Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.
𝙉𝙤 𝙋𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙 – 𝙆𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙠𝙞
Charles is the cat with one eye open…
Let’s clear this up, once and for all. Last week’s review. I received a barrage of messages, comments and posts about it, from the people who didn’t quite understand. I was informed that I had linked to the wrong song multiple times. That no matter how much they searched, they couldn’t find the song “Polar Foil”… On the flip-side, I had people telling me how much they liked the song… Lord knows how they heard it… Despite most of these confused people realising it was posted on April 1st, it still didn’t quite click for some. Every single part of the article was made up. There is no such song as Polar Foil. There is no such Amazon product as Polar Foil. There is no block of ice that melts in the form of a cold hourglass. Both Polar Foil and Lila Proof are anagrams of April Fool. And Lila’s single released next month was called Yam because it’s an anagram of May (next month’s month). The cat’s out of the bag. Some of you may think it a shame that I have now “explained the joke”. I know one artist who REALLY can’t stand that. But I thought it necessary for those who felt perhaps uncomfortably incomplete, or “left out of the loop”. The thing is, this was entirely my own imagination. A vivid imagination that is so natural to me that I almost started believing it. In fact, there were times when I truly forgot, and went to my phone to listen to ”again” to the track – quickly remembering (rather embarrassingly) that it never existed. I gather many of you were also a little let down as you really wanted to listen to it. It sounded like it might have been amazing, I admit. The thing is, you can still do this. Close your eyes and do what I did. Imagine. Make the piece of music in your head, based on what you’ve read. Imagination is an incredible thing. And I do believe that if your mind is free from worry, and if you allow yourself, imagination is literally limitless. It’s a conscious dream.
This novelistic mind of mine does make life a little more interesting. I dream in my waking life. But then again, I am perhaps a little different. I think I’ve always seen myself as a little different. This isn’t me saying I’m special in any way. It can have just as much negative as positive. But it did get me thinking… What is “normal”? Normal sounds dull. But normal is probably more to be thought of as usual; what one might expect of the average person. Artists are inherently weird. This is probably why I get on with so many of you. Weirdos tend to like weirdos. When I was younger, I would surround myself with like-minded individuals. It simply made sense, and I was very comfortable. But when forced to be around those different to me, I was immediately shut, and not myself. They sensed me being different, and there was some sort of ugly semi-translucent wall between me and them. They put it there. I was silently cast aside as a “stranger among these parts”. It was as if I had wandered into a tiny village on the Cornish coast, in 1900: “yerr naat fr’m roand ‘ere, are ye?”… A particularly unpleasant feeling. We who are cut from a different cloth have always been treated differently. Badly. But these days, it has supposedly all changed. Supposedly. These days there is so much in place for “the different ones”. We must care. We must help. We must segregate and over-enunciate as if said “unusual” is extremely stupid and extremely deaf. This is as pointless and rude as slowing down speech for a foreigner. It’s still foreign to them, no matter how slow you speak! So I wonder, although these days we “care” for the unusuals, do we REALLY care…? It’s exactly like how businesses are forced to sign a “duty of care” clause in each staff member’s contract. “We are forced to care, and this contract proves it”… Oh, can ya feel the love!! Can ya feel the warm hand on your shoulder? Can ya feel the soft spoken concern through the honesty of a bright blue eye…? No. DUTY OF CARE!!!! It’s a modern tick-box! That’s what everything is these days. A tick-box. Nothing’s changed. Caring cannot be forced. Care needs to come from the heart. “Duty” is positively military!
