Song of the Week w/c 2nd June 2025

So, all being well, I finished university this week. After weeks of writing about the music I was listening to in order to not go crazy across the last few weeks of exams and so forth, we now turn our attentions to what I listened to upon my release into the freedom of the eternal after. Or, in the last words of François Rabelais, "un grand peut-être". The plan's to find the great perhaps on this side of the veil. I'll update you guys on how it goes.

Anyway, upon finishing my last exam I rather rapidly escaped home, seeking the chalky white soft hills that form most of my bones, flowing in calcinated glory through my bloodstream. Upon arriving home I peeled off my old cracked and dirty skin, bathing in the familiar flora of my hometown. Naked and raw, a sponge for my surroundings. I write to you now, fulfilled, recentered. Somewhat aggravated by my eternally arguing family. But, importantly, to acheive these ends, I had to take a journey, and that journey needed a soundtrack.

I discovered ten short minutes into my train home that (a) the internet hated me and (b) I had only one playlist downloaded. It turned out that the only playlist I had was Bigger Fish, a companion playlist to one of my all-time favourite fanfics. This was fortuitous, because it's a really great playlist, and the themes felt really right for the above relief and freedom described. It's a story that's set in the Ozarks of Missouri --- in small towns, insect-infested creeks, long hot evenings on boats unsuccessfully catching fish. It's about want, in its many forms, shame wrapped up in desire, escaping the shitty everyday for something that is harder but sweeter. Self-acceptance, even when it's scary. The playlist captures this vibe well, and I can't help but picture the Ozarks around me as I listen, the beautiful isolation, oppressive and freeing. I think it helps, too, that I know how much Juniper loves the Ozarks, and I know how much I love my home --- I can transplant that love, a little bit, in listening. So, this week, all of my songs are pulled from this playlist, ones I've been enjoying for a long time, and ones that stood out to me this week anew.

I went on a walk today, a loop I've walked probably hundreds of times, and I can't help but love it everytime, ever enriched by the ghosts of all the past versions of myself walking the same path. The birds were absolutely out in force, especially the wood pigeons (rather marred by absolutely constant construction noises, but hey we can't always have everything we wish for...), and it really felt like it was refilling my much-depleted batteries. In fact, that's going to be much of a theme this week in general --- lots of lovely bird noises, and some water noises too where they can be scrounged. Some of my all time favourite noises, beautifully evocative, and just always perfectly calming & grounding. Anyway, first of all I have a two-parter for you. Please listen to Gentle by sign crushes motorist (which opens with wood pigeon calls) immediately followed by Almost Fantasy, from Fog Lake. It's not, like, a perfect match-up, but it is a wonderful combo that I dare you to not feel chilled-out after. Plus, they're both so short that you're really only listening to one song. The more "classic" pure lofi sounds of sign crushes motorist transition rather well into Fog Lake, bringing us a more "complex" instrumental song, but still with the grounding drone in the background. I really enjoy the calming monotony of drone, and this is a great example of it here.

Next, I bring you Little Cup by Thao & Mira. The two are friends who have separately released some rather good music themselves, but came together in 2011 to release a collaborative album. I think you can feel a bit of that love in the album, in the way their voices layer together. The "sic-a-dum sic-a-dum" in the background layers so well under the lyrics themselves, and the rest of the soundscape fits in perfectly around it.

We take a rather fun soujorn to listen to Cosmo Shelldrake with Wriggle, another song that does really great things with layering. I've enjoyed a few Cosmo Shelldrake tracks, and they're all a little weird and shockingly different from each other. I'll be honest, this is a song I get sick of if I listen to it too much, because it's a little sonically overwhelming, but for one run through it's a great track. There's a lot of fun little details to listen out for woven into the background, and if I recall correctly it also features some lovely birdsong near the end.

We find ourselves, then, nearing the end with Wide-Eyed, Legless by Laura Veirs. When I put the playlist on shuffle, this was the first song that came up, and it immediately gave me confidence that I'd made the correct choice. I'm not sure if I can identify all of the instruments being used very accurately, but there's some weird slide-whistle sounds in the background, a drone that sounds like buzzing insects, the grounding familiar strumming guitar. Veirs' voice lilts over the tumbling and complex melody, smoothly riding out the rises and falls. I'm not even going to take a stab at what the lyrics mean, but there's something really tricky and fun about them. I like that they're not straightforward, that they make you think, that there's something new to think about each time.

Finally, I present to you my song of the week --- taking a bit of a leaf out of last-week-me's books, I bring you a wonderful cover of The Killing Moon by Nouvelle Vague. The original by Echo & the Bunnymen is good, but this is just on another level. It's almost kind of creepy, the simple guitar and xylophone belying a restrained power. It feels like a deep pool, one where you can convince yourself you can just about see the bottom --- where if you trust that, you'll kick and kick and never find your way back up to the surface. I keep repeating myself, I feel, but I think the understated simplicity of it is so genius, and so addictive. I really like Nouvelle Vague; their takes on tracks are always fantastic, so I'm really shocked that I'd never heard this one before. But oh, what a gift. As with the other tracks I've mentioned, it uses bird calls and the soft susurrations of water; wind through the reeds; lost insects, to paint a full picture. You feel transported, as you listen to it, thrust through space into a new land you can't quite trust, but that you want to, desperately. I'm just really in love with it, and the way it makes me feel too. It is always very impressive to take a song that is so strong and well-loved as it is, and transform into something new and, I will argue, clearly better.

Maybe not the note I should be ending on for this week's write up given my emphasis on you know, joy and freedom and so forth, but let us recall my emphasis on the Great Perhaps. Now, if there's any song that makes me feel like I'm experiencing some sort of Great Perhaps, it's this one. Sometimes things are new and weird and scary, but hopefully, they'll have the easily familiarity of birdsong, too.

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