“I think it’s amazing that what would otherwise be forgotten music can be dusted down and given a new lease of life to a new audience in a new century. Some of the singing and musicianship from back then is just top notch.”
So says Flope, the English artist behind an incredibly interesting project that has really got Sonic Breakfast’s juices flowing. I’ll let them continue.
“The project started with the purchase of more than 100 old 78 rpm records from Africa. The records used were recorded mainly in Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) in the early 1950s. The records were sent to a specialist music engineer in the United States, who converted all files to 24-bit .wav format for us. We are in the process of examining them and looking for tracks to feature on our forthcoming album. We’ve recorded four tracks so far and three of them are on Spotify as a 3-track single.”
Those three tracks really are something special. Take the track ‘Angina Baba Angina Mama’ that I’ve chosen to feature here. It bounces along with grit and determination; the vintage guitar and vocals from Norman Muhlwa shining brightly amidst Flope’s digital additions. The sum is perhaps akin to what Paul Simon was trying to achieve with Graceland. Or, indeed, what Public Service Broadcasting have looked to do by bringing old public service announcements back to life.
There’s something sad (though undeniably inevitable) about the idea that every day a piece of all of our histories is forever lost. Only a minimal amount of the cultural artefacts from all of our pasts can possibly survive the test of time; and sometimes it’s the least appealing works of art that’ll get heralded in galleries because they were able to secure a form of patronage when they were created.
Thank goodness for people like Flope who are on a mission to rescue records from the region that was Northern Rhodesia / Nyasaland. I’ll be following the development of this work with interest.
I barely remember my teenage years. I look back at crumpled photos of myself and don’t really recognise the person looking out at me. But I do recall that I was an intense sort and hopelessly romantic. I thought that every relationship I entered into would be my last. I’d make mixtapes of my favourite songs to send to future (I hoped) lovers. And I had an obsession over listening to new music, something that was much harder to do in the 1980’s than it is now. Some things don’t change.
I’d see a girl waiting by a bus-stop and before even knowing her name, I’d declare that I was in love. Naive and foolish, I’d predict an uncluttered future for us before we’d even spoken. The memory appears in my mind now as sepia-tinged. I’ll never be that age again.
Georgie Weston, a man much, much younger than I, has written a song that stirs up all of those teenage emotions again. In his version of ‘Never Be That Age Again’, Georgie dives headfirst into a ‘melancholic journey about a romance with no destination’. The parting couple in this song are embarking on their own lives with a tearful ‘if only, what if’ reflection. The fact that Georgie knows that he’ll never be that age again despite his tender years bodes well for his own future. It took me decades to work out.
There’s a wonderful retro feel to this song. Georgie has adapted his name in homage to his Great Grandfather, who was an accomplished classical jazz pianist from London back in the 30’s. He cites the influence of Bacharach, Gershwin, vintage McCartney and Gilbert O’Sullivan (who frequently made the cut in those mixtapes of mine) in his press release with good reason. But to suggest that this is rooted firmly in the past would be ignoring the dreamy haze that’s been created in the production, ‘the spacey sonic landscape that forecasts the shape of indie to come’, as Georgie puts it.
The video adds to that combined and conflicting sense of loss and opportunity. For a bit of light relief (it made me smile anyway), look out for the bit in which Georgie is standing over the canal holding his vintage keyboard awkwardly in his arms. It’s a ‘You’ve Been Framed’ moment waiting to happen, right? Perhaps that’s just the way why mind works.
Who needs Steve Wright on a Sunday morning when you have Sonic Breakfast?
I don’t want to get all revolutionary on a Saturday morning. And I certainly don’t want to get myself confused with the small movement of anti-vaccine and anti-mask wearers who sometimes have been gathering together to march in the name of their cause. But it was always a surprise to me that almost a decade of austerity (as a Government policy) didn’t lead to more protest on the streets than it did. I realise that there were gatherings of smaller scale but in impact terms, they were nothing like those marches in London back in the day to protest against the validity of the Gulf War.
