THE SARTORIAL ELEGANCE OF SERIE A: TORINO, 1990-93 [ABM]

It’s almost impossible to write about Torino’s past without alluding to the Grande Torino and the terrible fate that befell them: the near total annihilation of their squad in the Superga air disaster of 1949. At the time of the accident, Torino had won four scudettos on the bounce and were well on their way to adding a fifth. Moreover, the club comprised the backbone of Italy’s national team, contributing as many as ten players for a game against Hungary in May 1947. Torino went on to win the title in 1949 after it was agreed that all clubs involved would field their youth teams for the four remaining games of the season, which was a fitting gesture.

Unsurprisingly, a period of decline ensued, but by the middle of the 1960s Torino had re-established itself as a force to be reckoned with, culminating in 1968’s Coppa Italia triumph (this, despite the tragic death of star-player Luigi Meroni in a bizarre motoring accident). A second Coppa Italia followed in 1971, and in 1976 Torino were crowned champions having wrestled the scudetto from the hands of city rivals Juventus. Indeed, I Granata had a good time of it throughout the 1970s: not once did they finish outside of Serie A’s top ten and every year but two qualified to play in Europe. Such consistency could not be sustained and the 1980s represented a torrid time for Torino, although not without its highlights.

Torino have consistently worn maroon shirts, usually with white shorts and black socks, although during the early 1980s they opted for maroon socks. From 1984 through to 1989 their kit was supplied by Adidas, who did a good job on it. Torino managed a second-place finish in 1985, four points behind champions Verona (this was when just two points were awarded for a win). Over the next three seasons they finished 5th, 11th and 7th consecutively, before being relegated to Serie B in 1989 after placing a lowly 16th. When the club won promotion back to Serie A the following season, they teamed up with Abbigliamento Sportivo – or ABM for short – in an association that would last the next three seasons.

The strip ABM came up with was an exercise in minimalism. No trim and no micro-patterning, just a plain burgundy, collared shirt. Shorts were kept white but the socks reverted to black, giving the kit a better balance. The fit was loose without being overly baggy. Class.

During Torino’s tenure in Serie B, white-goods manufacturer Indesit had been the club’s sponsor and remained so after their return to Serie A, whereupon they ended up a very respectable fifth. Thereafter, it was Beretta – purveyor of cured meats – who paid to have their name on the shirt, and they benefitted from the exposure when Torino made it into the 1991-92 UEFA Cup Final, only to lose to Ajax on the away goal rule. This was the season that saw Enzo Scifo joining the moustachioed Rafael Martín Vázquez in midfield. It’s been said that Vázquez never really settled at Torino, whereas Scifo, who had returned to Italy to redeem himself after failing to make much of an impact at Inter three years earlier, did. The club finished third in the league behind Juventus and champions AC Milan, thus qualifying for the UEFA Cup for a second year in succession.

Vázquez subsequently returned to Real Madrid, by way of Marseille, while Scifo went on to win the Coppa Italia with Torino in 1993, knocking Juventus out along the way. It was this iteration of ABM’s strip that was best. Very little changed save for the addition of a rather tidy snap-fastened placket in place of the preceding V-neck. Unfortunately Torino clinched the Coppa Italia in Rome wearing their away kit, which was nice but not great. In any case, it had been a successful three years and a testament to the managerial talent of the late Emiliano Mondonico.

1992-93

In the summer of 1993 Enzo Scifo left for AS Monaco, goalkeeper Luca Marchegiani moved to Lazio, Walter Casagrande returned to Brazil and Lotto took over as Torino’s kit supplier. Lotto’s shirts, as you may know, were made on the cheap and the badges and logos were often sublimated, rather than sewn on as separate, three-dimensional entities. In 1996 Torino were relegated and have been flitting between Series A and B ever since.

LINER NOTES: IT BEATS FOR YOU [2015]

1.    I Forgot to be Your Lover – William Bell

2.    Wedding Dress – Pentangle

3.    Jungle Fever – Chakachas

4.    Pretty Thing – Bo Diddley

5.    It Beats 4 U – My Morning Jacket

6.    Vad Hände Med Dem? – The Brian Jonestown Massacre

7.    Ping Pong Affair – The Slits

8.    My Rush – #1 Dads

9.    Light Flight – Pentangle

10.  Can You Get to That – Funkadelic

11.  Paint it Black – Africa

12.  If Not Tomorrow Maybe Some Day – Daniel Bortz

13.  Huarache Lights – Hot Chip

14.  Toxic Love – Popof

15.  Mr Noah – Panda Bear

16.  Need You Now – Hot Chip
17.  I’ll Never Cry for Another Boy (Rehearsal) – The Majestic Arrows

Comprised of just 17 tracks, 2015’s It Beats For You is my shortest compilation (not including The Hanworth of Heroes, which is a fabrication). I had been in two minds whether or not to continue into 2016 and create another biennial edition, but decided against it. I’d rather my playlists were on the short side rather than unwieldily epic.

