Taking Care of Time

Thoughts on too much and not enough

Jul 01, 2024

Tempus

‘Music takes care of time,’ my former husband said, quoting from an old housemate he had lived with in the eighties, who measured his days with symphonies from his huge collection of vinyl recordings of the world’s best orchestras. (Though living in a small flat in an ordinary part of London, apparently he got his laundry done in Mayfair, as he said they ‘did it better there’.) Dressed in an old fashioned smoking jacket, the man would start the day planning his listening and then fully give himself over to the music, allowing it to shape when he ate, went out or went to bed.

I thought of this commitment to music, to sound, to meaning and art often, over the next few years of a decade spent in recording studios. I loved, and still love, music, but have never been a ‘buff’ of any one style or genre, especially not Classical music, sadly. There are pieces that move me deeply, but early music such as Tallis, and then later music, such as Ravel, simply touch my polyphony and Romantic aesthetics more, and my under-educated ear has not yet rebelled and called for something else. Besides, rock and popular music’s myriad subsets have given me a lifetime of enjoyment, so I don’t feel too sad.

Music and time have been on my mind for the last few days, and as this is a between-essays week, I thought I would share a few thoughts around this.

The Sound of Silence

In the early 2000s I wrote lyrics and melodies and recorded many of these for the late great Japanese producer Susumu Yokota. A few days ago I was contacted by his publisher, who had tried to get hold of me through Mark Beazley (of Rothko, an excellent band I was in / worked with for a few years). A second huge 7 album vinyl box set of Yokota’s records will come out in a while. I will provide the lyrics and some stories for use in the liner notes and promotional information. It felt good to revisit those days in my mind’s eye and to remember that yes, that was what I did for a long time, listening to rough tracks, improvising tunes, working lyrics into something that expressed the music and the atmosphere1, and then somehow capturing a recording of it.

Then burning it onto a CD and posting it to Japan!

Those were the days.

I contacted my friend who recorded the vocals for me who has all the original Yokota tracks on a hard drive somewhere. There may even be unreleased music, so I await his reply. It will be good to have his engineering work properly credited this time, and the same for me and the lyrics, melodies and harmonies. I lost all my backups and records years ago, so I am hopeful my friend’s hard drive will save the day.

It isn’t that music left my life. I never stopped singing for myself, or around a campfire with friends. I just needed to stop hearing so much music. As it was everywhere. Degraded, wallpaper, background… Every shop blaring.

When I finished the last recordings for Yokota and moved into my new flat, at first I stopped listening to music at home during the day. Then I stopped listening to even advert-free BBC Radio 4, as the arguing voices were just too much. I got used to silence and the sounds of the birds in the garden, the household moving around, the ordinary sounds of urban life. After 10 years embedded in the intricacies of songs, endless overdubs, analysing mixes and listening for details, I could no longer listen to music. I could not just let it in. Even Mixing It and Late Junction were too much, though they played my bands and so much music I loved to hear. There was a strong feeling of sensory overload. The last LP I bought (digitally) was Jono McLeery’s beautiful There Is in 2011. And then, I just stopped. I didn’t listen to another record deliberately for almost 7 years. I feels like it was medicinal. A palate-cleansing.

Music returned to me in 2017 after I came back from Transylvania, changed by the mountains, the Spruce Tree Crone, and The Lindwurm. Great recommendations for music from participants and teachers on the course meant I discovered new and old music for the first time in a long time, and it felt right, at last. It still does. 2

Moving too fast

This aural fast overlapped with a cumulative feeling about video that had been creeping up on me for some time. As a child I had mostly avoided commercial television3, as the compressed sounds of adverts was jarring after the relatively naturalistic sound in the actual shows themselves. Most people think the volume goes up in radio and TV ads, but it is compression, a way of making sound ‘more brick-like’ rather than with the natural undulations of real speech, or the dynamic range of most real music. Think of compressed sound as a huge box-like concrete bunker, rather than the shape of hills and valleys, covered in trees and vegetation of different heights and textures, and you’ll get the picture.

Much has been written about the recent loss of dynamic range, aural richness, melodic intricacy and lyrical depth of music, and it is well studied. With the moving image, however, it wasn’t the quality of what I was watching that caused the problem. In fact, my video aversion really took off right in the middle of possibly the best ever era of TV, 2010-2020. Long-form series were getting produced with top actors, Netflix was new and full of promise, there was so much good acting and excellent set design, costume and soundtrack work, on top of great storylines.

My eyes just rebelled, following my ears’ lead. First, I stopped clicking on video links online, in probably about 2007. For years, friends still kindly kept sending me things I’d love to watch, and I genuinely appreciated their thoughts, but I could not make my hand click the mouse for the link. By now, I have missed out on scores of useful instructional videos, hundreds of interesting, well made films4, contemporary dance (which I love) and art videos, I am 40 years late watching concert footage of my favourite bands. I still haven’t watched 4 courses that I have actually paid for to learn skills I genuinely wish to add to my craft practice.

It began on 11th September 2001. At a meditation workshop at Newbold House, we were just about to go and sit a silent 3-day Vipassana session in the attic studio. As the news came in, some people chose to go and watch the television, and saw footage of the planes. Some of us chose not to watch it. Since that day, I have never knowingly watched footage from that day, or any other television news, nor video news of any kind. If I walk into a room where it is on, I walk back out. My family know I won’t join them until it’s over or turned off, and they don’t mind at all. If I see it on a screen in a public place, I look away, walk away, or face the other way. I read news, and I will look at still pictures, but I never click a link. Sometimes things pop up on Instagram before I can swipe, but it’s just a second or two.

I am not aided in empathising with the woes of the world by the jarring, sea-sick feeling video gives me at the best of times. It moves too fast. My emotions and thoughts cannot keep up. It is like being swept away in a crowd. Perhaps I am like those souls on Stevenson’s Rocket, vomiting at the barely 20 miles per hour the loaded engine produced. I do not want this feeling! So, I read news, and I will look at photographs. It is not hiding away, it is working with what faculties I can. Some friends who consider themselves neurodiverse describe this to me in terms of nervous system regulation. Whatever it is, I know to trust my organism.

A Partial Fast

(but not a hard and fast rule)

For now, I am missing out on everything apart from very well made, low jeopardy programs and films, and the occasional beautiful bit of recorded contemporary dance. I want to watch good things with friends and loved ones, so I won’t give up completely, as films and classic sci fi series are on our to-watch lists. But this year I have watched no more than 20 hours of video, all of it good recent feature films or television from the eighties. No art films, unlike in my 20s, no documentaries, unlike in my 30s. I have few regrets, as books now have room in my life again. Plus the mental space that video took up is now full of hedgerow detail, chromatic memory, wild food recipes and the tactile beauty of loving relationships.

And that great love of my life, conversation.

I feel replete. Leveraging rather than trying to fix my video aversion feeds my ability to get on with writing my book, listening to my friends and paying closer attention to the sea, as was the case today, foraging for last minute shells to use as paint palettes when I teach at Schumacher college tomorrow. Now I must ready myself to return to Totnes, tune into the redwoods and the yellow clay, the tall nettles and the many faces of those I will meet. I miss great indie films and I am not giving up on the moving image, just finding my way back to it after falling off the speeding train. I am looking for a hand cart, perhaps. If anyone else feels the way I am describing, I’d love to hear from you as I don’t know anyone else who suffers this.

So, another week without video, I think.

But never a week without reading or writing, it seems. See you next week, for more See With The Body Eye.