In the last years, popular protest seemed to take a step forward. Extinction Rebellion really seemed able to tap into the growing desire for environmental change with their deliberately disrupting activities. And the response to the horrific murder of George Floyd was encouraging. People across the UK making a stand alongside their US friends to say that Black Lives really do matter – and in doing so highlighting some of the hypocritical practices and statements we still have operating in the UK. In the midst of the first lockdown, things got quite heated for a while.
I live in hope that, once this Covid thing is all done, the use of protest to get voices heard (preferably the ones I agree with of course) is something that becomes more the norm than the exception. And I suspect that the four members of The Lunar Keys, ‘anxious types from the suburbs of London, with too many tunes and nervous energy trapped in their Psyches not to be in this band‘, would all broadly agree with me.
Their recent release, If It Was, is a song about protest and possibilities. Hidden within a neat, well delivered Indie-Rock tune, we get a call-to-arms simple chorus asking the listener the question “If It was just a choice you could make, Would you change the world today, Would you sign it with your name?”
I ask The Lunar Keys what one thing they would change about the world today. “We would make all world Governments and Corporations accountable to Amnesty International, the WHO and the UN“, they say before adding, “and if we were allowed one more (hypothetically) a ban on any entity of Super Rich…..at the Risk of Human Rights and the Planet.”
Worthy causes but if the revolutionary zeal and ardour within is a little bit strident for you today, The Lunar Keys do add “On the lighter side -We would ban blue smarties.”
Now there is a cause that we could all protest against, right?
Back in the mists of time and before this website was even a twinkle in the eye, I used to compère at the glorious and much-missed Summer Sundae festival in Leicester. Anyone who saw my contributions on the Rising Stage was left scratching their heads as to how I’d secured such a privileged position; indeed, I would often pinch myself that I was going on before and after some great, up and coming acts to sing their praises and to try to get the crowd a little more frenzied.
One of my favourite parts of the compère role was meeting the acts before introducing them, finding out what they wanted me to say and then forgetting to say it. Looking at the 2009 edition line-up, you find yourself wondering how a universe could have existed in which The Zutons were billed higher than Bon Iver. I’m reminded that this was the year that I embarrassed myself in front of a very young First Aid Kit and had a lovely, spirited conversation with the buzzing and effervescent, Ou est Le Swimming Pool. (I still feel very sad when I think about what happened in that band just a year later.).
This was also the year that I introduced James Yuill to the Leicester crowds. Memory is a strange thing but I recall a gentle, unassuming and thoroughly decent man who arrived with a minimal, backstage entourage and quietly charmed sans ego. I remember how much I enjoyed his laidback but layered Folktronica set and recall effusively telling him so much to his general embarrassment.
It’s lovely to see that James is still involved in music. I can’t say that I’ve diligently followed his career but when I saw that the rising artist, Joulie Fox, had enlisted his production talents on her ‘Don’t Be Shy’ single, I rather suspected I’d like the output. And I wasn’t wrong.
This is a quirky pop song, excellently executed that builds perfectly towards a nonchalantly-dispatched, crisp chorus. It packs much into a little less than three minutes. You suspect that with Joulie on songwriting duties and James on production, there’s a team emerging here where the sky could be the limit.
I ask Joulie about her plans for 2021. “Yes actually big plans for 2021!“, she says. “My first EP, we started working on it with James Yuill, the same producer who helped me with Don’t Be Shy. In the meantime there will be one more single out we did not approved for my EP but I love it so much that I don’t want to waste it. My plan is to finish this EP before summertime, and go wild in Autumn with live concerts. Hopefully this is the last lockdown for us and we will be able to live freely from March.”
Let’s hope that Joulie’s optimistic outlook comes true. For now, have a fine Friday and don’t be shy.
Whenever I’ve visited Liverpool (which was with some frequency pre-Covid), I’ve spied the ‘Yellow Submarine’ sitting proudly on the Royal Albert Docks. A reconfigured narrow boat, it’s now used as accommodation for those desperate to get an overnight psychedelic Beatles fix on the Mersey. I’d always wondered what it was like inside the boat.
