Inspiration ~ Jan22
New music ~ The Smile ~ Radiohead’s 90’s heyday was quite something - OK Computer is a desert island disk for me - so seeing Jonny Greenwood and Them Yorke release new music is always exciting. They’ve done some weird stuff in the last few years and this is admittedly avant garde… but I love the sound of their new track The Smoke.
Performance ~ Tall Heights ~ classy session from Tall Heights. Gorgeous vocal harmonies, rhythmic guitar, cello sustains all live and beautifully shot as always from the Mahogany guys. Low bull-shit.
Music geek stuff ~ What is art for? ~ this animated video by Alain de Botton has a crack at explaining what art is for. One thing that struck me was the idea that putting on a sad piece of music or looking at a sombre piece of visual art needn’t be deemed depressing but rather helps us recognise that pain is a universal part of the human condition and connecting with it and sharing it can actually make us feel happier than consuming heaps of vapid frippery from Disney+. Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of Disney+, there needn’t be unfolded intellectual layers to a good house beat and there’s a time and place for Haribo. But… (paraphrasing) “art fights the commercial optimism of commercial society and reminds us, with dignity, that every good life has suffering and confusion within in and we are not freakish for experiencing a lot of it”.
This month’s playlist:
