S Bourke

Thank goodness a new writer has written a novel that can be transported around in the way a paperback should be carried, was always carried in my youth, in the back pocket of my jeans. When it arrived this morning I thought great, it covers an Indian Summer, a chapter for each month;- I'll read it over four days. However by the time I read ‘June’ I couldn't put it down so I made myself a treble espresso put on a playlist of Small Faces, The Who and, in honour of the secondary, my favourite, character Dex, some Velvet Underground and read it in one sitting. It seemed only polite. Rob takes us back 40 years to the early 1980s, to the world of his protagonist Artie who in turn is looking back 15-20 years to a idealistic modernist existence of the 1960s. Artie’s stomp through his summer is one mixtape of stream of consciousness, daydreaming and events leading to his night out and the weekend. He and his little suburban crew create a world where the soundtrack is Hammond, Soul, funk or the buzz of garage band guitar. Their style is button down sta-prest shirts and desert boots. So much so I was taken back when he went on one of the necessary trips to the job centre and talks of the millions unemployed reminding us that Artie and co are youth of the 1980s. Artie mainly spends his time in suburbia overlooked by a ‘Girl watching from the billboard with summer tops all styles’ like some kind of C&A Dr. T.J. Eckleburg glaring at Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. The suburbs that Artie comes from could be any place sitting on the outreaches of the Capital but the London Artie travels to in August is real. I was reminded of a story I once read of a young Paul Weller travelling up from Woking with a tape recorder, not to play music on, but just to record the beat of the city, it's traffic , people and music. The punctuation of this novel is punchy, the small sentences, Rob prefers a full stop to a comma and clearly has distaste for the inverted comma, bang out a rhythm of their own. The style works and keeps you nodding your head to every sentence not wanting the rhythm to stop. This is a great read, beat and Mod in every way with a little nod to post modernism “Maybe I'm in a novel as well” thinks Artie. What happens after? Does Artie ever escape suburbia? Is Dex in New York? Where are The Princess and Cindy? Maybe none of that matters, we live with Artie in the now. “Can you feel the now?” Steve Bourke .

If you cannot go witness a performance with Erland and the Scottish Ensemble of Folded Landscapes then fear not, the album delivers. It is both a beautiful and dramatically impacting audio experience. If you are streaming do remember to turn off shuffle as its series of movements flow one into the other. The string arrangements evoke an emotional response to each landscape, its beauty, geology and alarming temperature, the occasional use of soprano;- spine tingling chilling. The use of low-fi sampling only serves to enhance the beauty and drama. l love to hear the click of clunky buttons as each sound is introduced and the strings working frantically to keep time with the big reels when they are pressed to rewind. The poetry has a message but it's lyricism and tempo takes precedence and so feels incorporated. However if your preference is for the chamber ensemble straight up the album repeats each piece as pure instrumental. Stephen Bourke.