I was still taking inspiration from Spotify except there was someone new feeding into it: a lovely Australian guy with an eclectic musical palate. Over time, this would affect the sort of tunes that appeared on Discover Weekly, which probably made for a more interesting assortment. 2014’s The Big Nod had been too narrow in scope to ever be a favourite of mine, and I looked forward to shaking things up a bit.

I don’t think we have the antipodean to thank for William Bell’s 'I Forgot to be Your Lover'. It could have just as easily been derived from the soul music I occasionally put on at work. Regardless, it’s a nice way to begin this playlist. This song would also turn up from time to time over at the St Margarets Tavern, who were more than likely playing Spotify playlists of their own, contrived to create a mellow vibe for their clientele to drink to.

I’ve referred previously to American country, folk and psychedelic music by way of The Byrds, Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, and so on. There was also a distinctively British interpretation of the genre manifest in groups such as Fairport Convention, Pentangle, The Strawbs and the associated Canterbury scene, which came later, morphing into what would become known as progressive rock. In its earlier stages, British folk rock took inspiration from American country and folk music, the blues, psychedelia, traditional English folk music, as well as the improvisational tendencies of jazz, which is maybe why Fairport Convention's first album reminded me of Jefferson Airplane. (Their fourth, Liege & Lief, is supposed to be their masterpiece, but I never got that far.) Pentangle sound to my ear quite different, and the various listening habits of their members may explain why. Double-bass player Danny Thompson and drummer Terry Cox were grounded in jazz, guitarist John Renbourn was interested in the more traditional elements of folk, whereas Bert Jansch had a taste for blues. How that all works itself out I couldn’t tell you, although it sounds to my ears that 'Wedding Dress' exhibits more the influence of traditional folk music whereas 'Light Flight' reveals the rhythm section’s fondness for jazz.

(The/Les/Los) Chakachas were a group of Latin-soul studio musicians, from Belgium of all places, responsible for this saucy number. 'Jungle Fever' was a big hit in the US but was banned by the BBC soon after its UK release. It featured in the film Boogie Nights and has been sampled a number of times, normally within the realm of hip hop.

Bo Diddley is often cited as one of the originators of rock and roll, alongside Bill Haley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. Bo Diddley is probably the classiest guy among that lot, and there’s a groove to 'Pretty Thing' that you might struggle to find in the music of his co-conspirators; signs that maybe he remained closer to the source, cleaving more keenly to the blues. 'Pretty Thing' was released in 1955, and a mention should also go out to the guy playing the harmonica, Lester Davenport.

Discover Weekly does not discriminate, and nor do I. The transition from blues driven rock and roll to the space-rock of My Morning Jacket’s 'It Beats 4 U' works surprisingly well. This was what I was missing out on in 2005 by not listening to contemporary music, other than The Bees and Kings of Leon. 'It Beats 4 U' would have sat comfortably on the previous year’s playlist too, maybe alongside the Besnard Lakes or Papercuts.

Despite my enthusiasm for The Brian Jonestown Massacre compilation Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective, which I’d seized upon in 2007, the only other record of theirs I’d purchased was Give It Back! in 2011. I’d lost track of what they were up to, but in 2014 they released their 13th studio album, which had found its way onto Spotify. 'Vad Hände Med Dem?' sounds like The 13th Floor Elevators on uppers, which, knowing Anton Newcombe, could well have been the intention.

When I’d included The Slits on 2011-12’s The World’ll Be OK I’d opted for the obvious with 'Typical Girls'. Listening to them now, it struck me that 'Ping Pong Affair' was the more interesting song. The drums jerks back and forth, and Viv Albertine’s vocals turn in unusual directions. It’s also a clear indicator of the influence that reggae and ska had on British new wave and punk.

