The first note of Summer.
On hosting, recycling and summer storms.
A couple of weeks ago as I was frantically running around the kitchen in an attempt to get food out on time, a beautiful singer sat at my table and told me I make hosting look so easy. As the pasta boiled over and the dogs were barking at yet another imaginary invader it suddenly hit me - this is the moment I’ve been training for my whole life. I thrive under pressure. I am the hostess with the mostess keeping a ten piece jazz band fed and happy and ready to go into the next round of recording sessions. My cooking has been gourmet, *cheff’s kiss* and I’m now wondering if I should start a restaurant, publish a cook book and leave my career as a singer behind for good. All jokes aside, Nothing Without You is out now on all your favourite streaming platforms, play it again because what is a good newsletter without some shameless self promotion.
June was a whirlwind month full of music, new friends and old recipe’s.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is recycling. Our house and studio have been full and so have our bins: bursting with plastic, beer cans, wine bottles and cardboard boxes rescued for the cats to play in. I’m in a constant loop of feeling terrible about how much trash one person can generate in a lifetime and whether I should become one of those people who keep it all, like my mother.
Speaking of which, on the 8th of June my mum (aka Denys Blacker) did a performance action as part of an exhibition on artists who had spent their summers in Spain during the sixties and seventies. She buried herself in the sand and invited the audience to lay next to her and listen. It was a comment on Spain’s history and the post fascist rise of tourism. She spoke about the mass burial sites that took place on our local beaches during the war and the lives that are still lost to the mediterranean every day because of our world’s lack of empathy. Life transforms and mountains turn to sand but the world seems to stay the same.
A couple of weeks later a group of us attempted to decode the future of music at 2 am. Through the sound of our deliriously ranting, Oscar’s voice cut through as he told us that the future of music is (surprise, surprise) recycling. The only way forward is to re-use and re-imagine what has already been made, for artists to create their own circular economies, for songs to take on new lives, cross genres and reach new audiences. Sampling is the future.
I’ve spent a lot of the month also feeling the anxiety of time slipping away, or rather the fear of things ending and loved ones dying. I suppose I am scared that it is all moving too fast or maybe I’m just enjoying it all too much to imagine a world where now has become something else. In any case, sometimes it’s nice to remind myself that we too will one day be recycled and so, in many ways, we are all infinite.
It may look like a typical start to a typical Spanish summer but it has been anything but that. We have replaced going to the beach with rainy studio days and sunbathing for comping vocal takes. The sun peeked out at the start of the month when Sofia came out for a writing retreat and then again at the very end for Levitation Orchestra. It rained the whole time lavender and SALPA were recording in the hall. Needless to say, the garden is very much enjoying this English-esque weather. I’m going to spend July cooking a bit less and spending a bit more time with family. I’ll keep you updated.
In the meantime here is a playlist of all the musicians who have been at home this month (except for a few who are yet to release their exciting new projects):