I'm in something of a dilemma this year, I'm on a cusp of a big change but haven't fully entered into the reality of that change as of yet fully to allow me to realise its complete implications. It will certainly involve tightening my belt and watching my outgoings and expenditure like the proverbial hawk.
This will impact considerably on what I spend on music in 2024. I'll definutely buy less records than I did last year or in most previous years for that matter. One thing I have in my life is enough records to listen to. A flat full of them, Cardboard boxes and shelves crammed with records from 40 years of collecting that need to be listened to more often. So that's the plan on that front. Spotify and the radio will keep me abreast on contemporary stuff.
I'm not planning to cut back on gig going though while I'm in Newcastle. I'm also anticipating I might not always be here this year and am open to that.. But while I am I plan to go to what I fancy in Toon like last year. Get in some visceral living experience. It seems like a worthwhile invesrment. Not visceral perhaps as my doctors have advised me against visceral exerience and focusing on my blood pressure and getting it down. But experience is important.
I've pencilled in the Marika Hackman gig coming up on The Cluny in Mid March. The walk will do me good and I'm partial to her new album Big Sigh and suspect it will grow on me in the next couple of months.. It's a spacier, less Rockist record than her previous efforts, introspective and thoughtful.The first two listens certainly bode well. If I were asked to review the record in one word the word would be 'haunting'. That bodes well too.
There's a definite artistic dimension to the record. The cover image. Of a shopping trolley, abandoned on an arctic landscape. It's an indication of content focus. In her own words; 'this album took a long time to make. It was not easy and by the time I got to the end of it I was quiet. Now the dust has settled. Stepping into a new world, moving forward, chipping away. Breath in. Breathe out. Big sigh.'
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