Three Good Albums

Hello. It’s been a while since I’ve last written on here- moving city and starting a new job aren’t half a drain on your time. Rather than spaffing on about how weird/awesome it is living somewhere new, here’s three albums I’ve really liked this year.

1. Wild Beasts – Smother

People who have read my blog for the past couple of years will know how much I adore Wild Beasts. ‘Smother’ follows on from the excellent ‘Two Dancers’ wonderfully- taking all the literary references, sexual frustration and testosterone but handling it in a more understated way. If previous single ‘All The Kings Men’ was the band’s adolescent fumble at the back of a club, ‘Smother’s standout track ‘Reach A Bit Further’ has to be their bruised, mid-twenties hangover after the album before, muzzy with the knocked confidence of previous encounters and lost lust. Amazing.

2. Real Estate – Days

Real Estate are so dreamy. Sadly, I didn’t make it to one of there live dates for this album – too busy humping my possessions across the country- but ‘Days’ more than makes up for it. It takes their signature, surfy-beachy sound, and develops with a slighly poppier slant, providing impossibly catchy, should-be-pophits like ‘It’s Real’ and ‘Easy’. Like I said, dreamy.

3. St Vincent – Strange Mercy

Annie Clark has one of the most lovely girl-voices in music at the moment, along with an excellent line in guitar loops and a fine head of hair. ‘Strange Mercy’ is a beauty, leaving behind the ostentatious, slightly cutesy demeanour of her previous two albums and showing off a much sharper edge and surer sense of self. Crunchy guitar parts, distorted synths and assured lyrics such as “I’ve played dumb when I knew better/ Tried too hard just to be clever,”  show how much Clark has evolved as an artist, and make ‘Strange Mercy’ a completely gripping listen.

Your Life Is A Song #2 – Slow Show

I think everyone has established how cack I am at blog series (seri?) by now. So, number two in my series of ‘special’ songs sees me pay a visit to my favourite band.

The National – Slow Show

I bloody love The National. If I have a bad day, I can listen to ‘Boxer’ or ‘Alligator’ on the vinyl player in my parents’ living room with a cup of tea and a book, and somehow, the songs feel like a balm somehow- the comfort you find from things that are familiar to you and mean a lot to you, I think. Slow Show, on the other hand, never fails to turn me into a bit of a girly, trembly mess; case in point, thinking about the words and doing a cry as I shaved my legs this evening.

Sometimes it isn’t enough for a song to set a scene with lyrics- Slow Show does it with the echoey atmosphere of its opening guitar chords, which instantly fill you with a sense of unease, and the kind of uncomfortable, lost-my-keys feeling that comes with missing somebody. As soon as Matt Berninger starts singing about how scared he is, all the mistakes he’s made, you’re drawn in, and his slightly tipsy neediness… well, if it doesn’t give you a bit of a lump in your throat, you have no SOUL.

Undoubtedly, it’s the chorus of the song that truly cements the song’s emotional nous, which then leads to the utterly heartbreaking refrain of ‘You know I’ve dreamed about you/For twenty-nine years, before I saw you… I’ve missed you for twenty-nine years”. As embarrassing as it is to admit, that’s what I’d like someone to say to me one day, and that’s the bit that has me turning into a quivering mass of tears. To me, Slow Show sounds what love should be like- messy, confusing, and ultimately, being allowed to fall into someone unconditionally when everything else isn’t there anymore.

Waiting

I am spending this weekend waiting for news. It’s hard, what with being known as one of the world’s most impatient women. Every time the phone rings, I jump, and when my gmail ding-ed three minutes ago, I spilt tea in my lap. This must stop. So, three activities to pass the time:

Painting your nails

 

Clearly, Lauren Conrad also has too much time to think, and therefore to stew herself into a stupor, on her hands. So what better way to pass the time than painting your nails on said hands loads of different colours in a gradienty style? I believe fashion types prefer to call this ‘ombre’, and it looks very pretty. Apparently Lauren did this to match the effect on her hair; I have no money for hair dye right now, so I’ll paint my cat’s to match instead. Speaking of cats…

Annoying the cat

Annie, my cat hates me at the best of times, but mostly when I am bored because she gets too many cuddles and stuff. She has a mouse on a stick, which I find takes up minutes of endless fun of hiding behind the sofa, jumping out with the mouse and then running away whilst she hisses. Like I said, she hates me.

Window shopping

I’d sell my nana to be able to go shopping right now, although sadly I have about 2p in my bank account. So I will instead spend the day perving on websites such as Whistles, Etsy and Topshop, playing the ‘if I had ten grand’ game and sniffling into a cup of tea. If anyone would like to buy me the beautiful ‘Lina’ dress from Whistles, shown above, I’ll clean your house for a month. Thanks.

Heaven Is A Place On Earth With You

I can’t be the only person who’s been affected to the point of tears by the Manchester riots today. After coming back from what was going on in London over the weekend, my little suburb in East Manchester felt all safe and cocoon-like; a place where I could sit with my cat whilst house-sitting for my parents and eat crisps without needing to watch rolling news. Now, I’m constantly jumpy, scared that the parade of shops five minutes away is going to turn into a war-zone. Probably an unfounded fear, but nonetheless scary when you’re in an old Victorian creaky house on your own.

