Threads 16.07.20
We Have Sound 20.7
Music
Akio Suzuki & Lawrence English – Boombana
Skee Mask – MDP5
Sylvain Chauveau – or
Christopher Bissonnette – Black Will Swallow the Red
TM404 – MC202 Quartet
Akai Solo – An Ode To The Isolated (prod. argov)
Viktor Udvari – Boring
Error Lake – Nameless
Choppers X Screwers – Pop Smoke – She Got A Thing (Nammy Wams Grossbeat Chop)
Jynxstarr – Duffle Bag Instrumental
SBK & Eyez – Bits
Lijah – Boss (Instrumental)
Logan – All Together (Vocal)
Phossa – Static
Ago – Flashin’
Pinch – Qawwali
Lukid – The Clappers
тпсб – Dream Houses Of The Global North
Secret Pyramid – Ceremony II
Valiska – Across a City, Across a Country pt 3
Mary Lattimore – Quintana
Krust – True Stories
Garden
The Crocosmia in my garden is flowering early this year. The plant originates from the planes of South Africa but is seemingly very happy almost anywhere, and so like many others I enjoy it’s late season colour each year in my difficult south-facing London back garden. A late season flowerer it usually stealths into August – but a couple of weeks into July and already bright colour is starting to snap out above it’s tall green leaves.
As much as I enjoy its arrival, there is also something about it which usually reminds me that we are well past midsummer, closer to the start next season than that of the current one. I am not quite sure what to make of this years untimely arrival.
Although I am someone who loves all changes of season – the exciting time from later spring and into midsummer where plants make the most of the abundance of light available is particularly galvanising, more so this year than ever. Gardens got a lot of attention this year and elsewhere the natural world made use of the space we afforded it. The growing world’s exuberance brought an excitement and momentum to our hunkered down, cautious existence.
Late season events are a reminder that things will soon slow down, as we look ahead to a winter of uncertainty this is an uncomfortable thought.
The time line of gardens and growing things has been something that has historically underpinned, but increasingly exists outside of our way of life. Our own relationship with time and particularly the passing of it often feels a battle, that of plants is hard to separate from it. When we engage with them, plants connect us to our world, but also to time.
The stubborn light of things
Melissa Harrison is a novelist and nature writer whose understanding of the natural world, and its relationship to our own has helped me to understand both better in recent years. Her most recent book All Among The Barley left me a different person from the one that started it.
Being locked down in London I saw less wildlife and nature than usual; her podcast The Stubborn Light of Things has been a friend throughout this growing season, and the tumultuous times we experienced in it.