New Music Friday #5: Night Tapes want you not to suffer anymore

"Follow hope, not fear"

May 06, 2023

Another Sky put out two songs.

I’ll talk about Psychopath another time. Somehow, it’s easier to write about Watching Basinski.

I wrote Watching Basinski midway through 2019. Originally, the demo had synths and a really hilarious ‘wah-wah’ sound, as if I was writing for a cartoon. When me and Jack eventually recorded it in lockdown, I decided it sounded better on guitar. While I always used dark humour to mask grief, I was dressing it up too much, like a sad clown traipsing past their own pity party. It could just be honest instead, and that’s how it sounded best.

I did actually ‘Watch Basinski’ in a church:

And he did actually say, “please buy my merch, and I’ll take your money…like religion does”.

In March 2019, I’d returned from touring and falling in love with New York, where twenty years prior, Basinski famously caught the aftermath of 9/11 on tape as he made ‘Disintegration Loops’, attempting to transfer his audio tapes to digital format to discover if they were played enough times, they’d splinter and…well, disintegrate.

I’d realised the gravity of an awful, awful situation, and I was trying to explain to my friend next to me, Carlos, what had happened. I couldn’t find the words, so instead, I sunk into my wooden pew and let the ambience of sound reflecting from the stone pillars wash over me. I sat in silence watching the kind of music I really wanted to make, wondering if life was going to be a series of cliff-edges instead, as it is for most.

I sat in silence watching the kind of music I really wanted to make, wondering if life was going to be a series of cliff-edges instead, as it is for most.

I didn’t feel like I was there at all. I felt really disconnected. So I pulled out my iPhone notes, wondering what would happen if I just stated exactly what thoughts came into my head. Would there be a connection between them?

I got that idea from Phoebe Bridgers, who said something along the lines of, “my songs are just becoming statements of something that’s literally happened” (paraphrasing there). Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘Motion Sickness’ was still the song on people’s lips in 2019, despite being released two years earlier in 2017. She was writing increasingly honest songs about her relationships, in particular with abusive older men, with a sense of bold clarity and intimacy others hadn’t done quite so explicitly.

As Basinski played, I felt an understanding finally hit me; of how terrifying choosing between staying in a burning building and plummeting to your death must be. Suddenly, all at once, I felt the cold rush of comprehension that sometimes there is no choice strong enough to save you.

The new Another Sky songs are quite lonely. Is that something I regret now? No, how could they have been different? I think at some point as an artist, you have to learn to disentangle yourself from your work and accept it as a snapshot in time. They allowed me to process and move on from something, as did the music we made before it.

Looking back on old songs can feel like peering into an intricate hall of mirrors. It’s creepy to look for too long, or it hurts too much, like staring into the sun. And the more you write, the more you realise that’ll always happen. So you just keep writing to try and escape this strange hall of mirrors, canonising and immortalising more of your life to bury the life before it. The barren hall of mirrors ever-grows behind you, but you never glance back. You learn to stop looking.

Sometimes, looking back on old songs feels like peering into an intricate hall of mirrors. It’s creepy to look for too long, or it hurts too much, like staring into the sun.

I find some of the ways my mind has held me back the past three years quite sad and unnecessary. But in a way, it was necessary. As you get older, the window for ‘bad things’ to happen to you increases. Eventually, this emboldened, vibrant teenage naivety falls away as you realise you’re not invincible, nor the centre of the world, and you’re going to fall victim to the same stuff the whole of humanity has for centuries.

I guess what emerges from the ashes of your youth…is a certain thing called wisdom.

So…er…from that, I’m going to somehow segway into ‘hope’. (??!!)

‘Hope’ is the name of Estonian artist Iiris’s single from 2016, after moving to London and working with producer Max Doohan. Now the lead singer of dream-pop band Night Tapes, she says of their latest track ‘Inigo’; “it was written about those moments in life when you understand that it is time to move from a comfortable setting and develop a spine through uncomfortable situations…young, beautiful people in general should be treated with caution, because youth is cruel."

“it was written about those moments in life when you understand that it is time to move from a comfortable setting and develop a spine through uncomfortable situations…young, beautiful people in general should be treated with caution, because youth is cruel." - Iiris Vesik, Night Tapes

With age, you learn to endure. Eventually, you realise you can’t let ‘bad things’ swallow you...because you learn that they actually just don’t. Life moves on with or without you. Eventually, even with the most painful events, you move on. And that’s the nice bit about getting older.

I’ve been listening to ‘Philosophize This’, specifically Stephen’s episode on the book ‘Illness As Metaphor’, a book that is sitting dormant on my kindle. The book challenges victim-blaming narratives around illness, and instead argues illness is a fact of life. If you live, you can get sick. And yes, illness and trauma and arguably age makes you in a sense, ‘weaker’, but what about the clarity you gain? Is gaining wisdom really becoming weaker? There’s another book I’d like to read called, “love your disease, it’s keeping you healthy”. Similarly to illness helping you learn what your mortal body can tolerate, what if wisdom helps you endure the next traumatic event a little better?

I’ve been singing a lot - practicing with Another Sky, and singing with LCV for a cool artist’s live session, and for a friend’s excellent project. I bought a jazz piano book. I met up with Sona. We spoke for two hours. I kept forgetting I was supposed to be interviewing as we joked about smooth brains and Elon Musk. I’ll type that up next for you all to read.

I met up with Daisy and Aimee the other night to work on harmonies, my old housemates who sung with me on Self Esteem’s lockdown livestream. It struck me that it’s been three years since we properly hung out. I feel so far from that house, that beloved house where everyone was ‘finding themselves’ and saving moths and baking cakes and having fun, where we stacked up bottles of wine and beer on our staircase like a strange glass skyline, too scared to flaunt our descent into alcoholism to our neighbours with forbidden trips to the recycling bin.

As I sat with them, laughing so much my stomach hurt, I realised once again why I do this. It’s to connect. It’s always been to connect.

Part of writing this blog has been to connect, as well. I write to speak, and every time I don’t write because I feel silly, “somebody wins” as Sona said to me in the cafe.

every time I don’t write, as Sona said to me in the cafe, “somebody wins”.

I also started this to see if I could write. And the answer is yes, so I found what I was looking for. Why do things have to grow and grow and never stop? Sona spoke about this, too. Kikagaku Moyo asked that question when they split up.

I have missed my friends so much. Covid did take them away. Working takes them away. Pubs being too expensive takes them away. Growing older takes them away. Recessions take them away.

I wrote this all about two weeks ago, actually. This past weekend, I got food poisoning and sat motionless watching a BBC documentary on dogs, and then moved onto David Attenborough videos. Watching nature felt so peaceful. If hope is hard, there is something soothing about knowing you are nature, no matter how far removed you are from it.

Back to that cold rush of comprehension that sometimes there is no choice strong enough to save you - you also realise you must practice radical acceptance, accept the moment and accept that as much as you’d like to, you don’t really have control.

The beautiful thing about accepting you have no control is that you no longer have to follow fear. Once you let go of the illusion of control, you no longer need to be afraid of what might happen because you understand you cannot control the outcome anyway.

The story behind Watching Basinski and Psychopath is very sad. It was a very humbling, gross experience, but it feels quite far away now. I luckily made it through.

FOLLOW HOPE, NOT FEAR!

So, here’s to my friends, and joy, and hanging in there, and some of my favourite music from the past few weeks:

Night Tapes - Inigo