I know I promised that I would write a long one last week (and I still might), but I am delaying that topic because I am having a severe memory gap on that one. I very much still plan to write what I had planned but I haven’t got what I want ready for it.

Ok so, what am I going to cover this week? The oddities, the weirdos, the guys I don’t listen to that often. This week in particular I’ve gotten very bored of my usual music and have branched out into more chill and relaxing songs (not saying I don’t have those in my normal rotation, just that these are particularly different).

Let’s first take a look at Tome Misch. I stumbled this week upon a reupload of one of his quarantine songs, this being his cover of never too much (the original sadly no longer exists). The quality is kinda shit but the vibe really shines through; he is so slick just freestyling and it’s always a pleasure to hear him at work. The little trickling slide he does at the start feels so satisfying, like a few raindrops gently falling onto you.

As mentioned prior, this comes from the suite of songs he did during quarantine - a lot of which I really love. In particular I still remember seeing Chain Reaction for the first time, it’s such an earworm. The live mixing by Jordan is really quite impressive and all the little attentions to detail make it so fun to re-listen to. I’ve got to admit I was caught by surprise by the singing towards the end when I was re-listening today, but I think it is a nice touch and rounds out the song nicely; vocals from Jordon never go amiss.

If you want any more recommendations, please ask! I love so so much of Tom’s music and I’d be very happy to talk about it.

Now onto some classical stuff! I’ve never listened to that much classical (apart from when I was my ballet classes), so the stuff I do listen to is few and far between. I think I always run to it in times of stress (see: sixth form exams and current exams) probably because classical music is generally considered to be pretty calming (more on this later). One of the composers I particularly like is Erik Satie, in particular the Gymnopédies. They are referenced everywhere and honestly you can’t beat the originals (ironic, given that I did select the cover from Tapir! for song of the week previously I know), they are timeless and so so good. Another composer I particularly like is Claude Debussy, his “Clair De Lune” is iconic for a reason and his various other work makes for some great listening.

The last piece of classical music I would like to talk about is the absolute masterpiece that is Igor Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”. Sorry if I have already yapped to you about it a lot but I just think it’s such a cool and striking piece of music, especially the story around it’s release and the original ballet that went with it. It feels so outside of the normal range for what I would consider classical music, so I find it really interesting. Especially because I first heard it when watching Phoenix Dance Theatre’s own interpretation of the original ballet, looking into Haitian voodoo background and traditions, it was super super cool to see and actually learn some of the dances from! I think for these reasons it is one of my favourite pieces of music ever and I would strongly consider it to be one of my so called “desert island discs”.

On a purely nostalgic basis, my song of the week is Movie by Tom Misch. I remember sometime in sixth form doing this thing where I would record me dancing to songs I liked at the time in my bedroom. I particularly remember practicing to this song, probably just because of the really memorable intro. Before you ask, no I don’t remember any of the dances and no you cannot see them (I think they are lost to the void anyway).

Song of the Week:

See my friend Sof’s song of the week here!