Seven Songs for the Week #130 - 1st Oct 2025

Twice this past week I attempted to fall asleep listening to Max Richter's Sleep. The first time I turned it off, second time my phone rebooted. So I have yet to manage the full 8+hours "listening" experience. I will achieve it someday.

Three tracks on this week's list are from exposure on CBB-FM. I had a lot of painting/decorating to do last weekend (and on future weekends) and so I put on CBB-FM, a music and chat podcast from the Comedy Bang Bang stable (available on the paid subscription tier). The most recent episode had Chris DeVille as a guest, the editor of Stereogum, and he has a new book out about late Noughties indie rock. That seems recent to an old man like me, but I guess this is the equivalent of me reading about the late 70s punk scene in the early 90s. There is a definite period between the reign of physical music and the dominance of steaming: MP3s, iPods, blogs, My Space, all of that. I do own this album, bought cheaply in Fopp IIRC, but I can't remember much more of it beyond this beguiling opening track. Maybe I should give it another spin.

Every six to nine months when I feel I can't listen to anything, I'll give the Boards of Canada a spin, and it resets everything.

New to me via CBB-FM. I was aware of this album but had never listened to it. You can kinda hear future Olivia Rodrigo here, who would have been 10 when this album came out in 2013!

Popped up on my Apple Music "Station" and not a JR song I was already familiar with. I assume every word is true.

Listened to Different Class from start to finish this week for the first time in forever. Being an album of the CD age, I would say that the backend from F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E. onwards is the least familiar territory. The closing track, Bar Italia, pushed a button:

"There's only one place we can go / It's 'round the corner in Soho / Where other broken people go"

When I bought this album I don't think I would've known what Bar Italia was, but while living in London I became aware of it as an always-open (nearly) refuge. I might not have been clubbing like Jarvis, but after a run of night shifts, as exhausted as you are, it was always satisfying to see people going to work when you had the brief magic feeling of nowhere to go.

https://www.theinfatuation.com/london/reviews/bar-italia

Third and final song on the list from CBB-FM, and again, not a Van song, or album, that I know. Indeed at the start, I wasn't sure it was Van as he isn't singing with his regular timbre. Reading about Common One, it sounds like a Van album I should check out - jazzy, freeform, not like his other stuff, disliked by critics when it came out... sounds good!