Hello Records.
Hey Dan.
I gotta say, I sometimes question why I still have you in my life.
Oh…
Don’t take it personally, it’ll probably pass.
_
I know that I listen differently when I put a record on.
It’s a ritual, like listening with intent. Akin to calling someone instead of texting, hearing the voice and the crackle.
Time is measured in a way that doesn’t happen when you give in to the shuffle button - I’m not a hater of the shuffle button by the way, I quite like it. It’s just different, elastic, without intent, the opposite to the above.
Beyond the ritual, there are memories in there, rooted out as the needle drops.
For instance, there’s my mum dancing ON a 7” record while swaying to Aaron Neville, telling us how it is. I can recall the density of the air. Moisture and mayhem. A lá 1983.
Also 1989, a friends smokey basement. Too many people in a small space. A sofa one side, decks on the other, a well used bong in the middle. Tag teaming on the decks, it was Paul Gibson’s turn (he was smooth - in many ways). He played a song; an array of acid blips and blops that, belying my semi conscious state, pricked my ears. I hadn’t heard it but I liked it and curiosity pulled me to my feet like a puppet.
I navigated the bodies and standing in front of the decks, asked Paul the name. He looked at me in a way that let me know he wasn’t gonna tell. I decided to try to read the title off the record and fixing my eyes on the spinning label, followed it ‘round and around. And around.
I woke up on the sofa, having fainted, a room full of friends and fiends looking down on me.
I still don’t know what it was called (does that count?).
_
There’s something about the needle and the dust it meets. It seems to get into everything, even time. Punctuating a lifetime spent listening.
Some records I know the crackle as well as I do the notes 🎶, the patina of the piece, the same way I know the ins and outs of a chair, by running my fingers over it time and time again. Sitting and listening (with intent).
As memory itself seems to be dissolving into the sea mists that roll up and over the hills here, these records, for now at least, have a reprieve.
_
@on_semble