Turn On Tune In

D’you know what I haven’t written about for a while? Music, that’s what. I’m always on the hunt for music I can work to, whether that’s writing or editing. It must be instrumental, or near enough, because voices are distracting – it needs to be tonally consistent, but not bland, not wallpaper. I like a regular, driving pace, something to push me along, but nothing manic. And if all that wasn’t enough, I have to actually like it too – enough to listen to hundreds of times, which I absolutely will. I’ve probably listened to Come On Die Young and Lift Your Skinny Fists many thousands of times, and (old age permitting) will listen to them many thousand more. I essentially want music to carve out a cave that I can work in, and emerge, blinking, several hours later, with something done.

On the turntable at the moment:

Yes please. I love a computer game soundtrack, with particular nods to past and present favourites Botanicula, Fez and Thomas Was Alone. Creaks is another darkly surreal delight from the mighty Amanita Design, and it’s great: track after track of brooding, playful, mysterious trip-hop, true to itself and served up sleek as hell by Hidden Orchestra. I’m a fan.

Jon Hopkins next. Ritual is a brilliant record – essentially a single 40-minute piece of music that builds through phases like a rising tide, a dream, mesmeric and transporting, finally breaking and washing out into the light. It’s completely immersive.

Three records in particular have been the soundtrack for writing my new novel. I mentioned the new Godspeed You Black Emperor record in a previous post, and it’s still very much doing the rounds. Six months later and that concert is ringing in my ears. Get it listened folks.

The second is the self-titled debut record by Irish-American folk group The Gloaming. Singing in Gaelic (and thereby circumventing my no-vocal rule) this record serves a compass for me – no matter my emotional state when I sit down to write, the first notes, the first few seconds and I’m settled back into a writing headspace. Just give me a sea to sail on.

The third is Erland Cooper. I’m a fan of all his work, but in particular Hether Blether, Folded Landscapes and most recently Carve The Runes Then Be Content With Silence (which I wrote about in my last post). I’m only now discovering the vast world of modern classical, and in all truth I find a lot of it quite similar – there’s a sort of cookie-cutter piano noodling that crops up again and again. You know the one. It’s such a relief then to find groups like Jack McNeill’s Propellor Ensemble or Benji Bower and the Terra Collective. I like Cooper for the arrangement of strings, which never do quite what I’m expecting, for the snippets of field recordings and poetry, and for the odd electronic snip or surge that brings his music into a new realm altogether.

Last for now – I’m a recent convert to Christine & The Queens. Late to the party I know, and not for writing – much too involved and demanding – but aren’t they bloody wonderful?