On Monday night, Sarah arrived late from Rome via Assisi, Florence, Amsterdam, and Texas. We managed to get straight into listening to records into the early hours of Tuesday morning and made it through a seventies feeling with modern records before heading out on Tuesday evening to Foz to see the sun sink into the ocean, which actually could do with a musical soundtrack despite its magnificence.

We took a Bolt exactly at 7 PM because the sun sank into the sea at 7.38 PM. Olivia was at Flying Yoga around the corner and flew back to The Archive and we flew straight out of the door again as we raced to the sea. We could see the sun sinking before us as the buildings in the city obscured it and revealed it again until we eventually hit the road next to the river where we could see it slipping from the sky. We arrived at the seafront with minutes to spare. There was a nutter in the freezing water, pretending it was normal to be in the Atlantic on a late September night (haha). We swung our legs over the sea wall above the sand and watched as the sun sank, scorching our eyes, a burning red ball sizzling into the sea – and then it was gone with a green tinge as it disappeared like a magic trick.

We went to Praia da Luz, a restaurant on the beachfront, and sat on couches and watched the darkness roll over the sea and the banana moon reveal itself in the sky, a diamond slit in the blackness. We ate and drank into the night and then watched the moon disappear too, the same path, swallowed up by the Earth, obscured by clouds, and then blood-red on its descent before it was also gone.

We walked a little along the sea wall and followed the water into the Douro estuary, where fishermen were casting their lines with fluorescent green floats into the brackish waters. We found transport back to the city and alighted by the river and marvelled at the bridge and the sparkling lights of Gaia before we slowly trekked back up the hill to The Archive via the beautiful tiled Santo Ildefonso church, finally arriving to listen to more records before an earlier night for another beckoning day.

The Records:

Peter Frampton – Forgets the Words (2021)
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Raise the Roof (2021)
Soft Machine – Other Doors (2023)
Ian Carr – Bella Donna (1972)
Khruangbin – Mordechai (2020)
Sigur Rós – Kveikur (2013)
Gentle Giant – Interview, Steven Wilson Remix (1976/2023)
The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake (2023)

Music today has been Nico – Heroine: Live in Manchester Library Theatre in 1980 (2017, although the sticker says it’s both 1983 and 1980 when it’s one show). It’s really a bootleg with a dodgy sound, but Nico generates such a macabre atmosphere, it’s a captivating listen.

Music Of The Daze