This song by Lana Del Rey is soothing my soul a little tonight- the artist also known as Lizzie Grant has an excellent taste in spectacles, and describes herself as a ‘gangsta Nancy Sinatra’, and ‘the sonic equivalent of a Vincent Gallo film’. Whatevs- Video Games, the video for which you can see below, is a beautifully woozy, soothing ballad of epic proportions.

Three Dates, or ‘Burning Shame In Three Easy Steps’

It’s quite trendy to write about bad dates in an ironic fashion now, isn’t it? Here’s my three worst dates ever.

1) Someone I used to work with got fed up of me whinging about no good menfolk, so set me up on a date with one of her friends. He seemed nice, if a little overkeen, and we arranged to go to a pub quiz together.
It was clear from the start that he was too nice- I don’t deal with nice boys very well, and found him rather boring. I then steadily drank two bottles of wine, fell down the stairs, and had to be poured in a taxi home whilst everybody shook their heads at me. Funnily enough, this boy still texts me sometimes. I don’t think he got the message.

2) My ex boyfriend took me for a curry. My latent IBS reared its ugly head. I spent the whole meal on the toilet, whilst he tried not to drown himself in the tarka daal in shame.

3) The time I went to Up The Racket when I was sixteen, with a man who shall be only known as Hitler. He was 23 and looked a bit like Pete Wentz if I had no glasses on. And if I squinted. My friend Sarah came out with us, bringing a chap nicknamed Monkey Boy. He was a div- like one of those chavs that seem a bit devolved because he was so stupid (Sarah, sorry but it’s true). Hitler went nuts because I had no money, I went nuts because Hitler actually had a girlfriend, and the night culminated in me walking down my parents’ street in my underwear, screaming ‘YEAH BUT I’M WELL MATURE’.
Not cool.

The Pitfalls Of Living ‘At Home’

Living with your parents because you are ‘unemployed’ as opposed to ‘a student’ seems to be a lot more annoying. Here’s three reasons why.

 

Food

As someone who has no money to contribute to housekeeping, I have little say into what goes into the trolley on the weekly shop. If I had my way, there would be loads of fresh fruit, skimmed milk, and healthy snacky things. Instead, we have whole milk, things that come in packets and a whole lot of red meat.
The ‘things that come in packets’ soon become an exercise in self-control, as you begin to get tempted to eat three packets of salt and vinegar crisps to stave off the fact that you’re FUCKING BORED. This then becomes ‘Holly, should you be eating three bags of crisps? Have some fruit.’
MOTHER, I ASKED YOU TO BUY FRUIT BUT YOU DIDN’T. LET ME EAT THE MCOYS. I really miss buying humous and all the other aspirational foodstuffs.

Laundry
 My mum HATES it when I do my own washing, as she finds it inconvenient. Apparently putting a wash in at 11pm isn’t normal practice. ANYWAY.
She doesn’t understand the concept of ‘dark’ and ‘light’ washes, leaving me with grey, mangled silk underwear (possibly better contraception than a screaming baby?), yellow dresses gone puce and a feeling of resentment. The temperature thing is always an issue too- case in point being my nice new black midi dress, lovingly purchased from Primarni. It now falls somewhere above the knee, owing to a 90-degree wash. SADFACE.
Don’t even get me started on my sister nicking my clothes. I’d be here for several eternities.

QUESTIONS

Ah, questions. ‘Where are you going?’, ‘What time will you be back?’, ‘Do you want dinner?’. The worst one by far, mind, is ‘Where have you been all night?’.
How do you explain to your parents that you got mortally  shitfaced on red wine/sake/horrible lager on a ‘date’, only to experience somebody else’s existential crisis, wake up stuck to their chest hair with your lipstick smeared on the walls, filled with crippling shame and disappointment? A simple ’nuffin” and a shrug does not suffice here, because they always seem to know exactly what you’ve been up to, leading to them asking ‘Who’s the lucky chap?’.
Mum, he’s not lucky. I was sick on his shoes and he wants to die of embarrassment.

In short, I cannot wait to move out. Properly this time mind, as opposed to playing house with somebody whose mum still irons their underpants. But that’s another story.

Shameless Self Promotion

Eating crisps and watching daytime television in between applying for jobs gets somewhat tedious after a while. And if I watch any more Curb, as much as I love Larry David, I might go a bit mad.

Contact me if you have, or know of, any work that you’d like to send my way. I like writing things, win at social media and am quite a jolly person to have around- especially when I buy biscuits. My special talents include having had various pieces of work published since the age of 15, being The Fly Magazine’s Manchester correspondent, working for a national music publicity office when I was 19 and still at university, and being able to do my nails in a moving car. A few features, reviews and general other pieces that I’ve written are below, and I also make a fantastic cup of tea.