Albums for Summer

I've always been a lover of the album, having one piece of art, a physical CD to hold, where I get acquainted with and find things within every song, the knowing which next opening chord I'm about to hear in the seconds of silence between each track, picking out concepts that flow throughout a record and appreciating differences. I love reading the booklets inside an album. I know singles have their plus points, downloading from iTunes has its plus points (I feel guilty, I do it too, increasingly regularly) but I'll always treasure the concept of one, entire, physical CD and the talk of this being lost over the last few years scares me.

I think summer's possibly the best time of year for buying just a couple of entire records and getting your wear out of them, whether that's singing along with all your friends on a long car journey with the windows wound down or solitary bike rides and trips on the train.

Enough babble, here are some of my favourites at the moment.

"THE IMAGINARY EP" - IMAGINARY FRIEND
The first thing I need to admit about Jesse Epstein's music is that I usually like a song to hit me, hard, and this doesn't do that particularly. What it is is sweet, and soft, and fits summer perfectly. This record features guest vocalist Kina Grannis' delicate harmonies which suit the style of this music so well. It's playful, clean, acoustic pop music, and Imaginary Friend's lyrics offer comfort and reassurance, in songs like "We'll Be Okay" and "In My Sight", and can be more thoughtful and exploratory, such as "Chasing Ghosts". I don't think this is anything industry shaping, but it's honest, forward and really pretty.

"SCIENCE AND FAITH" - THE SCRIPT
The Script are in an awkward place, with music that's a little too "indie" for the "mainstream" and vice versa. I recently re-approached their music, I was a fan in 2008, when their debut album "The Script" came out. A three piece sort-of rock band from Dublin, what I admire about Danny O'Donoghue, Mark Sheehan and Glen Power is that although what I guess they're known for doing best is a really kick-ass break-up song everything they do is an experiment. There's talk about whether their next release "#3" this autumn is going to be too commercial (the single that's avaliable to hear at the moment is a collaboration with Will.I.Am) but I'm not worried about this, this is just another step in a lot of different directions that they're willing to take.
"Science and Faith" in my opinion is better than their first album, though lyrically both are based around love, exploring it and, often, losing it. It has so much atmosphere, particularly "You Won't Feel A Thing" which really impresses me. The lead singer has a great voice, the guitarist isn't afraid to attempt rapping (see "This Is Love") and songs like "For The First Time" and "If You Ever Come Back" are the sort you can't help but sing along with, the kind I imagine audiences fill venues with along with the band. It finishes with, "Exit Wounds", which draws in the chant:
"Loose your clothes,
And show your scars,
That's who you are."

"THE HEAD AND THE HEART" - THE HEAD AND THE HEART
There's a song at the end of "The Head and the Heart" called "Heaven Go Easy On Me" and I don't want to say it's changed my life, but it's certainly been there at a lot of shaping moments. But most of all I think of it as a song that I listen to on landing planes when I'm coming home, and this has happened three times now. The words of this one really get to me.
The Head and the Heart are full of spirit, originality and, well, heart, and their music is completely beautiful. "Cats and Dogs" and "Couer d'Alene" are an energetic opening medley, "Ghosts" as playful and lively but in a minor key and the softer songs like "Down in the Valley" and the infamous "Rivers and Roads" are lovely, and haunting. Their music and their brilliant lyrics linger in your thoughts long after the song is over. Perfect for long drives.

Late Spring, Walking Home

This is a fairly mundane story:

Today, I went to visit one of my friends who is very sick. I brought her some flowers, and my copies of "I Capture the Castle" and "Stardust" to read.

As I left and embarked on the mile walk back to my house, it was early evening but the sun was still out. I watched people walking by the river in their t-shirts and sunglasses, and thought about how entertaining it is how we react to a little bit of summer here in England.

