Connolly’s Corner

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.

𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘽𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙨 – 𝙊𝙜𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙮𝙨𝙩, 𝘼𝙡𝙮𝙨𝙨𝙖 𝙍𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙃𝙪𝙣𝙩, 𝙎𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙨 & 𝙎𝙢𝙤𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙨𝙖𝙮𝙡𝙞𝙣

Charles blooms and realises flower power…

As the world gets increasingly machine-driven and automatic, one must occasionally “peace-out” and remind oneself of how it all started. In nature. Before a time when man realised that nature was a force to be reckoned with, and that – feeling the challenge – man would do its utmost to conquer and overthrow it. Luckily however, nature is unstoppable. The phrase “let nature take its course” conjures winding twine and vine grappling everything in its path, finding the shortest route to the finish line. Nothing will get in the way of this slender rope. I have recently finished watching the latest David Attenborough series: The Green Planet. Having adored almost everything he and his team have produced in the last 25 years, I was very much looking forward to this most recent wonder-series. For anyone unfamiliar with Attenborough (is there anyone?), he makes the natural world absolutely captivating and awe-inspiring to anyone who hasn’t the slightest inclination towards that kind of thing. Simply put, the target audience is everyone in the world. Attenborough really is Mother Nature’s Son. He has seemingly covered almost every existing living creature known to man – including some that he and his team have discovered for the first time. We have swum through seas and oceans. We have trekked through deserts and dunes. We have been scorched by the sun and drenched by the rain. We have travelled every corner of the globe (if the globe has corners). So what left was there to talk about…? Was there anything still uncovered…? Well it turned out there was. Plants.

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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.

𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 – 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙮

Charles writes about everything and nothing for an entire century…

It all started in a red Mercedes with Veronica. This was to be my legacy. Merhabalar (hello, how are you) seemed like a good way to start, as I didn’t want to seem blue over you – at least not so soon. Another week, another story. If I wrote about love, I’d hear you plead “don’t break my heart” – as if I would do such a thing. But hold on, if I were to see my lover again, my dreams of another summer of romance would come true. If Xaligha is the demon of dissonance then I am to be the arrow of love. Never mind the colour of my panties, or whatever I choose to write about that week, just hold me. Hold my hand as I walk deep into my very own dungeon – we’re like family now, no? Again and again, every week I write like a groundhog may or may not, as I attempt to create a capricho Árabe – an Arabic style of architectural fantasy. But as that’s something I don’t know about, I might not always succeed. Some weeks you may open up the pages and wish for me to stop, but I keep holding on to my position with pride and with blind ego. Maybe that’s a mistake on my part – cue the Boo-Boo song…! Or maybe I should get a little tipsy, forget all my troubles and play the Birthday song. Another year, another birthday. You can’t stop time, but time allows you to think. It makes me think about all the artists I have reviewed, met and known through the New Artist Spotlight. And truly, you’re in my blood, all of you.

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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.

𝙈𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙨 – 𝘼𝙧𝙣𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙤’𝙨 𝙇𝙞𝙯𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙨

Charles has a birthday – of sorts – and so will blether on even longer than usual.

We all have a birthday. It is something we ALL have in common, bar none. But how many of you can boast two…? Aside from the Queen, of course… Would it surprise you to learn that I have two? Yes indeedy. Well okay, this isn’t exactly true. Today marks a rather special occasion. My 50th review! All right then: more of a landmark figure. But wait, there’s more. Due to a little break we all had from the internet at Christmas and New Year, this actually marks the one year anniversary of Connolly’s Corner, despite this not being number 52. And so lies the reason I have two birthdays. Okay, fine, I have one birthday. But you get my point. I cannot imagine how many words I’ve written, but certainly more than enough to fill the largest pamphlet ever known to man. ‘Pamphlet’ is, and will always be a very silly word indeed. “I’ve got to see the doctor about my pamphlet”, “Our special of the day is a delectable side of roast pamphlet”, “Two squirts of our patented spray is enough to get rid of the pamphlet growing on your shower curtain”, “The Impossible Case of Mr. Pamphlet”… And so you have seen the kind of nonsense with which I fill these reviews, week in, week out. Maybe a somewhat individual and possibly ridiculous way of writing about music, but nevertheless, to quote Sinatra, “I did it My Way”.

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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.

𝘽𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙩 – 𝙎𝙢𝙤𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙨𝙖𝙮𝙡𝙞𝙣, 𝙀𝙡𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙈𝙚𝙡𝙤𝙙𝙮, 𝙈𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙎𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨

Charles struggles to drive home the point…

Getting around town is something that we do because we have to. Less so these days for obvious reasons, but inevitably we’ll get back into the swing of movement. If we can remember how it goes. Almost my complete and utter life at the moment is conducted at home. I barely leave the house. Everything I need is here, and I have no major reasons to really go anywhere. At the moment. I must stress this lack of motion being temporary because I have very much not always been like this. I used to have a normal job and have to go there daily. Like normal people. But things are different now. I sit, and sit some more. Not exactly healthy, I grant you. But it has its benefits. Call it bittersweet.

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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.

𝘼.𝙄. 𝙅𝙚𝙨𝙪𝙨 – 𝙆𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙠𝙞

Charles pretends to be intelligent…

I told myself I wouldn’t do this. I thought it would be unlikely that I ever write this piece. I have hinted at it in the past, I have mentioned it in passing in the odd article over the weeks and months, but I never thought I would cover it fully. However, as time goes on, I increasingly receive messages and comments strongly urging me to write about it. And my passion and emotion on the subject has become too strong to ignore. I will finally speak my thoughts on A.I. You asked for it! “A.I.” is very annoying to write. I don’t want to write A.I. without the dots, as it reminds me of Al Green, Al Di Meola and Al Jolson. Lowercase just makes it look like the sound you make when you stub your toe. Putting in the dots wreaks havoc on my obsession with punctuation. I need for a “full stop” to be a full stop, followed by a space, followed by a capital letter. Call it period pains. Because of this, from now on I will refer to A.I. as HAL. If you don’t know why, just go back 23 years.

