Self-indulgently based around some of the recordings I’ve released or been part of since I put out my first release, Cold But Bright, in 2009 I included tracks that were seminal from my point of view; that were and are direct and indirect influences; that I happened to be listening to at the time I know I was writing or recording something; that others introduced me to; that I discovered by accident; that I came across or were recommended to me because they shared some kind of common ground with something I’d already made and that friends, acquaintances and those around me have made.  Among other things, like stuff I remembered while I was putting this list together or that the algorithm shoved in my ear.

The list ended up being a whole day and night’s worth of listening (so far) so I don’t imagine anyone is ever going to listen to it from the beginning to the end in one go but I suppose if you began at the beginning and eventually listened through in order you might notice that tracks are incredibly loosely grouped in wildly tenuous sonic, stylistic and thematic clumps around ‘my’ and my associates’ tracks.  There was an extremely rough chronology when I started that I found impractical probably about a third of the way through and retrospectively I think I messed with it even more once the rough list was compiled so that may not even have been worth pointing out.  The ghost of a timeline remains, at least concerning most of the tracks I’m involved on, so that they run nearly from the beginning to the end in the order they were released.  There are exceptions to that too though so it’s not reliable.   

I can’t say that it’s a comprehensive list either, mostly because there isn’t such a thing but obviously for reasons of practicality, variety and time it doesn’t include albums in their entirety that have shaped my life, musically and otherwise.  There are still tracks and albums that I’m remembering as I go along because they’d slipped to the back of my mind even though I still love them.  There’s also the music that comes and goes, there’s plenty of music that I listened to at one time or another that made an impression on me at the time that just no longer seems as important, that hasn’t stood the test of time or that was throwaway or context dependent somehow.  Conversely, there’s music I’ve heard more recently which clearly didn’t feed into my earlier recordings or writing but I feel like it easily could have so I’ve included it.  There’s a raft of music that I love that maybe just didn’t fit on a playlist relating to the music that I make, so I haven’t necessarily included that.  I could’ve done, but I’ve probably erred on the side of leaving the majority of that kind of thing out to avoid the list becoming so eclectically unwieldy as to be unmanageable or incoherently unlistenable.  It remains a bit of a mish-mash despite that and I imagine there would be some who would characterise it as ‘incoherently unlistenable’ despite my vague gestures at editorship.

Listen on shuffle and this might throw up some old friends or new acquaintances.  Occasionally, you’ll get one of mine or maybe my brother’s or one of our friends’ or acquaintances’ tracks.  The rest of the time who knows?  Rockism to obscure instrumentals via some soul and funk; ambient to electronica giving the odd nod to something techno-ish, minimal or droney; acoustic folk to indie blues or lo-fi bedroom pop and various diversions in-between.  Other tunes that I could include are continually occurring to me and sometimes I even remember to add them in so the list may evolve a little too.  I may even accept suggestions, reminders or recommendations if anyone were engaged enough to add their input to such a personal agglomeration.  I may not…