I now have to wonder no more. For The Banshees, an indie duo from up that way, have filmed the video for one of their latest releases, You’re Wrong, from the boat. In the opening stills, we see Vinny and Paul clamber aboard before then giving us a self-produced, guided and somewhat magical tour of the mystery space. It looks much bigger than I ever imagined; Liverpool’s very own tardis.
The Banshees duo come with impressive CVs. They’ve years of experience playing bit parts in other prominent Scouse acts but you suspect that they’ve really now found their mojo with their own indie scribbles. In ‘You’re Wrong’, Paul’s effortless guitar riffing acts as a perfect counter for Vinny’s deliberately underplayed vocal.
They’ve got something to say as well. ‘You’re Wrong’ is about being aware of your own insecurities, realising that opinions are only words and you can’t please everybody. It’s a sentiment that’s massively bought to the fore towards the end of the track when Vinny sings, “You only got one life to live so you better get together and you better give some time, It’s time, Fall in love with yourself, Take care of your health and don’t you know that you’ll be fine. Just fine.”
When I ask The Banshees about the last thing they did that was wrong, they’re defensively yet jokingly adamant. “The last thing we did wrong was nothing,” says Vinny. “We’re always right…listen to the song…it’s everyone else that is wrong hahaha.”
Listening to this tune and taking ‘on board’ its message does seems like an ideal Thursday thing to do.
It’s always good to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and to embrace new things. As the years advance, it’s one way to stop yourself getting staid or stuck in your ways. There’s so much to discover in this wonderful world and precious little time to find out about it all. Why settle with what you know when around the corner there might be something that can give you even more joy and happiness – as long as you go into it with eyes wide open?
That is, of course, so true when listening to music. Our tastes are formed young and we keep returning to those tracks of our youth (and songs that sound like them) because of their familiarity. They offer us comfort and it’s easy to see why they might provide our go-to moments.
Sometimes, I like to shake up my listening. I’ll deliberately find tracks from genres that I know next to nothing about and dig into what I find. To a degree, this is how I stumbled upon ‘Batwanes Beek’ by Rime Salmi. I’m very glad I did. A cover of an ‘Arabic classic’ by Warda, Rime has turned the tune into her very own Afro-pop anthem.
In my ignorance, I know very little about ‘Arabic classics’ or Warda who first released this song. But the internet is such a rich encyclopaedia and Wikipedia such an extensive resource that things don’t stay mysteries for long.
Warda, the Algerian Rose, was born in Paris to a Lebanese mother and an Algerian father. Her father owned a nightclub and encouraged her to sing patriotic Algerian songs from a young age. A ten year break from singing (her first husband forbade her to) was broken in 1972 when she sang to commemorate Algeria’s independence. After divorcing her grumpy husband, she married again and her career blossomed. She cooked with wine and became something of a superstar commanding a state funeral when she passed away in 2012 aged 73. Warda sounds like she lived a full life of pushing out of her comfort zone.
Rime Salmi was born in Morocco but raised in Canada. For Rime, it’s clearly very important to both embrace the culture she comes from as well as the one she has grown up in. What we get in this version of ‘Batwanes Beek’ is a vibrant explosion of happy sound. It’s hard not to smile when listening to the spirited joy on offer here – and we all need to smile more now than ever.
And then there is the video that features Rime and three well-known dancers from Montreal’s LGBTQ scene proudly using the city as an urban catwalk. Rime sums it up better than I ever could when she says that “this video is a scream. This video is a statement. This video is a manifesto. Arab LGBTQ+ people exist, love and love one another… and it’s something to celebrate.”
I am somewhat ashamed to say that I have never read a novel featuring Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle has passed me by. Add to that confession that I’m not a great watcher of TV and so have not even dabbled with Benedict Cumberbatch’s latest portrayal of the legendary sleuth then it’s not hard to see why I don’t feel particularly qualified to be commenting on today’s Sonic Breakfast post.
But (as I’m sure many will be quick to point out) such elementary ignorance has never really stopped me before. And besides, the excellent ‘Sherlock Holmes Would Know’ by Slow Walk isn’t really about the great, drugged-up detective. Rather, it’s about a “hapless fool who suspects his lover of foul play but isn’t smart enough to break the case and so he daydreams of being the legendary detective and solving the mystery that is his life.”
