All This Useless Beauty

Well,  I have started a first for me. I have actually started work on a very old track of mine with a mind to rework it for the album. Now there are significant down sides to doing this. The main one being that the only copy of the track I have to work with is on audio cassette and in stereo. This means that not only do I have clarity issues, but I also have very little I can actually change.

The other massive down side is the fact that the track is in my head, just as I made it, with potentially a lyric over the top of it. Now I have to break it up and do something completely different with it.

But that is in essence the challenge here, I like the feel of it and I think it just might fit with what I am doing at the moment. It’s also interesting to see how far you can go with just a stereo track to work with. I think it might take quite a while though.

Also means ‘beatmapping’ things as well, which is handy to practice but not always easy.

Crushingly complicated.

So this mood is fragile, and few songs pull that feeling off. King of the heap must be Elvis Costello’s excellent ‘All this useless beauty’. Very much a lament, crying out from the speakers with his unique lilt that both warms and chills at the same time.

‘What shall we do, what shall we do, with all this pointless beauty'?

Days

Well its been a big break in blogs and a lot has been going on. I trundled myself across the country to attend TEDx Aldeburgh, mid life muso’s talking the future of music with an eclectic but very interesting bunch of lecturers.  Thomas Dolby did a good job as MC and it was nice to press the flesh of a couple of people I have always admired (William Orbit, what a nice man!). It did however have a missing ingredient in that there were no younger people there, and lets face it, if we are talking about the future of music its something that belongs to them anyway, not us old fogies. Might take my youngest next year if she fancies it.

Also had the release of Thomas Dolby’s latest EP a couple of weeks ago which was fine but not great. Much as I would love to rave about it I cannot in all honesty. He’s done so much better in the past, I fear there is a chance that his music is becoming too insular. Still the stand out track ‘Oceanea’ is a classic and makes up for the other two.

Music wise for me, I have hit the doldrums. College has put paid to any serious work on the album, and with only two tracks to complete that is very frustrating. The ideas are there and the music, it’s just getting the time to get them firmed up. The title track is planned to be the biggest piece I have put together so far, and involves learning a few new things on the keyboard and PC which I simply don't have time to do. The last thing I want is to rush and spoil the idea. Back burner time!

So the song for today is a gentle refrain, jingly jangly guitars, and a beautiful harmonised voice lilting over the top effortlessly.

‘Days’ by Kirsty MacColl, is one of her career highlights and unforgettably lovely in every way.

Sing