So now let’s look at people with real problems. Ones who have genuine mental problems (no, stress does not count). This could range from a moderate or extreme case of autism, to flat-out incapacity. We care, do we? Well, if the relation who pays is rich enough, then money can buy the most realistic form of care… But most people cannot afford such luxury. Okay – let me rephrase. WE care, if the unusual is dear to us, but what about the random people whose job it is to look after said unusual…? They won’t care. Why SHOULD they? They don’t know the person. It’s a job to them. Of course, there are the few saints milling about, but we know that’s rare. The same doesn’t just go for unusuals, but also old people. Stick ‘em in a home… Not the kindest of things. But sometimes it’s necessary. The sad thing is, although they will be free from harm, they will be free from freedom. It will be like a wallpapered prison with a blue wipe-clean sofa that creaks with every hold of the breath. Why DO we hold our breath when we go to sit down…? Probably for the same reason that we hold our breath when we pick up something heavy… So, this “safe-place” has rules and regulations. Ah, just like home. Or not. No leaving the premises after 5pm (if you’re allowed out at all). No visitors before or after visiting hours. No sharp objects. No clothing made from natural materials (as other members might have allergies or different moral standings). No drugs other than those prescribed by the establishment (completely cutting out your usual heroin habit of a teatime). And heaven forbid you strike a match to light some tobacco – that’s tantamount to murder these days! And of course, the classic: No Pets Allowed. Yet little Alfred the pooch is all they’ve got to keep them sane. You take away Alfred, and what have they got?? Bad bones and good memories (those that still remain, anyway). Without true care, there is loss upon loss, and a great deal of sitting. In the outside world they were missing what we all take for granted. On the inside world, they are refused all that is left. Well THIS is a cheery piece! Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I feel like some workers in these establishments can actually be quite cruel. That behind closed doors they make fun of the patients (they’re patients, not people). That they would call them names and even do impressions of them (not fond ones). That they would switch patients’ medication for a day because they thought it would be funny. And those rules…? Pure sadism. A sort of revenge for a crime that has yet to take place. So yeah… Probably my imagination. Oh wait, various places funded by the NHS have had far worse. And to think we stood in the street and clapped for them every Thursday at 8pm for ten weeks… This country was never so embarrassing as that weekly moment.
Speaking of cattle, this week’s pick is a dear friend of mine. And no, I am not biased (probably biased). He simply makes fabulous music. His real name is irrelevant right now, but you know him as Kaminski. The reason I have decided his name is irrelevant, is that I think he has now surpassed the state of “usual human”. Unusual, he certainly is, but I feel he is now on another level. Rarely is an artist this consistent and this unique. And for that reason, I would rather refer to him by his artist name rather than the name by which he was born. We mere mortals can only dream of such an elevated state. And no, I am not going over the top. This is no exaggeration. Simply put, Kaminski is the greatest independent artist I have ever heard. But it goes far beyond that of hearing. It is the person that makes the music. The person making it should be just as important as the music itself. Which made me wonder when I was putting together last week’s hoax. Initially I tried ChatGPT – HAL (A.I.) – for the first time. I thought the hoax could be that the article was actually written by a robot pretending to be me. The thing is, once I had tried it, I realised how incredibly DULL it was! It was full of “how these things are usually written”. It was also so up its own arse – for want of a better phrase. Furthermore, it was suspiciously in the style of SO MANY of the comments I receive every week (HINT, HINT – STOP USING A.I. TO WRITE COMMENTS ON AN ARTICLE YOU NEVER READ!!!!! – not that they’ll read this). But mainly, it was just terrible at being me. You see, the person was missing. The experience EYE have experienced in all my years was not there. It was superficially friendly, yet so peculiarly distant. A little like those “carers”. And so, the person is everything. There is no point in art if it is not created by a human. That is the literal definition of art – it has to be created by a human. Art is all about connection (and beauty, and emotion). So how are we to connect with zeros and ones? I am not a number, I am a free man!! – extra points for those who got that reference. Anyway, THIS is why Kaminski means so much to me. But I am ALWAYS honest about the music, and if he were to make a dud (HAH!), I would not review it. No Pets Allowed (his brand new single, and first release since September), is not a dud. It is a bud, timelapsed to perfection (you know how the Attenborough team does it). You’ll hear it bloom within moments.
