The first note I hear today is the sound of wireless headphones being switched on and a disembodied ladies’ voice telling me they are on, before the alternative national anthem of Barwick Green, then the lilt of Clarrie’s voice.
The Archers podcast has become the soundtrack to my walk to the station since the start of the year. The headphones were a birthday present designed to get me back out running; they’ve sort of worked.
Once that’s finished and as I write I’ve got Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden on via Spotify. I moved back to Spotify a month ago after using Apple Music for a year or more. It worked fine, but I think Spotify is better- more people I know use Spotify and so sharing things has become easier. In both directions.
The Talk Talk album was promoted by a discussion I saw last night on Twitter. Reminding me that I’ve not listened to it in years, and that it’s a lovely, lovely record. Perfect for a tranquil commute.
That got me all the way to Waterloo East, so something else is needed for the walk from the station to the office. If in doubt go with a playlist, as my old dad used to say. So I hit random on a playlist of notional tunes I would use if ever called upon to DJ in an emergency – everyone has one of those, yeah?
That gives me Velvet Curtains by the mighty Quo and No Deal by Townes Van Zandt before I get to my desk.
Switching from the phone to the desktop, I carry on with the playlist for a bit with Moon Life by Secret Circuit. – Here’s the playlist if you’re interested.
As the day proceeds, I’ve moved on to Fairport Convention – distracted by a link in the official Harkive playlist for Dave Swarbrick. The Fairport Convention album is a corker – how ace is Reno, Nevada on the remastered version?
After being pointed towards this list of amazing female made records – I’m playing The Roches by The Roches – it’s a lovely thing, but I need a quick pick me up, so I’m going for the power J-pop of Amiina (not that one) and Signal. It fairly motors along.
This is followed by Public Service Broadcasting latest – Every Valley.
I’ve spent a long time trying to find a service that will cope with allowing me to upload my full record collection to the “cloud” – the only thing I can find is Amazon Music Library – it can handle more than 200K tracks, but sadly the UI is so bad it’s only useful for using via the Sonos at home.
On the way home, It was The latest Afghan Whigs’ – In Spades and the start of the BBC Radio 4 podcast, Blast – the sound and the Fury via iPlayer radio app.
Finally, I’ve managed to listen to Bremer/McCoy’s Enhed album via Spotify and Sonos. Some mellow jazz as I try and finish a poem I’ve been trying to write for years. I think I finished as the last bars played out. Nice.
I thought that #Harkive would be responsible for more techno-failure earlier. First time it was an iPod melting down, then last year there was an accidental deletion of a large portion of my music collection from iTunes (backed up, thankfully) and then today the volume button on my phone refused to work until a restart. It’s always around #harkive time…*shakes fist*.