#1 Dads are an Australian, alternative band that weren’t introduced to me by the Australian work colleague with a taste for alternative bands. 'My Rush' is taken from the 2014 album About Face. The group appear to be defunct, possibly because they were never more than a side-project anyway, devised by a guy called Tom Iansek who more usually plays in a band called Big Scary.

Pentangle again, time signatures jumping all over the place, vocalist Jacqueline McShee doing an excellent job. I’ve already commented on how the influence of jazz makes itself known on 'Light Flight' and will leave it at that.

NYC

Turning 40 isn’t as bad as turning 30. Turning 30 draws to a close a period of abandon and of avoided responsibility that characterises one’s twenties in a psychological, tectonic shift that can induce mild panic, even angst. Such qualities have more traditionally been associated with reaching 40 – the archetypal mid-life crisis – but these days it's more an excuse for a party.

Or a holiday. Back to New York City. Funkadelic have no specific connection with the place – they based themselves in Detroit – but they sit nicely in it. Yet I came by 'Can You Get to That' at work, via Spotify, possibly because I’d been feeding their algorithm James Brown and The J.B.’s. It’s a very pleasing and fortuitous thing, then, that rather than reminding me of work, Funkadelic makes me think of New York.

When I first heard Africa’s cover version of 'Paint it Black' it took me a while to discern what song it actually was. This is because I was in the St. Margaret’s Tavern at the time and there was ambient noise to contend with, and also because their version is a departure from the original. Further, so often has this tune been covered that it wasn't easy finding out who was responsible in this instance, but it’s from an album called Music From “Lil Brown” released in 1968. Africa themselves were formed from the ashes of a number of rhythm 'n' blues backing bands who’d obviously had enough of it and wanted to cut loose playing a sort of Latin fusion of psychedelic funk.

The tracks that follow were all suggested by Spotify under the influence, I suspect, of The Australian. There were some things that The Australian used to play that didn't do it for me: Australian hip hop, The Black Keys, Queens of the Stone Age (although I suppose Songs for the Deaf provides the occasional moment). Electronic stuff such as 'If Not Tomorrow Maybe Some Day' by Daniel Bortz, on the other hand, I liked. Or maybe The Australian had nothing to do with it and Spotify just shoehorned it in there.

I am generally indifferent towards Hot Chip but the single 'Huarache Lights' strongly appealed to me. I’m not sure exactly why, because from what I know of them it doesn’t represent much of a musical departure, but I was reminded of the band Clor, or a more upbeat Tom Vek. An improvement, as opposed to a change, the drive towards innovation is no longer the main imperative.

More instrumental music: the techno flavoured 'Toxic Love' by a French DJ/producer called Popof, taken from the Summer on Mars EP released in 2008. I can take it or leave it, but it compliments what comes before and after and helps carry the final quarter of my compilation towards its conclusion.

Panda Bear – aka Noah Benjamin Lennox – is an experimental sort of artist, experimenting mostly with synthesisers, samplers and sequencers. 'Mr Noah' is a violent tune that incorporates the barking of dogs, but the vocal is pleasant enough, completely at odds with the canine cacophony that persists in the background.

Hot Chip's 'Need You Now' is a smoother, slightly mellower effort than 'Huarache Lights'. It samples Sinnamon’s 'I Need You Now', which is tagged as post-disco but could also be identified as a precursor to house. You shouldn’t read anything into this conspicuous enthusiasm for Hot Chip, and electronic pop music generally, because it would never have come to pass if it wasn’t for where I was working, and has since dissipated.

In August my partner and I took ourselves off to Malaga, which intentionally coincided with the finish of Stage 3 of that year’s Vuelta Espana and unintentionally with the Feria de Málaga. Peter Sagan won the stage, while the Feria brought Spanish holiday makers to the coast and teenage drinkers onto the streets.

In October my bouldering buddies and I drove to Fontainebleau in France to climb up rocks and were blessed with fine weather for the three days that we were there. Climbing on actual rocks is a different proposition from climbing indoors – technically more difficult, physically more demanding and sometimes scary. But the rolling forests and gentle valleys of Fontainebleau are a joy in themselves, and the post-climb beers felt well deserved.

I bought a steel bike with integrated shifters to replace the one I'd ridden from London to Brighton, which only had six gears and was slightly too small for me. In December, my Cornish friend and I met for our annual Dickensian pub crawl, a tradition we'd initiated in 2010, but none of our invited guests turned up.