Suspicion, daydreaming and trying to solve the mystery of my life are all things I feel abundantly qualified to comment upon.
There’s a lovely marching bounce to ‘Sherlock Holmes Would Know’. With a morsel of Britpop-era Blur and a bite from The Blockheads, Keith Turner, the man behind Slow Walk, has come up with a jaunty, funny and sometime sweary song about how foolishly following your intuition can sometimes not be wise. Watch out for your neighbour eh as they’re doing the dirty on you….
I ask Keith what he’s most looking forward to in 2021. “I think mostly I am hoping things get a little easier for everyone,“, he says. “I get to see my friends again and ideally I’ll be standing in a field somewhere watching a great band with a cold beer in my hand. But in the meantime I am happy and very fortunate to be in the Slow Walk bunker knocking out mad cap videos.”
You can’t say fairer than that. From the man given his monicker by a group of youths in Tufnell Park (a mystery I’m saving for a potential sequel), I hope you enjoy Tuesday’s Sonic Breakfast tune as much as I.
There was a story that came out of China after their first lockdown that loads of couples were now filing for divorce. Separation rates were going through the roof. It all stands to reason that spending more time with your significant other, having to put up with their more extreme habits, might be the thing to break any camel’s back.
There are also very real stories of increased rates of domestic violence emerging during these volatile times. Clearly, there are some relationships that people shouldn’t ever stay in. The fact that it’s been arguably harder for people to leave dangerous and destructive relationships during lockdown periods is a crying shame.
But there are some relationships that just need a bit of TLC to make them work. And that’s what today’s really quite lovely Sonic Breakfast song is all about. ‘Do It All Again’ by the emerging Swedish duo, Honey, is about the ups and downs of relationships. This is about making the bad moments count and realising that, whatever the outcome, the life-decisions that you have made are the right ones for you.
The video is a real charmer. Miranda and Magda, the vocalists and front persons from Honey are singing from their sofa whilst we also get live action from the dining table of Karsti and Samme. They reflect on the path that their relationship has taken; the holidays they’ve taken together and the parties they’ve enjoyed. The memories are moving and the nostalgia sweet.
It helps that Honey lay down a sound within ‘Do It All Again’ that could quite easily have been around when Karsti and Samme first met. This is a song with a majestic 70’s pop tone; the comparisons to Abba are inevitable and I’m not just saying that because Honey are from Sweden.
‘Do It All Again’ is a gem to cherish – as are your relationship memories. Happy Monday.
I have friends who hate having their photo taken. So eager are they to avoid the pose for the camera that they concoct increasingly varied tales as to why they can’t be pictured. They’ll insist on taking the snap themselves or they’ll go and hide in the toilet. If push comes to shove and they have to be in a group shot, they’ll stand right at the edge and definitely behind a taller friend so that their image stands a chance of being masked. “It’s a thing from childhood”, they say when quizzed about their behaviour.
I suppose those friends that actively shy away from the camera are refreshing when compared to those who hog the limelight. These are the people with more selfie sticks than rooms in their house. Every day and sometimes every hour, they declare their need for attention and adoration by posting a new pic of themselves onto their social media channel of choice. I think, of the two extremes, I’m more in this camp. But, I do check myself from time to time. And I don’t even have an Instagram account.
‘Smile For The Camera’ by SHYAWAY is a fun and perky piece of pop for your Sunday morning delight. It takes a jocular swipe at the self-absorption that comes from being too dependent on your photo content. Bouncing along with intent, this is clever pop that can’t fail to get under your skin.
SHYAWAY is the stage name of Adam Macaulay, a multi-talented musician/songwriter from Brighton. He tells me that he’s currently scoring for a string quartet and woodwind ensemble when we exchange a couple of mails in advance of this piece being published. He leaves one in no doubt on which side of the selfie fence he sits.
“We should eschew social media and this self-worshipping lifestyle; focus on the life we’re actually living right now as opposed to the carefully curated online one.“, says Adam. “Either that or we just do what Kim Kardashian does; shake our ass for the masses and smile for the camera.”