I made a point to smile at everybody I came across. This is a game I play with myself sometimes, or I guess you could call it more of a research project, because people's responses often depend hugely on the weather or the place, but sometimes age groups. A girl, aged about five, waved at me. An old man reading a newspaper on a bench grinned back. But a woman in her thirties made a point of looking at the ground. I don't know if she was being stereotypical because I'm a teenager, although I don't look very threatening, or if people just don't like eye contact with strangers.

I passed Arthur's Grave: a monument dedicated to Arthur Brown, an American pilot in WWII who crashed his plane to save our town. It is always covered in flowers. When I used to go running by the river with my dad, in the winter months in thick hoodies and hats, he set the rule that without fail we always had to shout, "Hi Arthur!" as we passed the grave. Even when I'm walking past it on my own, I still whisper it under my breath.

Outside somebody's house on the main road there was a table with tall, blooming raspberry plants on it, in buckets of water, an honesty box and a sign. I put some money in the box and took one for my mum, not thinking about how heavy it would be or how long I had to walk. I must have looked kind of hilarious struggling to carry a giant raspberry plant for half a mile.

As I walked home I saw a girl stood on the patio in front of her house across the street from where I walked. She was maybe six or seven, though I'm bad at guessing ages, wearing a long and bright pink coloured dress and dancing in the carefree way that you do when you're a child. It wasn't until the few seconds break on the Bon Iver record I was listening to, between "Flume" and"Lump Sun" that I realised she was loudly singing S Club 7's "Reach For The Stars" as she danced, whilst gazing up to the sky and wearing a very concentrated expression. I wondered when it becomes normal to stop doing that, and when it's better to look down out of awkwardness when a stranger smiles at you.

No conclusion, no revelation or shocking twists. I just think people's habits are really interesting sometimes, especially on an English summer's day.

"Things That Will Make Me Happier" and Other Bits and Pieces

So I don’t really know what to write today and I feel like I should do something, because I just went back and counted and I think I’ve written for something like the last seven Wednesdays. But it’s not really an achievement anymore if everything I force myself regularly I’m worried it will become completely rid of quality… like pretty much everything I posted in the last half of February.

(Actually, I lied to you… it’s actually Tuesday today. Tomorrow’s the day before we break up for school, for the summer, and I won’t be home from leaving for school until Thursday. I’ll find a time to post this.)

I’m really excited about the summer. Firstly I have to get away from school – I can tell I’m getting tired and lazier than usual, today I got my first considerably awful grade of any of my GCSE courses. Also I’m beginning to hate everyone. But I’m also really about things I’m doing – Isaline’s visiting from France, I’m going to a Greek island called Zante, I’m planning on trying to be quite productive and might also be a part of this madcap internet project which I don’t want to get my hopes up about just yet but I’ll talk about at the time!

I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Part 2 at the weekend and I’ll talk about that soon, because I think I probably need to see it again before I can make sense of it all enough to write anything comprehensible.

And I found this list today (when I sat down to write this blog, I didn’t want to do anything so I thought of skimming through old writing journals to see if there was any gold in there. There wasn’t) and I remember I wrote it in the bath a few months ago. It partly made me kind of happy, but also embarrassed about my needy pessimistic white girl problems.

*sigh*

THINGS WHICH WOULD MAKE ME HAPPIER

- Flying to somewhere I’ve never been, a few times a year
- Not living with my parents, just visiting every so often
- Being made stressed only by things which I’m passionate about
- Having the strength to run a marathon
- Berlin.
- A radio station existing which I really love and connect with
- Someone I wake up to on sunny mornings who makes me pancakes
- An attic with long windows
- Being able to talk completely honestly, to maybe just one person
- Being closer to the seaside
- The freedom and money to go to concerts more often
- No languages coursework!
- Clearer skies at night time
- A time in the day when I’m alone in a wide space and I could dance without people staring at me
- A pet unicorn
- More friends, less acquaintances
- Being good at painting

This has been a blog made up of bits, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. I’m going to watch an episode of Charmed now. I’ll see you soon.

Lizzie