The version of 'I’ll Never Cry for Another Boy' by The Majestic Arrows is a rehearsal, which gives this soul tune an almost folksy feel. It’s a deliberately off-kilter finish to a compilation that was running out of steam. Although I’d succeeded in my remit to diversify musically, it had been a bit of an effort to find material good enough for inclusion. Maybe I hadn’t looked hard enough, or had been distracted by my vacations, cycling concerns, festive pub crawls, and turning 40.

[Listen to here.]

STADIA: ESTADIO DO DRAGAO AND ESTADIO DO BESSA, PORTO

The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship was jointly hosted by Belgium and The Netherlands. As one might expect, they contributed an equal number of venues – four apiece – with the final itself being played in The Netherlands: in Rotterdam’s De Kuip, rather than Amsterdam’s larger, more modern stadium. Only the Amsterdam Arena, opened in 1996, and Arnhem’s GelreDome, opened in 1998, could be described as new builds, although the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels had been completely remodelled as recently as 1995, on the site of the old Heysel Stadium. Compare the situation to that at the 2004 UEFA European Championship, where not only did Portugal opt to use ten stadiums for the same number of matches, but of those ten only two were extant prior to tournament being awarded.

I have previously noted that by the time the new Wembley Stadium was completed in 2007 it was already aesthetically passé. On the other hand, maybe English football fans should be grateful they didn’t end up with something as vulgar as the Estádio José Alvalade, or as bonkers as the Estádio Municipal de Aveiro. Rather, England has a national stadium that is marginally more interesting than the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon – i.e. not very. And yet for Euro 2004, Portugal also built grounds as visually arresting as the Estádio do Dragão and Estádio do Bessa XXI in Porto, and the Estádio Municipal de Braga in Braga. Unfortunately, I’ve never been to Braga.

Boavista Futebol Clube was founded in 1903 by a couple of English expats, which is why ‘Futebol Clube’ follows the name of the borough it represents instead of preceding it, as is the case with ‘Futebol Clube do Porto’. Boavista moved to the Campo do Bessa in 1910, although it didn’t really take any meaningful shape until 1967, whereupon the club set about turning their campo into an estadio. By 1972, actual turf had been laid and two stands had been constructed, one of which was undercover and equipped with rudimentary floodlights hanging from the roof’s edge. Specific information is scarce, but by 1982 the ground had roofs on three sides, an open terrace was built upon the fourth sometime after that, and by 1991 the southern terrace had been demolished and a covered, double-tiered structure assembled in its place.

Boavista are nowhere near as accomplished as city rivals Porto, but around the time that Portugal hosted the European Championship they’d met with a level of success, winning the Taça de Portugal in 1992 and 1997, and securing their first ever Primeira Liga in 2000-01, becoming only the second team outside of Portugal’s ‘Big Three’ to do so (the other being Clube de Futebol Os Belenenses in as far back as 1946). In the midst of all this – from 1998 through to 2003 – Estádio do Bessa was reconfigured where it stood, one stand at a time, allowing Boavista to continue playing there for the duration.

A similar method was employed when the Stadio Comunale Luigi Ferraris was redeveloped for the 1990 World Cup, a ground the Estádio do Bessa fairly resembles, likewise enveloped by residential buildings. Actually, the Luigi Ferraris is exposed on one side – the edge that abuts the Piazzale Atleti Azzurri d'Italia, which is basically a carpark spanning the Bisagno River – affording a perpendicular view of stadium’s western approach. Conversely, one cannot stand back and take in the Estádio do Bessa from any angle.

Would you even want to? Only the West Stand, which houses the club’s offices, is anything much to look at. As opposed to the sand-coloured stone that clads the rest of the ground, the rear wall of the West Stand has been masked, from top but not quite to bottom, in a cambered, horizontally-ribbed metal façade. At ground level we have beige brickwork, a café, various entry points guarded by grey metal doors, and a modest entrance hall framed by an oxidised, rectilinear open-porch adorned with two club crests, resplendent in silver, hung to either side of the entrance, and the club’s name writ large just above, also in silver. In front, occupying a triangular slither of land squeezed between the stand and the main road, there’s a large statue of a panther (the club’s nickname is As Panteras) and a curious rectangular arch, its thicker stanchion chequered in black and white to represent the club’s colours, with another panther climbing up the side. It makes for a pleasing introduction to any stadium, albeit a slightly odd one.