Kaminski is that very artist who can’t stand jokes being explained, by the way. Probably why I explained the joke – to annoy him. Don’t worry, we get on very well. My God – Kaminski is literally a god of mine. Okay, not literally. But then again, what is a literal god…? One you can see and touch? No. And this “god” I can’t see or touch either. The North Sea hinders this. But I can listen… I sit here, admiring, saluting, doffing and donning my hat repeatedly to this brilliant man. I almost YEARN for the day when he makes an “okay” track, if only to prove that he is human. But the good news is, I KNOW he’s human, and it doesn’t need a dud to prove it. Which relieves me, because I actually don’t want him to ever release a dud. Duds are for suckers, and Kaminski ain’t no sucker. Born to be an artist, art flows through him like warm electricity. Actually, it’s more like the roots of a tree, burrowing deeper as he himself grows taller. That’s TWO tautologies! He is effortlessly cementing himself in the annals of this Earth. There is music, and then there is art. We never quite know what we’re going to be given in the next instalment of Kam-Kam (don’t call him that).
No Pets Allowed is visceral. His sound may be bold, but his heart remains sensitive for all to encounter. Fragility is key to this piece. Honest fragility. Despite the very opening being uncannily similar to Dom Piper’s Fastnet (the most underrated song on the New Artist Spotlight) – even in the same key – it is a vastly different song. Soft, distorted synths (and maybe guitars) wash over like breezy ripples. A gentle piano soothes like the night moon. A shaker’s echo holds you back from easy slumber. An isolated military bass drum silences the synths as a reminder that this is indeed a record. An unusual instrument choice of the ukulele stands tall (no mean feat for its notoriously short stature) – it is like we have retreated to the beach hut as the coast was getting a little nippy – the previous instruments are left behind. At first I had mistaken the ukulele for a classical guitar – probably because the ukulele doesn’t normally sound this sombre and emotive. It’s normally just mundanely strummed like an advert for Febreze – all twee and sickening. You probably won’t be fixated on the ukulele like weirdo me, because this is exactly the point where Kaminski starts singing. Now, THIS you will latch on to. “About the coffee I dropped, dreams that were mocked…” – that’s the first line. Now honestly, besides young Kam-Kam (don’t call him that), do you know anyone who could even conceive of such an initial line?? And not in their native language!! But instantly we are put in the place of a fragile mind. A soul unable to speak or argue, or even quite comprehend what is going on. The “unusual” made an innocent mistake, but their only companion is a mocking bird. Despite the beauty of this song, it is so cruel. So hopeless. And yet so real – it hits hard. Hard to the point that I am in my usual state when listening to Kaminski’s records: in tears. But this isn’t mere sadness. Not at all. Crying doesn’t have to mean sadness. It means emotion. People cry at weddings (that in itself sounds like a Kaminski song title). They might cry, but they are far from sadness. Tears are very often a feeling of overwhelming. And when I listen to this man’s music, I am overwhelmed: in a good way. Much music is plain. You might enjoy it, you might not; but rarely does it do THIS. And it is THIS that art is supposed to do to us. It is supposed to move us. To take us to a different place for a few minutes (and often beyond). Let’s presume though, that you are not into alternative music, and instead tend to go for electronic music. When the bass drops, are you telling me you have never felt a rush similar to your usual cocaine habit of a lunchtime…? You see, it happens with all kinds of music, as long as it is of the highest quality, and is the right kind for you.
And despite all these words, I have only given you the vibe of the song’s first half! At exactly the halfway mark, No Pets Allowed changes. You know I like that. It goes from hopelessly hopeful, to submission and surrender; Kaminski concedes. Eventually, it goes downright dark and evil. It is a taunt of the third degree. Sick in the greatest way possible. The sadists won. We are such stuff as films are made on (more extra points if you get the reference). Hollywood: grow up, pay attention and listen. This is too good for Netflix. It is clear that Kaminski is a true master in his field, but what is clearer is that he owns the land.
I’m off to feed Alfred his usual ketamine habit of a dinnertime before they take me away. Huh, why DO we hold our breath when standing up…?
Listen to 𝙉𝙤 𝙋𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙 on the 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 Spotify playlist HERE!
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