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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.

𝘼 𝙇𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙊𝙙𝙙 – 𝘿𝙤𝙢 𝙋𝙞𝙥𝙚𝙧

Charles is feeling a little queer, as it were…

This may upset or offend some readers of faith. No particular faith. If you think you might be one of these people, it may be best to skip this one. Trigger warning over, now let’s commence.

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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.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙚 𝙈𝙪𝙨𝙚 – 𝙐𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙖 𝙁𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙖, 𝙇𝙤𝙫𝘼𝙣𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚, 𝙋𝙚𝙩𝙚 𝙍𝙖𝙬𝙘𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚

Charles goes to infinity and beyond…

Things are not working. The system is broken. What was once a perfectly planned, sculpted landscape with each piece linking into place like a Da Vinci sketch, it is now fraying fast, and falling apart like a moth-ravaged wool rug. People understood the way the world worked. People knew how to live life. Governments governed and industries boomed. This was progress. The world was beautiful and forward-thinking, whilst never ceasing to enjoy the current era. The sun now bakes the land and forces entire populations to migrate and bustle shoulder to shoulder in a more coveted, cooler land. Cooler, for now. There is no sign of an end to war, and money rules more than ever before. Money used to be power, but now money is ultimate power. Whole industries are withering before our very eyes, and the times they are a-changin’. But the change is far too fast. It is not thought out. It is not considered. It is flung through the lawyers’ checklists and banged out like cheap mass-produced Chinese technology. And like the cheap tech, it doesn’t work. To force change so rapidly is to cause chaos and confusion. Economies are as erratic as modern weather, and people are not happy and not comfortable. We are all hot and bothered. So what can we do…?

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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.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙂𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝘼𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 (𝘼𝙩𝙡𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙀𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝 𝙍𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙭) – 𝙆𝙚𝙡𝙚 𝙁𝙡𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝘼𝙩𝙡𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙀𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝

Charles pulls the plug in order to…

Progress, is a noun that has a sense of the positive. It suggests “onward and upward”. Progress, is a word that has been bandied about for decades. Maybe even centuries. It was a buzz word long before “diversity”, “pro-active”, “woke”, and indeed “buzz word”. In this sense, we progress, right? We get better, no? Well, I feel the word’s meaning is usually more legend than reality. An illusion. I feel that “progress” is more a synonym for “change”. Supposedly, progress is for the better, but so often it doesn’t quite feel like this. Change, makes it rather more difficult to compare the old with the new, because it is simply different. So our moral-driven minds assume that change must be a good thing and that therefore “change” must be progress, right? Well, sometimes. But more often than not, it is not.

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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.

𝘼𝙗𝙮𝙨𝙨 – 𝙈𝙚𝙧𝙘𝙪𝙧𝙮 𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙧𝙤𝙥

Charles journeys down into the abyss. As ya do.

Enough of lighter times and better days. Let us curl up into a tight quaking ball, and roll into the deep.

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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.

𝘼𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 – 𝙋𝙊𝙇

Charles plays with words…

A couple of weeks ago I went into the idea of the enigma, and whether it is always a good idea to solve them. Well, here’s something a little more accessible to most of us, and certainly something where the goal IS to find the answer. Word games. We have all at one time or another played word games of a sort. Whether it be the humble and utterly pointless “word search”, or perhaps something a little more taxing like anagrams, I believe there truly is something for everyone. My father, for example, completes The Times Crossword on a daily basis since his 20s. As WE are munching through a bowl of cereal in the morning, there HE is, eating words for breakfast. I count my own wordy pastime as being these very reviews. You may think of this as not really being much of a puzzle, but if you think about it, I have all these words in my head: I just have to select the appropriate ones and put them in the right order. This is the tricky part. Lucky for me, though, there is no “one answer”. Just like in music: there is no definite good or definite bad. No definite right or definite wrong. But speaking of definite rights in music, let’s (once again!) take our good old friends, Joan, Pol, Stodge and Wrongo. The group’s very name was a play on words. Or on word, anyway. “It’s Beetles with an A”, said Joan. emphasising the “Beat”, as it were. Hilarious! Well, not hilarious. Pretty darned awful, if you ask me. But luckily their music turned out to be pretty darned good, so the name was hardly important by this point. The Who? A splendid little cleverity. The Rolling Stones? Poetically justified. Coldplay? Well, I get the feeling they hadn’t read the instructions, meant to come back later and finish it, but never did. And then there’s U2. There’s always someone who goes too far and spoils the party. Thank you, Bono. Words form our entire existence as humans, but few use them further than a means of conversation. How’s about a little less conversation: a little more action, please. We can hide things in the context of words. We can make fun things funner! Words are most of wit, for me. If a word is just a word, it doesn’t exactly excite, inspire or intrigue. But sometimes even just an innocent word can take on a new personality if viewed in a different way. Take the verb “Understand”, for example. Now split it in two. We have “under”, we have “stand”. Now think literally. When our legs are straight and in a vertical position, we are standing. What is under that? The floor. To floor someone, is to amaze and render them speechless. So the next time someone explains something wildly complicated, followed by “Understand?”, you can simply reply “Understood.”, despite not having comprehended a single syllable. But they have indeed floored you. Understand? No, I thought not. I will dribble on, regardless.

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