i once saw the aleph in new york city
Renewal habitually comes with a recognisable scent. Through God's plan as all trees bloom and by force of ritual, I change my morning fragrance and become more intransigent with sunscreen application. When a shedding of warm layers occurs, I’m called to retrieve an old classic perfume, Eau Dynamisante by Clarins. As anyone would know, the olfactory senses are tightly tied to memory and this scent was worn by my mother throughout my childhood. It’s a little clinical, or spa-like if you’re being lenient, though very light. It’s an outlier in my little collection as I tend to align myself with heftier, more mysterious aromas, but its sentimental value is inestimable and the way its combination of yuzu, white thyme, and coriander kisses most suntan lotions’ distinct neroli-like note brings me such a smile in the AM. I make this face as it hits, and can begin my day.
Now covered in a mist of zest, I can attend to my to-do list which includes the terrible recurring spectre of finding a new apartment in London: a fucking nightmare. I don’t doubt I’ll find somewhere to lay my head but it is a horrible background drone until sorted: not that there is much more to say on that, most here have been through that rigmarole before. All that comes in conjunction with other quests: at the front of my mind finding a home for my next album, and a seemingly impossible-for-me-to-avoid interest in wine, as I searched for a summer job. Pretension being the pitfall of my personality, I had it coming, although it does go hand in hand with one of my only transferable skills, being kind of good at talking to strangers. I have maps of tongues and France all on my mind - which is really nothing new, but here it’s no metaphor for lust or longing, or home or return. Unless, of course, it is.
For now I type this out in my current bed, windows open having spent a while reading lazily. I promised to pass along Bolaño’s Distant Star to a friend and felt I needed to give it a proper farewell with a revisit, being one of the Chilean author’s most loyal foot soldiers. I also re-read Borges’ The Aleph on Wednesday, and though I may well have skimmed it in my teenage years as I first discovered a taste for Latin American lit, it felt like the first time and I sat and actively sobbed. I can only think of one other instance where a piece of art had such an immediate effect on me; most effective work lingers, only revealing its true weight in the long run. That would be watching Solaris for the second time, hurting my eyes sitting like a child a little too near the screen, at the aptly named Close Up Cinema. I realise, of course, I’m only projecting my own past onto these pieces, but that’s also what they’re about; projections and memories and our feeble attempt to live alongside them knowing nothing hits like the real thing.
I’ll leave a link to a PDF of The Aleph here, the bit that gets to me is of course the breathtaking metonymic list of visions seen through the small portal. It’s a technique I can’t help but be seduced by, as I am when Whitman does the same, and it’s something I find myself instinctively poorly emulating as I write. I’m sure there are examples of such attempts to be found in these newsletters too.
I spent a lot of time with the symbol of the Aleph since then, how it also captures something so key to what I’ve been working on musically, though that will be revealed in due time. It’s reminiscent of a Yankees logo, and I’m surprised no cheeky designer with a taste for the esoteric has flipped it into a cap. Maybe I will, though I should probably stop spewing out free game that I haven’t got concrete plans to follow up on here.
So that’s what’s been on my mind, and here’s the music that’s been accompanying it.
I love Candy. Their 2022 album ‘Heaven Is Here’ has remained a part of my listening diet since its release whenever I’m hungry for something hard. I’m thrilled to know that they have a new record on the way. This track rocks, I love the amalgam of quasi-junglist breaks with classic metal blast beats. I’m really excited for this one and was pleasantly surprised to see my frequent collaborator Mmph, a genius in his own right, on the credits for a song on it.
In a very different register, this song by xmal, a regular fixture in the London music scene, has given me a real case of echolalia. I've found myself repeating the line “give me shrapnel, like pennies, for once” non stop. It’s a great little emo-tinged guitar track.
Finally, I went to a party on friday and was THRILLED to hear someone play out tracks by DJ K, one of the innovators of the Brazilian funk subgenre that is ‘bruxaria’. I loved this mixtape upon release and listening to it again, it still hits the same. I’m far from the only person saying this but, wtf, this is so obviously the best and most exciting club music in the world right now.
Till next week, when I’ll hopefully have a few more ducks in a row.