For a very brief period as an eighteen year old I'd go to the Wildmoor nightclub in Stratford-upon-Avon on Friday evenings (the inevitable Facebook group is here). While getting dressed to go out I'd invariably listen to Screamadelica by Primal Scream; more specifically I'd listen to the the first three songs - 'Moving On Up', 'Slip Inside This House' and 'Don't Fight It, Feel It'. The three tracks seemed to put me in the right frame of mind for a night out.
The Friday ritual is one I've found myself resurrecting of late - I find that listening to upbeat, positive music on the way up from the train to the car has a relaxing effect after the stresses of the week. So I found myself, fifteen years after the excursions to the Wildmoor, once again listening to those three tracks from Screamadelica and not just feeling rejuvenated but somewhat reminiscent of days gone by. Listen for yourself here.
Music can prompt that highly emotional response of course. Certain songs become attached to certain events or frames of mind. On a walk from Euston to Bond Street to meet a client on the same Friday, I found myself listening to Darren Price. Frenetic techno at 07.30 isn't at all relaxing of course, but it did make me walk a bit faster. Price's music always reminds me of the phase at the end of university when I was frantically whoring myself around accounting firms to find gainful employment, to no avail.
The music of Sonic Youth delivers similar memories, though somewhat more pleasant. I bought the 1998 album A Thousand Leaves on the day I attended a second-round interview in Yorkshire for the firm I still work for. New York's finest fourpiece (now augmented by Mark Ibold) have just released their new album The Eternal, and after five listens today has become a firm favourite. Key tracks are 'Anti-Orgasm' and 'What We Know'. You can listen to the album here until 15 June.
Interpol are another New York band and are inseperable to me from the brief moments of negativity I've experienced in the last few years. For some reason I've always listened to their music when thoughts have been bleak, and they've been on my car stereo for the past week (perhaps not a good thing to be listening to whilst driving). Happily, while the band are now back in the studio recording their fourth, no doubt doom-laden, album, singer Paul Banks has done an Albert Hammond, Jr and launched a side project under the name Julian Plenti (get a free MP3 here). Judging by the sound of 'Fun That We Have' it's not all misery round Interpol's house.
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