On seconds thoughts, the other three stands aren’t so bad. There’s obviously been an attempt to blend in the structure with its surroundings, to make it as unobtrusive as possible. Turning right off of Avenida da Boavista and up Rua de O Primeiro de Janeiro, the rear wall of Estádio do Bessa’s southern stand barely registers. If it weren’t for the two large blocks of flats in the way, one might pause to look more closely at the rear of the East Stand, whose vomitories have been left on display to reveal the underside of the upper tier. It’s the same from the northern perimeter, which overlooks a training facility that may or may not be affiliated. Rectangular concrete boxes protrude from the external walls of the northern and southern stands providing access to the upper levels, but they give no clearer indication as to what the building is about.

Inside it’s a very different story, and where the comparison with the Stadio Comunale Luigi Ferraris really shows. The touchlines are overlooked by three tiers, the goal-lines just two. The upper tiers of all four stands rise steeply to maximise the available space. The concrete sidewalls converge at right angles, enclosing the stadium completely. As at the Luigi Ferraris, square apertures have been cut into the vertical concrete, allowing any spectator climbing the internal stairwells to keep abreast of the action. Unlike at the Luigi Ferraris, the resulting apexes do not rise upwards to form towers; the stadium is not so big that the roof requires this extra support. Finally, whereas the walls of the Luigi Ferraris are painted a terracotta red, the reinforced concrete here has been left untreated. Essentially, Estádio do Bessa XXI is a smaller, simpler version of its Genovese cousin.

Up until 2004 Porto played their football at the Estádio das Antas, and did so for 52 years. Prior to this their home was the Campo da Constituição, and had been since 1912. Before that Porto played at the Campo da Rainha, until the local council kicked them out because somebody wanted to build a factory there. The Campo da Constituição is now the site of the club’s training ground and retains portions of the old stadium in homage, whereas the Estádio das Antas has been completely demolished.

The Antas was an impressive structure, but you can understand why the club was keen to move on. Although large enough, it afforded very little protection, save for a striking cantilevered roof arching over the west side of the ground – Porto might not be particularly cold but it can be wet. In 1976 a large, open tier – an arquibancada – was erected above the eastern edge of the stadium. Then, in 1986, the athletics track was dug up and the terraces extended downwards, making room for another 20,000 seats, rendering the single, slender roof woefully inadequate. The Estádio das Antas had outgrown itself.

The 2004 UEFA European Championship afforded Porto the opportunity to build a brand new Category 4 stadium adjacent to their existing one. I do not know if this was by design or whether land nearby was fortuitously available, but it must have made the move that little bit easier for any fan who’d grown too attached to the Antas. And might the similarly circular footprint of the Estádio do Dragão have been another sop contrived to appease potential detractors? Or that both grounds were built on a gradient, their white-walled perimeters becoming deeper, seemingly taller, as one circumnavigated them? There is a subterranean look about both interiors, but whereas the Antas’s pitch really was below street level (after it had been lowered by six metres to provide extra capacity) at the Dragão the effect is illusory: a concourse surrounds the ground with access for vehicles below, and on the northern periphery the Alameda das Antas bypasses underneath.

There are also some significant disparities. For one, the lower tier of the Estádio do Dragão is rectangular and, in complete contrast to the circular segments that bordered the old pitch, almost contiguous with the field of play. Then there are the two identical upper tiers facing each other, rising in a curve towards their middle, like the cross section of an elliptical cylinder that’s been split down the middle. Finally the roof, which covers the entire ground. Shaped like a hyperbolic paraboloid, it appear to rest neatly atop the two upper tiers but is in fact supported by four concrete monoliths, two at each end, perpendicular to the goal-lines, almost level with the corner flags. In between, empty space. It is this space, with the surrounding concourse running behind, that opens the stadium up and lets it breath – literally, for it aerates the turf.

Estádio das Antas in the foreground, and do Dragão beyond.

In a country where people don’t religiously attend live football matches and are often quite content to watch games on the telly, it could be said that Portugal had no business bidding for the 2004 UEFA European Championship, let alone electing to build so many new stadiums. Too many teams have been burdened with grounds they can never fill, despite their relatively modest capacities, and are expected to pay exorbitant rates to play in them. Take Boavista, who have recently averaged an attendance of just over 6,000 in a stadium that can hold 28,263. Even champions Porto have only occupied about 80% of their capacity, although that’s up from the ~60% they were bringing in two seasons ago.