Yesterday was a sad day for me. I am no longer a property guardian. I’d kept hold of my cheap-as-chips, wonderful space in London’s zone one throughout the pandemic in the hope that some sort of normality will return soon but it doesn’t seem to be imminent. I could no longer justify the cost of my pad that I’ve not properly lived in since the first lockdown. Adios Upper Street.
Whilst feeling mournful about giving up the space, the response to a set of interview questions I’d sent out popped into my mailbox. And they made me chuckle (a lot). Then, they made me feel nostalgic for the group living that I’ve so recently left. And then they made me gasp at the wisdom within. John Swale is an intelligent man and a dream to interview – of that there can be no doubt.
I was initially drawn to John Swale and the Missing Pieces after hearing their song, Party Like It’s 2019. It’s literate, amusing and deserves to be heard by many. We talk about the ‘inspiration’ for the banger he’s created below. Settle down with a coffee and a croissant on this Saturday morning, immerse yourself in these mighty words before then doing your hoovering to the party track.
Most readers of Sonic Breakfast will know nothing about John Swale and the Missing Pieces.What’s your elevator pitch?
Poetry is the underwear of the soul. Here’s mine! Also… don’t take the elevator. Take the stairs. Less carbon emissions.gotta say that, I’m a millennial ya know?
And why should readers of Sonic Breakfast be listening to your music?
Don’t listen to my music, listen to the words! My songs are just poems I’ve put to music. It’s kinda like the poems are the kale…and the music is the mayonnaise. You know the kale is good for the mind but it needs the mayonnaise to make it a digestible prospect for most people. Most people are scared of poetry you see. John Swale and the Missing Pieces is all about making poetry…great again!
Party Like It’s 2019 certainly suggests that you lived it large that year. Care to tell more?
Actually, I thought 2019 was a pretty terrible year for most of us…the election, Trump’s visit, Toblerones got smaller and then Greg and Amber split up two weeks after winning Love Island…tragic really…which made for the double irony of course cos 1999 was way better. I mean, we still had Tony the Tiger on TV back then, didn’t we? Also, going on tour with The Gossip in 2019…was kinda fun. Humblebrag!
What’s been the best gig you’ve ever played? What made it so special?
I live in a warehouse with 36 people and we put on a gig during lockdown just for us. We were so hungry to see live music after being deprived of it for so long it felt so fucking euphoric to enter that world again. It was a true energy flow between crowd and performers. Although it was only a little one it felt far more special than a lot of bigger shows I’ve done. Bring on the second summer of love, post covid!
If you had to come up with your dream festival headliners, who’d be on the list?
Any festival at the moment would be a dream. And I can’t even dream of festivals right now cos my dreams are too fucking full of anxiety-ridden narratives. Recently I dreamt Hitler and Goring came to my warehouse to kill us all…so I drowned them both in cereal bowls (I mean what else!)…then they turned in to little fish (specifically roach)…which I diced up and fried and fed to my 36 housemates (it’s not complex, I just think I’m Jesus in my dreams apparently)…Then of course The Verve reformed and did an unplugged rendition of Bittersweet Symphony in our backyard in gratitude for us having saved the world from the Holocaust (Oh yeah the dream was set pre-holocaust)…and then we all got beautifully high. Yeah, welcome to my lockdown mind everybody!
So… I’d probably say The Verve would be my dream headliners, LCD Soundsystem and errr John Swale and The Missing Pieces. I mean, who else?!
Given the nods to Prince in Party Like It’s 2019, what’s your favourite Prince song and why?
I like the silences between the songs with Prince. What the hell was he all about anyway? Just a guy with a Napoleon complex who was deluded about how sexy he was. That’s why I chose to rip his song off. Add to the first world torture inherent to my poem. I mean it’s a poem about not being able to party while the world is in a fucking pandemic. Prince’s 1999 is a tacky as hell song and it needed to be to add to the joke. Plus his song was about an apocalypse not really about partying at all. It was perfect for it!
As the UK enters a third lockdown, what would be your advice to anybody struggling to cope?
