This week, I've chosen the theme of Horizons. As have many of the recent weeks, it's been a pretty shit week for news. It kind of feels like everything is spiralling down in a way that is uncontrollable and miserable. It has an air of the Parable of the Sower about it. Osctavia E Butler writes, "They have no power to improve their lives, but they have the power to make others even more miserable. And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it." So, I'm encouraging myself and everyone else to look for the horizon - to set your sights on something better. And that doesn't mean to be hyperopic, to be clear. The only way to get there is to fucking fight for it. But you have to remember and dream and hope about what you're fighting for.
It's pretty hard, a lot of the time, to see the horizon in England. Lots of narrow streets and shoe-box houses and stone walls. I think that's part of why I love the sea so much. There are few things I love more than the view stretching right the way to the horizon, uninterrupted. Salty tang carried on the sea breeze, whipping your hair into a crunchy frenzy. It's not just the sea though. I think all bodies of water can carry that same feeling within them, the feeling of potential and expanse. It's all the same water, really, in the end. Carried endlessly around in dizzying cycles.
So, songs about water. Or, better, songs with water in them. This is a surprisingly common motif in music. Doechii's Black Girl Memoir starts with the sounds of pouring water, giving the song this chilled, casual opening that flows really well. Another great option that I've been very obsessed with for a while is Drop by Cornelius. My brother recommended it to me a good while ago and it's just such a fucking awesome tour-de-force. I mean, it uses all sorts of weird and awesome samples to make one of the most interesting and compelling pieces of modern instrumental music I've listened to in recent memory.
That being said, I wanted a song that was very exciting to me now specifically, so I ended up choosing this week's song as Lakehouse by Keep for Cheap. I really really love Keep for Cheap - I'm a MASSIVE sucker for queer country music (for more, see: Orville Peck, Trixie Mattel, Katie Pruitt) and though Keep for Cheap are certainly on the line (they call themselves "prairie rock") their unique sound has really captivated me as of late. Lakehouse is a song that's maybe hideously on-the-nose for the feeling I was trying to capture. The soundscape makes me feel at ease, fills me with joy, reminds me of how wonderful it is to be outside and engulfed and free. But it's also, as the band say themself, a song that, "evokes a universal experience of grappling with an ever-changing world." Which, yeah. That's how I'm feeling right now.
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