It could be worse. The Estádio do Bessa XXI and the Estádio do Dragão could be dreadfully lacking in atmosphere, as I expect the Estádio Dr. Magalhães Pessoa is when União de Leiria host other teams in the Campeonato de Portugal (the Portuguese league’s third division). Instead, these grounds have been designed, maybe not deliberately, to accommodate lower turnouts. By building steeply and fencing itself in, the Estádio do Bessa generates intimacy by keeping the crowd, however spartan, as close together as possible and providing them with a shared perspective.

Those gaps either end of the Estádio do Dragão do likewise, creating a depth of field that focuses the eye on the stadium’s lower level, where the bulk of the capacity is catered for. Moreover, because the upper tiers taper away towards the corners, their actual size is diminished. The manner in which the roof swoops downward over either end augments this impression.

Concourse at Estadio do Dragão

Built into the side of a steep hill, the Estádio Municipal de Braga dispenses entirely with terracing behind either goalmouth. Nonetheless, the two large double-decker stands that there are can accommodate over 30,000 supporters between them. Sporting Clube de Braga averaged a respectable 12,629 spectators over the course of 2017-18, and with a football ground as beautiful as theirs, who cares if it’s only half full.

LINER NOTES: THE BIG NOD [2014]

1.    Montparnasse – Floating Points

2.    People of the Sticks – The Besnard Lakes

3.    Junebouvier – Whirr

4.    The Big Nod – Soft Walls

5.    Sand Dance – Temples

6.    Stoned and Starving – Parquet Courts

7.    Mum’s the Word – Chain & The Gang

8.    I Miss Your Bones – Hospitality

9.    No Need for a Leader – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

10.  Fat Lady of Limbourg – Dirt Dress

11.  Won’t Remember my Name – Soft Walls

12.  The Upsetter – Metronomy

13.  Passing Out Pieces – Mac Demarco

14.  Pretty Machines – Parkay Quarts

15.  John Brown – Papercuts

16.  Far from Any Road – The Handsome Family

17.  Pulling on a Line – Great Lake Swimmers

18.  Would That Not be Nice – Divine Fits

19.  Fever Boy – Femme

20.  Pseudologia Fantastica – Foster the People

21.  What a Pleasure – Beach Fossils

22.  Talking Backwards – Real Estate

23.  Re. Stacks – Bon Iver

24.  Rocky Mountain High – John Denver

25.  Hellhole Ratrace – Girls

26.  Winter Sundays – Your Headlights are On

Fed up with working peripatetically, I accepted a full-time position with an engineering firm in Kennington. I only bother to mention this because of the impact it had upon my listening habits. It was all to do with Spotify and this associated thing called Discover Weekly, which we listened to while we worked. It’s basically a playlist derived from an algorithm that tries to predict what you might like to listen to based on what you’ve previously searched for, and it is surprisingly astute. What I used to do was write down in a draft email the names of songs that I quite liked and then send them to my personal email address to listen to more carefully back home. Not all tracks stood up to closer inspection, but judging by the length of this playlist many did.

Floating Points is the name that neuroscientist Sam Shepherd records under, and he can count snooker legend Steve Davis as a fan. 'Montparnasse' is 11 minutes’ worth of down-tempo electronica, and not the sort of thing I’d usually use to kick off any compilation. It is one of the few tracks here that recalls a specific memory outside of environment in which it was discovered: waiting for the train at Putney after bouldering at Urban Ascent (now The Climbing Hangar) in Parsons Green. At around 8 minutes and 45 seconds in, the shuffling deep-house of 'Montparnasse' sabotages itself. The drumbeat vanishes, the track plays out to an ambient, Orbital-esque kind of refrain, and then just stops. This is how I can get away with following it up with 'People of the Sticks' by Canadian band The Besnard Lakes. It all plays out like the beginning of a James Bond film. 'Montparnasse' scores the opening action sequence and 'People of the Sticks' is the official theme, whence the credits role. That’s not how I intended it; the analogy suggested itself after the fact.

