It’s Edition 13 of Laughing Stock, welcome to our self indulgent review of first half of 2021, where Connah Roberts and Rich Walker muse on their highlights so far.
As the dust settles on your microfibre cloth and you click the screen unlock, we are asleep and thinking about love and this and that. It’s been over a year and half now since we launched this beautiful newsletter and we couldn’t have done it without you. You have made this happen. You have kept us wanting to continue, to struggle on. It’s actually ended the friendship of those that run it but there are over 15k of you subscribed on this magical trip to getting things wrong, constantly. Anyway, we thought it only right to give you something. Something to believe in. No, not Lukeunabomber’s Instagram account. No, not The Shakespere on Bethnal Green Road which serves Guinness at £3.70 (fucking London prices). No, not tell you to never go to Nordie in Levenshulme (ooer) but go the Fiddler’s instead. And no, not tell you that The Belle Vale Shoppie still has a weighing machine facing Sayers. We’re here to tell you some albums and songs and things we’ve enjoyed listening to through the first half of 2021. Lock in, load up and let go.
Connah Roberts
If you cast your mind back to the lockdown at the early part of this year, it was bleak. Dark, cold endless days of sitting alone with no one to speak to. Just as that moment arrived, so too did a new Abul Mogard album. It forced me to write a piece about him and seemed to capture what it was like looking out the window, seeing nothing in the streets, knowing nothing was going on.
There’s still a longing for clubs to reopen. Albeit in the right environment and not in the way Judge Jules calls for. Caterina Barbieri's album in 2019 was great. Early this year, remixes were released and within them is a four minute eclipse of life on a cloud of magic dust. Enjoy.
Tirzah’s returned this year. Out from bits and bobs. Love and loss. Still hasn’t made the beammeupsoftboi page which surprises me every minute of the day. But she’s anthem for softbois.
Safe Trip has been one of my favourite record labels since it launched. Honestly, keep your eyes peeled for whatever they release. It’s run by Young Marco out of Amsterdam. It captures this zeitgeist going on with the return of trance; of Gen Z wearing baggy clothes and dressing like Paul Danan on whizz in some West End Club. Love Stimulation is a track off the collection of 90s dance songs they have reissued. It kicks and kicks and kicks and kicks…
I travelled to the moon in the second May bank holiday of 2021. Well, actually, I was in Llangollen. Say no more. It was the first time I’d been in a car on a long trip in well over a year and during the journey it was good to feel the open road while listening to music. Coming down and up back to Manchester in the haze of the sun, drinking Aldi’s spritz in a can and gin and tonic. This came on. I was no longer on the moon, I was no longer in Llangollen. I was, in fact, sitting outside McDonalds in Warrington.
What does it mean to own your own home? Is our whole working life based around the idea of working in order to pay a mortgage for us to then live payment free and retire, passing on the asset to offspring? What if housing was a right and not a commodity; how would this change class structures, working hierarchies and communities? So many questions, so few answers. If wanting more, this is good to listen: the global housing and home ownership myth
I’m unsure whether Laurel Halo is getting the credit she deserves. I can’t really answer that. How do you measure it? Halo’s 2018 release on Latency is a classic. Could well be my must played EP in times of need. Continuing on Latency, Halo has remixed a Lafawndah track. The more I am listening to it, the better it gets.
There is much writing from northern lads about missing home when living down south. Check this Twitter thread as an example. I too have been thinking a lot about it. Roy, a writer and speaker (like when centrists and Tories start doing speeches at terrible events), has been a great home away from home while living far from home. He seems to get it completely, understanding the stories and people that make Liverpool what it is. Getting dragged to Alma de Cuba with nutcases. He’s alright…
A great album that is only available online. Travel through space, here’s to the new normal and future.
Half Time 2021: The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, by Rich Walker
Who runs the world? So far this year it’s been Cassandra Jenkins, Katy Kirby, Lael Neale, Megan Thee Stallion, St Vincent, Dawn Richard, The Weather Station, Jazmine Sullivan, Japanese Breakfast, Lucy Dacus. Think all the singing dudes have retired, there’s no point in them any more.
It’s just Tyler’s world and we are privileged to be living in it. Who else puts this much art and sweat into a 2 minute TV performance? CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST is a late half year masterpiece. Fucking Tyler man. Wow.
Does Alessio Natalizia, aka Not Waving, ever sleep? He’s released two stellar albums already this year, the gorgeous ambient Eyes of Fate alongside Romance, and the career defining solo opus How To Leave Your Body. Wouldn’t surprise me if there were two more on the way before New Year's Eve hits.
I AM INVISIBLE IN THESE SUNGLASSES; I’M A MODERN SCOTT WALKER
THE EGGS, THEY ARE CHEAPER, THE DAY, AFTER EASTER
SLOWLY IT FALLS AND SLOWLY IT DIES; SLOWLY IT CRUMBLES RIGHT UNDER MY EYES
The new weird finally took over the UK band scene, and lo, Idles did shit themselves.
February. The world had gone to shit. Daily walks were my saviour. The sound of a decaying society my soundtrack. Something comforting about feeling The Body’s I’ve Seen All I Need To See’s ferocious noise reverberate through my entire being, the terryfying soundscapes and agonising yelps perfectly complimenting the vista of part time zombie walkers. It won’t always be this way.
EPs are perfect aren’t they? Some of the best Producers and DJs in the game dropping 20-30 mins of pure ‘this is what I’m feeling right now’. 2021 has been an absolute EP fest so far feat. the likes of Blawan (x2), Giant Swan, Baltra, Beneath (reviving the Hemlock label in the process), India Jordan, Kessler, and ZULI. Long live the EP, the perfect music format.
One of the defining moments of a 60% Polish vodka fuelled Unsound in 2019 was wandering into the tiled room we’d christened ‘the abattoir’ and seeing a then unknown to me 33EMYBW playing a clattering, chaotic, joyful noise of a set that seemed to exactly mirror the effect the vodka was having on my brain. She’s part of the Shanghai label SVBKVLT who released their new comp Cache 02 this year, full of similarly chaotically experimental bangers from the likes of MUN SING and Tzusing, all new to me, all living rent free on various playlists now.
Joy Orbison’s continuing excellence on Radio 1 is a, er, joy to behold. His Residency shows are essential listening, a treasure trove of cutting edge music discovery. Whether he’s reminiscing with Floating Points and Ben UFO about Plastic People, or introducing you to a drill collective from North Manchester, it’s a thrilling education. If there’s a song you’ve not heard on a playlist from me, I’ve stolen it from Joy-O. Thanks son.
I am paranoid about my hearing. Years of gig going and club nights have reduced my hearing capacity in a slightly concerning fashion, so naturally I connected with the exceptional Sound of Metal, where Riz Ahmed’s nihalistic metal drummer loses his hearing suddenly, and in the process loses/finds himself. Spent the next week tuning into my tinnitus in a regretful fashion. Wear earplugs kids.
Something missing from the year so far is a defining pop album in the vein of Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, or Gaga’s Chromatica from last year. This is reflected in the lack of a definitive ‘song of the summer’ (check out Daft Punk’s Get Lucky, etc). No one has really made a statement move in the first half of the year, but there’s plenty of potential coming up in the shape of Lorde, Drake, SZA, maybe a reunited Timberlake and Timberland, and of course perpetual rumours of the glorious un-retirement of Rihanna. We can but dream.
Here’s to the back end of 2021 providing us with a simialr treasure trove of ‘content’. Much of what we have discussed here can be found in our ever evolving playlists below. Thank you for reading x