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Music That Accentuates Life
I wanted to share some art and music highlights for me over the last year and a half or so. I know it’s an odd, random sort of post, but Music became very important to me – quite suddenly a year and a half ago, and the how’s and why’s of that journey can be listed in song:
All I had back then was my indie intro to music. I can see in retrospect that it wasn’t such a bad start. This song was played over and over in my car at one point. It was the refrain “And the wanting comes in waves” that bounced back and forth in my mind and truly seemed to have been written for my experience.
P.J. Harvey was (is still) important to me – she was the closest I think I’d come to art in the Indie scene. This was a song that suddenly burst open with meaning for me, even though I had known and played it for years. I still get goose bumps when I hear it on my shuffle.
This just is what it is and it aint nothin’ less.
I had the pleasure of seeing Four Tet live a few months after this arrived in my email inbox with a message attached. Part of that message was “Today was a life changing day. Nothing has ever been this profound.” I’ve never gotten over that moment, or this song.
Around the same time that I was gifted Four Tet, I was gifted John Cage. I had never heard of him before, and I am proud and pleased to say I embraced that with everything inside of me to the point that I allow his writings to impact on my music appreciation, my relationship to the world of art, and even on my own writing. He is enormously important. A truly defining moment in my creative development.
Jonathan Franzen said: “You have to love before you can be relentless.” This music taught me how to love and how to be relentless.
I can say, without hyperbole, that the day I heard this I was never the same again. This is song #5 on the list, Wire’s 100 records that set the world on fire while no one was watching. I am working my way through this list on my blog, because it broadened my perspective so much that I was able to receive in a way I had never been able to before. I had heard less than 10% of that list prior to the moment I first saw it. In this moment I can tell you – ignorance was not bliss. I owe everything to the person that brought that monumental world to me.
This was my introduction to excellent film (what a place to start) and it is a part of the first box set I ever owned. A box set that still sits in pride of place beside my bed.
I haven’t reviewed Hermann Nitsch on this blog yet, because I want to take a lot of time to do properly. I have an incredble book I read regularly, given to me after a holiday in Perth, that I adore. This isn’t music, but it moves me and belongs in this list.
One of the greatest moments of my life – seeing Sonny live.
There are so many other beautiful music moments I could add. Ami Yoshida, Creel Pone, Erstwhile Records, The NWW list, and other art works: Godard, Last Year in Marienbad, Tom Mc Carthy, Thomas Pynchon, and the promise. The promise that if art this beautiful can exist in the world, then so can we.
Lisa Thatcher 
Thanks for sharing these , that Four Tet song has a very calming effect. There was a PJ Harvey song I heard the other day I loved called That was my veil. Not sure I understand the point of the John Cage video, care to elaborate?
If you like well-written songs ( Leonard Cohen for example), a new album I’m recommending this week on my blog is Redemption City, Joseph Arthur. Very impressed by lyrics!
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John Cage’s point in this (and other similar)piece was to highlight the importance of the ambient sounds around a deliberate “act” of “performing” music – but also to highlight the role of the listener in the performance process. In A way, by removing the dominant sounds, John Cage also removes the barriers between the musician and the listener, so that they become collaborators and the listener has a chance to recognize that they are contributing (in a very real, very tangible way) to the piece. John Cage wanted to liberate music from old-fashioned instruments. He wanted listeners to hear all of the sounds as music, not just those imposed upon them in a dictatorial way. He famously said: ‘If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.’ When he performs these pieces, he is appealing to an enormous possibility of freedom within us. It’s like being able to read something beautiful even though its not written in a book, or being able to see something beautiful even though it is not in a gallery with a frame around it.
I agree about Four tet – Isn’t it lovely? I love That was my Veil by PJH. It’s a stunning song.
Here it is – sorry for the ad:
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Yes, the John Cage video is more performance art than music really, thanks for the feedback on that.
There’s also a decent cover version of That was my veil, you can locate on youtube, by june tabor and oysterband, I prefer the acoustic original by PJ.
Going to have to check out other songs by Four tet !
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With great warmth and much affection I very respectfully disagree. Cage’s performance is music – that is his point. The brilliant music that has come out of his revolution is regularly reviewed on this blog. Once you open up to it as music, and can enjoy it as music, a whole world opens up.
And thank you so much for the heads up on the June Tabor cover. Here it is for those following these comments:
Four Tet rocks! 🙂
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