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This came out in the Summer between my first and second year at college. I have fond memories of those few years surrounding, with this album as a backdrop to a lot of it; either long walks home from parties or my girlfriend's house, playing on my minidisc, or chilled-out stoner hangouts or camping trips with friends.
Other summertime albums would be:
It hasn't changed. And that's quite spooky. A sleepy, leafy suburb on the edge of a big city. The same brickwork and paving stones and fences for decades. Bigger changes in the surrounding towns, but the suburb moves at a slow, slow pace. There'll be change some day, for sure - but everytime I go back it's a strange feeling of unchanging familiarity. I find that quite creepy, to be honest - I'm into change, transformation, queerness, difference.
What would induce me to return? Change. Maybe if I heard that there was politically active local awesomeness happening there, or if deep tree roots beneath the tarmac and the streets burst open through the roads and blocked traffic - and rather than hack this back and re-tarmac, the locals decided they prefered the new jungle and let it grow.
Have you ever read 'The Unlimited Dream Company' by JG Ballard? Not his best, but Ballard understood the psychological landcape of the English suburb - and he's spot on at identifying our inner-most desires and realities and the wildness and promiscuousness of these set against the cold stone of our sleepy suburban life. There's untapped potential beneath the surface, it's just doped up on tranquilisers and exhausted from selling its labour-power day after day, commute after commute.
The Willow tree. I totally get that desire to be by the water - lazily overhanging a gentle lake or stream.
I think I've always been freaked out by our ability to be unnecessarily harmful to eachother. Particularly in moments of eruption when it seems as though violence or cruelty comes from nowhere (in reality, it incubates and surges for years and years before pouring out into the surface).
John Burnside - Scottish poet.