The Besnard Lakes could be described as post-rock with a touch of shoegaze, and so too could 'Junebouvier' by Whirr, who hail from the San Francisco Bay Area. Their contribution to my playlist is more urgent, with the bass guitar playing a more integral part. Is this what the kids had been listening to since I’d been away? Were those in the know also digging the Soft Walls? Information was scarce. I wanted to buy their LP but couldn’t find it anywhere (No Time, released July 2014). The Soft Walls sound like what might have happened if the John Cale-era Velvet Underground had decamped to Marrakech with Brian Eno, although a simile like that can lead your imagination almost anywhere. There’s also a North-West African vibe going on in 'Sand Dance' by Temples, a band that could be more generally described as psychedelic. Listening to it now, the shift between these two songs is too abrupt for my liking. Parquet Courts’ 'Stoned and Starving' imagines what the Velvet Underground might have sounded like if they’d invited John Cale to contribute towards Loaded.

I’d not heard of any of these bands before, let alone the individual tracks, and was pleasantly surprised that music like this was being made. Not that I had my ear to the ground, but artists such as Alt-J, The War on Drugs and Warpaint were getting airplay, so why not Soft Walls?

I hadn’t purchased a Chain & The Gang record since 2009’s Down With Liberty… Up With Chains!. I’m not sure why but I only found out about 2011’s Music’s Not For Everyone a year or so after its release, whereas 2012’s In Cool Blood completely passed me by. Then in May 2014, Chain & The Gang played at The Dome in Tufnell Park (supported by Comet Gain) to promote the release of their latest album, Minimum Rock N Roll, which I subsequently purchased after the gig.

More Spotify. 'I Miss Your Bones' by New York band Hospitality sounds a bit like The Breeders, which is all you need to know. At work, once we’d had enough of Discover Weekly, members of staff would take it in turns playing their personal preferences. I took the opportunity to explore further the Unknown Mortal Orchestra and selected their track 'No Need for a Leader' for inclusion on this compilation.

'The Fat Lady of Limbourg' by Dirt Dress is a cover of a Brian Eno tune. I only became aware of this just now, literally before writing that last sentence, after rummaging around on the internet looking for something to say about Dirt Dress. There’s not much information out there, which suggests they’re no longer active, but their raucous take on 'The Fat Lady of Limbourg' is certainly equal to Eno’s slower, slightly sinister original.

Another contribution from the Soft Walls, and probably the better of the two, 'Won’t Remember My Name' sounds like The Jesus and Mary Chain reinterpreting 'All Tomorrow’s Parties' by the Velvet Underground, maybe off the back of a particularly heavy session.

Metronomy are on a bit of a downer too, but of a different kind. 'Why you giving me a hard time tonight?' asks the protagonist in 'The Upsetter', presumably to the object of his affection. I’m not sure of the song’s precise meaning but hearts have obviously been broken, as the wistful guitar solo that plays the song out attests.

'Passing Out Pieces' by Mac DeMarco is a weird tune. A discordant keyboard hammers out a discomfiting melody while Mac ponders the price of following his chosen profession. The video is even weirder. Mr Wilkinson and one our bouldering buddies (let's call him The Florist on account of his profession) went to see him play live, and they rated the experience very highly.

Parquet Courts again, except this time they’re referring to themselves as Parkay Quarts. Due to a combination of familial and scholarly commitments, the rhythm section didn’t contribute much to the album Content Nausea, which explains the nomenclatural reconfiguration. 'Pretty Machines' harks back to The Strokes at the start of their career, while again sounding a lot like Loaded-era Velvet Underground.

'John Brown' by Papercuts was released in 2007, which goes to show how Spotify’s Discover Weekly isn’t all to do with pushing new music onto the listener. I could have done with something like this in 2007 – indie-folk before it went mainstream. This also applies to 'Far from Any Road' by The Handsome Family, which dates back even further to 2003. I didn’t realise at the time, but the reason this song was probably doing the rounds was because it was being used as the theme song for HBO’s Gothic crime drama True Detective. It exhibits more of an alternative-country sound than the Papercuts’ track, but the terms ‘country’ and ‘folk’ are often interchangeable. 'Pulling on a Line' (2009) by Canadian folk rock band the Great Lake Swimmers occupies the same ballpark. You can see from this how Spotify does its business.

My enthusiasm for my place of work was already beginning to wane. The managing director, although a nice man, worried too much about things he needn’t have worried about, which meant I was kept on a tight leash. This is a common affliction among managers. They are control freaks by nature, and probably need to be. I also hadn’t taken a holiday in a long while, which was put right when I flew to Valencia with my partner for a long weekend towards the end of the summer, providing the perfect antidote to what would be the coolest August in 21 years, as well as one of the wettest.