Stop reading the fucking news! Lockdown seems to me to be a once in a lifetime gift of time and space to reflect on personal internal shit and review what really matters in the scheme of things when all the fake external shit like awards ceremonies, fashion, etc are taken away. I liked how uncool lockdown 1 was. I remember Joe from Idles talking about how he was going to bed earlier and earlier each night. For me, this all seems a potential opportunity to focus more on living inside out rather than the other way round.
Also, trust optimism. It’s very difficult to feel sad when you’re smiling. I don’t wanna get too Deepak Chopra on this shit but suicide is a huge problem at the moment especially in young guys. So much emotion is chemically based. Running and exercise have saved me from the spirals of mental breakdown so many times during lockdown.
And as soon as I stopped reading the news my anxiety started to clear and I found out the important headlines through the people I lived with. Why poison your mind with the fear of huge speculative shit outside of you like Brexit, slowness of the vaccinations, etc that you have no control over in lockdown when instead, taking the time and mind space to think about how to best inhabit your body, learn self-love and what you’d like to give to the world in the future will ultimately be better for you and society. You know…fuck the system…do kind shit. that sort of stuff. Amen.
And looking forward what are you hoping for more than anything else in 2021?
I hope that people will have taken this pandemic as a formative experience in collective empathy and time to reflect on the personal as I mentioned. It’s kind of like… a good trip, you know. I always think it’s a bit sad seeing people I know, loved up on a trip and treating other people with far more candid love and openness and honesty but then as soon as the comedown hits they’re back to their normal selves failing to incorporate any aspect of those higher vibrations and inhibitions from conditioning into their everyday life. It seems a bit of a wasted gift.
I mean, the lockdown seems to have had some effect already. Things like the George Floyd protests to me wouldn’t have happened in such a beautifully momentous way if we hadn’t all been given the collective experience of stepping out of our homes and immediately feeling vulnerable to the threat from the virus. A collective empathy. A taste of the feeling certain minority groups might have experienced from threats from others in society.
Also, I hope there will be less focus on the monetary…and the momentary.
Also also…I’m looking forward to the second summer of love! Socially distanced dating during lockdown, for those of us who haven’t been twats and disrespected it, has kinda felt like living out a Jane Austen Novel or something..you can’t even fucking kiss! And I always hated Jane Austen, haha.
How did you celebrate 2020 turning into 2021? Was it radically different from your New Years Eve in 2019?
Well, after a crazily beautiful chemical Christmas with my bubble of 36, haha, I wanted to have a sober, reflective start to the year with no comedown and I’ll proudly say I missed Brexit day… cos I hadn’t been reading the news I had no fucking idea it was happening that night and had blue sky inside out thinking as a consequence. I have no control over that shit anyway so why let it bring me down?
I read it had happened in a poem by Roger McGough two weeks after the fact…
‘when Big Ben bongs
and some sing songs,
I’m staying in’.
There’s always a real human beauty in his wit and it was a great way to soften the blow. If I ever get terminal cancer I want Roger to be the one to break it to me…you know..
“Johnny boy, I’m breaking this to you here,
with the spirit of constant good tumor”
…See where I’m going with this? Ideally, it’ll be whilst I’m rigged up to a massive hand-operated morphine drip.
As for 1st January, I spent the day writing …my obituary, haha, no not cos of my deathwish but…you know…how I’d like to be remembered…a kind of…reverse-engineering the soul if you will… You know…try to root actions from love not fear…follow my bliss, not my blisters…that sort of stuff. Also, I started ‘John Swale’s 99 days of new shit’ (see @johnswalepoetry), I mean we all need something to stop our souls stagnating over the expanding lockdown, don’t we?
Course this was all done between taking obligatory breaks to join the cuddle puddle of my still loved up housemates in the basement of my warehouse. In all it was a pretty fucking dreamy start to the year. And no Hitler-fish or cereal bowls in sight, right?!
Tell us your favourite joke?
Apart from John Swale and the Missing Pieces? hmmm…a difficult one…ok how’s about…what’s the saddest variety of gardening implement…a forlorn mower. Not funny?…oh.. ok….what about….
A musician walks into a bar. Oh, wait no he didn’t. It’s lockdown! Sorry about that.
sonicbreakfast 