Hot in Porto this week, 28 today and in the mid to high twenties for the rest of the week. We’ll be leaving for Spain as it dips but it’s still Spain, it’ll probably be warm there too. Summer is ending but not here, it’s one of the perks of living here along with the fact that the coming energy crisis won’t be affecting our heating bills because we don’t have any heating. Bellyman probably doesn’t have any heating either, he was out in his usual spot in the Marquês square today and I think he has found a way to store heat in his stomach. He then takes it back to his flat and offloads it into an organic storage system that he has developed himself using the husks of various fruits. It’s unclear whether he will share any excess with his neighbours over the winter or whether he plans to turn his belly storage into a commercial business and we are yet to know if he is patenting the process. As yet, there have been no other examples of the human belly-heat storage transfer technology, otherwise known as HBHSTT, sometimes referred to as bs**t.

The pool water was cold today, one imagines that it’s because it was hot outside, although I’m not convinced I’ve got the science right there, if it’s science I usually glaze over. But it was nice to immerse yourself in this strange cool liquid, that envelops your body, lets you run your fingers through it, float in it, exercise your limbs in it. I don’t think the concept of water as an entity is new, if you’ve ever seen Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), you may have perceived the ocean on the planet below as an entity. I never saw the remake, I was scared.

Nuno was in the pool again today but swimming buddy Hugo seems to have disappeared. In the changing rooms was João Paolo who is a gym goer and I often see him there. As we left the pool/gym together we walked together to the Marquês square and philosophised about the human spirit all the way home. I was supposed to be rehearsing with Nicklas for the Anekdoten show in Spain on Saturday but had to take a hastily set up meeting with our accountant as we try and figure out how to bring the archive into Portugal with as little pain as possible. Perhaps it will be a private collection that people can visit like an exclusive library, perhaps it could be for the world to wander through and marvel at the CAN albums or admire Robert Whitaker’s ‘butcher cover’ with a sugar-free blueberry muffin in hand, but what’s important is it exists, how the future treats it might be out of my control.

Afterwards, I went straight into a sesh with Mike in New Orleans, trouble with his Skype that eventually worked itself out and then we listened to his songs and set about working them out too. Songs can sometimes be problem-solved mathematically, other times conceptually and other times they write themselves, it’s a fascinating ‘science’.

During the day I listen to lots of music and I used to post all the cover art from the albums I listened to. Nowadays I pick the one that worked best for me that day. I try to listen to different things and today I started by leaving the house whilst listening to Here Comes The Sun, leaving Spotify on ‘random Beatles’ for Olivia to wake up to. After Mike, I listened to Dr. John’s In The Right Place (1973) followed by the two U2 albums Songs of Innocence (2014) and Songs of Experience (2017), the former, the far better record in my opinion although I’ve really lost it with U2. I listened today because Mike and I were discussing what happened. Songs of Experience sounds like the songs that weren’t good enough for Songs of Innocence and one wonders if with all their skills and money they could ever do anything truly great ever again. The Unforgettable Fire (1984) is my favourite album by them. Stylistically Dr. John’s New Orleans thang isn’t really my thang, but I love his voice and also dig it when he gets his groove on. The sound of In The Right Place album is really something and I found myself listening to that as much as I was the songs. But I chose Anathema’s Weather Systems (2012) as Album Of The Daze. I saw them once in Stockholm and also in Germany at Olivia’s festival. We met Lee Douglas who was super cool with a great voice and a great accent (hello, Lee). Anathema were from Liverpool, sadly they broke up in 2020 after 12 albums.

As today was the Queen’s funeral, Jed and I thought it might be appropriate to post the video and song for Queen Elizabeth’s Keys from the Space Summit album Life This Way. The album was released on Schoolkids Records in September 2021, the vinyl will be available next month, welcome to the future.

 

Music Of The Daze