This paled into insignificance when set against the grave illness of our friend from North Yorkshire. It didn’t end well – life is a seedy business at times. What can you do, other than manage one’s own sense of terror. Maybe that’s why I’m bothering to write any of this: to deny my mortality, or to overcome it – my own memento mori.

Divine Fits was the result of a collaboration between Britt Daniel from Spoon and Dan Boeckner from Wolf Parade that spawned 2012’s A Thing Called Divine Fits. 'Would That Not Be Nice' is a piece of slightly polished, slightly jagged alternative rock with a strong melody.

Femme (real name Laura Bettinson) released the single 'Fever Boy' in late 2013. I can’t understand why it wasn’t a massive hit. You might call it ‘alternative dance’, comparable to music made by people like M.I.A. and Santigold.

When Foster the People broke through with the single 'Pumped Up Kicks' in 2010-2011 I wasn’t impressed. I couldn’t stand the overly jolly bass line, nor the treatment of the lead vocal which had been synthesized in some way. For a while, I mistakenly thought the song was called Pumped Up Kids and that it related to children who were into bodybuilding. After realising my error I then assumed it to be about trainers. It kind of is, but not in a celebratory sense: it’s about kids wearing kicks having to run for their life from a psychotic adolescent carrying a gun. All this aside, 'Pseudologia Fantastica' is from the group’s second album, Supermodel, released in 2014, and has been described by one critic as ‘psychedelic dance-pop’ and by another as a ‘psychedelic, shoe-gazey wig-out’. You decide.

Beach Fossils were a band that I always intended to follow up on, but I never got around to it. Maybe I will now. The reason for this is that their song 'What a Pleasure' (taken from their 2011 EP What a Pleasure) reminded me of some of the bands signed to Sarah Records – The Springfields perhaps.

Released as a single in January 2014, 'Talking Backwards' by Real Estate also evokes the spirit of Sarah, but this time it’s the Field Mice that comes to mind. The Florist likes this song, and it makes me think of driving in his van back from Bermondsey after a session at the Biscuit Factory, or even down to Fontainebleau for a climbing holiday in 2015.

Valencia

Now for something altogether gloomier: 'Re. Stacks' by Bon Iver. All I knew regarding Bon Iver was that their principle songwriter, Justin Vernon, had a beard. That’s still pretty much all I know about them, which doesn’t in any way diminish my enthusiasm for 'Re. Stacks'. It concerns Vernon’s gambling habits, although the bigger picture is that he was also in the process of surmounting a number of personal obstacles. 'Re. Stacks' is a folkish sort of tune and so opens the door for 'Rocky Mountain High' by John Denver, even if it does come from a different mental place.

Did you know that in the USA there’s such a thing as state songs? Moreover, sometimes a state may have more than one, as is the case with Colorado, whose state songs are 'Where the Columbines Grow' by A J Fynn, and – you’ve guessed it – 'Rocky Mountain High' by John Denver. Under normal circumstances I might have drawn a line here and finished on a (Rocky Mountain) high, but Discover Weekly had other ideas.

'Hellhole Ratrace' by Girls would have made for a great climax. It’s a slow burner lasting all of 6 minutes and 56 seconds. The sucker punch comes at 3 minutes 45, where an electric guitar kicks in and singer Christopher Owens proceeds to plead the following lines four times over:

But I don't want to cry my whole life through,

Yeah I wanna do some laughing too,

So come on, come on, come on, come on and laugh with me.

And I don't want to die without shaking up a leg or two,

Yeah I wanna do some dancing too,

So come on, come on, come on, come on and dance with me.

It pains me to hear people say that they don’t like this or that song because they find it depressing. This sentiment will often be lazily directed towards artistes like The Smiths, R.E.M. or Leonard Cohen. What they really mean is that such music demands too much of their attention and that they can’t be bothered to listen to the actual words. All they’re reacting to are minor chords, a slower tempo, or a lugubrious vocal – the lyrical content could veritably be triumphalist.

I don’t know whether 'Winter Sundays' by Norwegian band Your Headlights are On is supposed to be sad or not, although you’d think so given the title. Whatever the sentiment, it is not depressing but a thing of beauty, and it's where I draw my line.

[Edit: Turns out that the lyrics to 'Winter Sundays' are based upon the poem Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden, which is indeed rather sad. It follows that the song is sad too, although by meddling with the final line the poem's actual meaning has been diminished.]

[Listen to here.]