Playlist: March 2017

I’d be lying if I said the highlight of this month was anything other than seeing the glorious Laura Marling perform at the ABC, flanked by her full band. My expectations were extremely high (I’d waited a ridiculously long time to see her, basically 8 years) but somehow she managed to top them, stepping onstage with a billowing white dress and that ethereal voice that held the audience in precious, adoring silence the whole way through. Even the weekend drunks saluted her with respect. She played most of the new album and some favourites from the past, from ‘Sophia’ to ‘Once’ and ‘Rambling Man’. Marling is one of those artists who I truly ‘grew up with’, in the sense that I followed every album as it was released over the last decade; I can pinpoint certain moments of my life in relation to her songs. It’s a beautiful thing. I’m 23 now and she released Once I Was An Eagle at my age. Every day this inspires me to try and do better. Often I fail.

I also had the pleasure of attending the BBC6 Music Festival By Day at Tramway on Sunday, which was really lovely. Father John Misty was resplendent in his usual theatrical, sarcastic glory; Baloji were really fun & great performers; the folk bands were lovely (especially King Kreosote and his endearingly well-handled technical mishaps) and I rather enjoyed a wee chat about the Glasgow label scene between Gideon Coe and Stephen McRobbie of the Pastels.

In March, we were blessed with three full days of actual perfect sunshine. There’s something so striking about a sunny day in Glasgow. You forget for 10 hours that most of your life is lived under greyness and misting rain. I always think of that Frightened Rabbit lyric from ‘Fun Stuff’: “the city was born bright blue today“. It’s a simple line but it carries that sense of wonder, stepping out the door feeling warmth on your skin.

I sat in the park bare-sleeved, reading. The next time I was in work somebody genuinely said I looked tanned. That’s a result, I must say.

(no mention of deadlines please…) => I wrote an essay about memory, technology & the body in Beckett, Ali Smith & Don DeLillo while listening exclusively to Burial and it was sort of a transcendent, spooky experience.

Playlist

Mersault: Weather

Good Good Blood: I’m So Ugly

Fionn Regan: The Meetings of the Waters

Bonny Doon: I See You

The Cure: From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea

Suede: The Drowners

The Pastels: Summer Rain

Bright Eyes: Take It Easy (Love Nothing)

Johnny Flynn: Hard Road

Hannah Lou Clark: Matilda

Thurston Moore: Smoke of Dreams

Perfume Genius: Slip Away

Sacred Paws: Everyday

Little Comets: Same Lover

The Lapelles: Toronto

The Vegan Leather: Shake It

Wuh Oh: Hairstyle

Burial: Ghost Hardware

Espers: Rosemary Lane

Laura Marling: Nothing, Not Nearly