The Sound of Music

My lovely pal and the very talented Grace Dean

Music surrounds us, it can swallow us and mangle our heads. It can persuade us or depress us, uplift us and understand us. Sometimes you'll listen to a song and think that it just must have been written for you at that time in your life. It feels like a sign that your feelings are justified. The truth is that most music is about feelings that we will all experience at some point.

For most of us its okay to listen to the words in amongst the instruments, but hard to face them in silence.

There's something very special about sitting in a dark room with some music on.I often find it hard to identify the feeling I'm experiencing. It can make you feel desperate, like you want to tie something down inside you. Like every fibre of your being is drawn to the sound in the dark, like iron filings to a magnet. 

Music has got to have been around since the beginning of time. It's absolutely human instinct to make noise and beat and tune with things. That's pretty cool to me. 

There are some artists that you will love but your friends don't really identify with. And vice versa. I don't know what it is that attracts us to particular music. Maybe it's like we all have our own music personalities, maybe its intrinsic, maybe it depends on who we are and what we've done and the types of feelings we are prone to. 

So here is a list of my favourite artists this year. You will probably notice a similarity in them as I think I'm an acoustic girl at heart. You might well not warm to them at all. But I would like to give them credit for being the soundtrack to my year.

     ARTIST

1) Daughter - Tracks: Peter, Candles, Landfill, Medicine, Youth, Love.

2) Trevor Hall - Te Amo, Where's the Love, Love Song, Other Ways, Lime Tree, Brand New Day. 

3) Matt Corby - Big Eyes, Breathe, Winter, Brother, Souls a Fire.

4) Alt-J - Matilda, Fitzpleasure, Breeze Blocks, Tessalate.

5) LP - Into the Wild, Levitator, Only Good With You, Tokyo Sunrise.

6) The Bronze Medal - Milk, Autumn.

7) The Naked and Famous - Young Blood, Punching in a Dream, No Way.

8) Walk Off The Earth - Corner of Queens, Broke, Love Sponge (Buju Banton cover)

9) Pretty Lights - The whole album, "Taking Up Your Precious Time".

10) Angus and Julia Stone - All of Me, Mango Tree, Babylon, Paper Aeroplane.

As I said, they might not tickle your fancy but they tickle mine. Music has a way of attaching itself to you and getting to the very core of you. These guys, especially Trevor Hall, did just that this year. 

I think the important thing is that if you love music to surround yourself in it. It's good for your soul. It magnifies your emotions. And yes, it might make you a little dramatic on times (I can't be the only one who has flung myself around my room pretending to be in a music video) but everyone needs a little drama in their life sometimes, and better it be in the form of music than your mum shagging your boyfriend. 

That's all for now

Jojo xxxx

I'll leave you with a classic.