What's music about?

 

At first, I thought music was important, and power was inherent within it - but after all these years, I think that might be nonsense. My understanding of chaos theory played a huge role in this - how everything dissolves into fractal chaos, yet there's a beauty and a grace within that disorder. Above all, I think music is utterly hollow until it attaches itself to us. Once that happens, it follows the fractal pattern of our lives, as they seek contextual belonging to a broader world of uncertainty.

My favourite XTC song is "Generals And Majors" - but is it because it's great? Again - I don't think so. It's not their best song; there are many others I admire more, and love more. So, why is it number one? It's all context. I love the song because I can see rows of the sleeves piled up in my local Woolworths in Devizes. I can feel how important it was for me to be connected to music and to a love of these objects. I can see how that single was an object of desire and slotted into everything else around it. The music, of course, is performed by a bunch of blokes from Swindon - it has the bucolic, West Country twang - melancholia, whistling, it feels - distant, yet close. And it's all about Cold War paranoia - I was living on the edge of Salisbury Plain at the time, and I can recall seeing low-loaders with ICBMs being driven through the streets of our village. It normalised armageddon and placed it into the bucolic little place I called home. Again, context. And those blokes from Swindon felt like me, too - outsiders - removed from the big city, slightly cast adrift. 

The power that song has is all contextual. It's power I bestowed upon the song, not power that the song had to begin with. 

I think that's what music is. It's nothing, but it's everything, so long as you can map out that personal context, and tie it to the ever-expanding fractal beauty that lies at the periphery of one's understanding. Beauty doesn't lie within; it lies on the outskirts, at the boundary where fractal lines blur and escape our power to control them.

I can still feel the pavement under my feet

I can still feel the same way I did in 1990, walking these Akasaka streets for the first time. The sense of optimism, of hope and possibility. It's all there, in the air, buildings, and skies over East Tokyo. 

I'm older now, but I've not lost anything over all these years. Tokyo still feels like home to me - or like a home, perhaps. The streets seem to envelop me, and the noise of the city fills my head. I tried to listen to music whilst walking the streets early in the morning - but it was somewhat futile. The earbuds came out, and the city's sound rushed back in; it was all I needed. 
 

I really, really needed that.

 The past few weeks have been vindication for the worst of years: a cavalcade of sensory overload, an embarrassment of riches after the paucity of grief and confusion.

Japan for a week? How could it be anything other than extraordinary? In truth, it was almost overwhelming. A chance to revisit old haunts with friends old and new. So much memory and happiness. The sensation of a life that unfolded around the joy of travel and exploration. Not just of mere countries - but of life itself. I was assailed by nostalgia for something still living in front of my eyes. A dream that refused to awaken. 

And this weekend was the Shiiine festival. A meeting of the tribes, for us - seeing Neds, Stuffies, Poppies, EMF. So many friends. Watching the Stuffies, as we did from the side of a stage thirty-four years ago. Feeling humbled that our lives still afforded us the luxury of feeling the same way. 

I needed these weeks.