Ah, Things of the Year. The annual post in which no-one except Nina looks at what my year was musically (and sometimes footyingly) tied to as it happened. Not necessarily my favourite stuff of the year, but what will me remind of a year that I entered more optimistically than any other, but turned out to be very different.
Most of the hollow nights I had after unfulfilling and frustrating days this year ended with this playing whilst I went to sleep. The title track (#8) is particularly devastating and would be my Song of the Year if such a silly award existed. It starts at around 28.22.
I knew something was up, and listening to this song was one of the main things that made me realise that.
A final fling before Lithium's introduction - a trip with Mum and Dad to Vietnam and Cambodia, which was my very belated debut overseas trip. I count Charli XCX as an influence on my newer Sissysocks stuff, Sky Ferreira too (both of their albums were produced by Ariel Rechtshaid).
A winter with moments that were frankly encouraging and harrowing moves into Spring (and finals time, of course).
Grand Final Week Song #1. Getting used to driving around now that my parents had left and I had the car, listening to SEN 1116 because it was September otherwise it was this record.
Grand Final Week Song #2. The last song I listened to on the Friday night before Grand Final Day. This day was a bleak spring day.
Driving around as a near 25-and-a-half year old feeling like fucking garbage, and knowing that I'll feel like that again, compounded by listening to a teenager getting things right.
As I said, if I had to have a personal song of the year it would be the title track from Grouper's The Man Who Died In His Boat, but this would be second. Sad, reflective, mobilising.
I ended up listening repeatedly to Charli XCX and Sky Ferreira's respective new records over my two overseas trips. An appropriate way to finish a fickle, upsetting and difficult year.
