Month: September 2015

New Music : September 2015

September was a month where I spent a lot of time at work and not a lot of time listening to music. Many evenings I found myself listening to Max Richter’s From Sleep as a way of winding down from a long and busy day, but I also watched a lot of TV (Lie to Me and a fair bit of sport), and well as being pleasantly surprised by New Order’s new record which arrived right at the end of the month. I think this review sums up my thoughts fairly well. The rest of these I’ve listened to a few times whilst commuting, but have not spent the time with them that I would have liked.

Widowspeak – All Yours
Max Richter – From Sleep
Royal Headache – High
Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There
Beirut – No No No
Ben Folds – So There
Chvrches – Every Open Eye
New Order – Music Complete
Ought – Sun Coming Down
The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die – Harmlessness

Downtime

I’m particularly busy right now. It’s traditionally my busiest time of the year anyway, but it also seems like every project I’m working on is at a stage where it could easily become a full time job. I’m very conscious of this though, and I try and make sure that when I do get a whole day off then I do as little as possible to ensure I recharge my batteries.

As people who know me well will attest, I’m terrible at doing nothing. And so when I have one of these days where my calendar is empty then the best I can hope for is to spend my time doing things I wouldn’t normally have time for.

So far today I’ve watched a football match on TV (Everton’s demolition of Chelsea), read two books (Paul Auster’s Invisible and Neil Gaiman’s script for Day of the Dead), started a third book (Neil Gaiman’s Adventures in the Dream Trade), and eaten some very tasty Indian food. I’ve also listened a a few records, as well as Beirut’s new album on Spotify. I’ve also done a little editing on a very long blog post that will be going out soon, and am now sitting in my study writing this before I settle down in front of the TV with a large G&T and a small dog.

This is probably the least I’ve done in a single day for a few weeks, and it’s certainly the least I’ll do for a few weeks following this weekend. But I know that September is generally a month where I have to pretend to be an extrovert more often than usual, and so when I do get some downtime then I need to make sure I’m sensible about spending my time doing things that actually make me feel better.