Welcome to The Rooster
The first installment of my new weekly recommendations.
Welcome to a brand new part of my Substack,
š THE ROOSTER š
This is the recommendation part of Changes, where every Friday Iām going to be shouting about things I have loved in the previous week. Whether they are songs, books, meals, plays or films, everything I recommend will be something I hope you can go on to enjoy for yourself. Iāll be keeping this open until the end of the year, after which Iāll change it to paid subscribers only.
Our first week is a music special.
This week I have been holed up in a house trying to finish the first draft of my book. If youāve read or listened to my piece on here called I. Just. Want. To Do It Now, you will know that this is an experience I have been dreaming of for months. Iām a slob. Iām eating only cans of soup. My eyes are hanging out of my head from staring at a computer screen. I couldnāt be happier. I canāt tell you how nice itās been to do nothing but immerse myself in the world of my book. Iāve been writing in silence for most of the day and putting on music when it gets dark. When I write I canāt handle any sort of distraction so I need music that is emotive but unassuming, something gentle that wonāt dominate the room.
I must have listened to Arooj Aftabās new album Night Reign about ten times over on this trip. Arooj is a Pakistani - American singer songwriter and is a total badass rockstar. Stylistically the album is a mix of jazz, folk and Hindustani music, and Aroojās voice is a thing of husky sonorous beauty. I love deep voices in female singers. Think Sade, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Arooj has these levels of character and skill in her singing. And please donāt mistake the word gentle for easy, this album is full of dark mystery. I look forward to experiencing more and more from it every time I hear it.
Lola Youngās new song Charlie, is a desperate paean to a boy called Charlie who poor Lola is besotted with, despite all the evidence pointing to the fact that he is clearly chronically bad for her. She canāt help being turned on by all his red flags. Itās beautifully produced, wide screen, end-credits material, and I love Lola Young as a singer because she has that rare Winehouse-esque quality of exuding total truthfulness and raw vulnerability in her vocals. I believe her.
The Cure - Songs Of A Lost World
When I was driving down to Gloucestershire on Wednesday morning I listened to the Today programme. As the hours rolled by, the news went from tentative to certain that Trump had won the presidency. Emma Barnett interviewed the labour MP Emily Thornberry and asked her about how the UK could work with Trump moving forwards. She said didnāt you call him a āracist sexual predator?ā
Emily replied with. āWell he is.ā
If you feel like the end of the world is nigh, and there is no hope, and you need to grieve your optimism and generally wallow in sadness and despair for a while, then I have just the album for you. The Cureās new album Songs Of A Lost World is majestically apocalyptic. Itās perfect for post election malaise. It also contains one of the most devastating songs Iāve ever heard in I Can Never Say Goodbye, which Robert Smith penned for his dead brother. Turn it up loud and wail in despair.
And if after all the wailing, you have a need to smile, then please, go and watch Robert Smith in the most iconic moment in red carpet rock n roll history, a moment I love so much that I re-enacted it for Halloween this year.
See you next week x
see u next week xx