FUN FACT: The original deadline for this series was December 2017. It’s harder than it looks.
21. The Nasty Side – The Reegs: Sometimes you come across a track on a mixtape (aka Mediafire link, ‘sup 2010!) composed of nothing but obscurities and you find yourself deliberating the eternal question: ‘How does no one else know this???’
The situation only becomes more baffling when you consider that this particular obscurity was born from the ashes (shreds, rather) of a band known and loved by everyone, without exception – The Chameleons. The Reegs is that band and ‘The Nasty Side’ is proof that we live in a paradoxical parallel universe where sublimity wanders, alone and unheard, into oblivion. I’m just grateful it stopped to pay me a visit.
22. As I Walk Away – Yuck: Yuck is my shoegaze equivalent of casual gaming – I enjoy them immensely but I listen to them absent-mindedly, letting album after album flow over me without taking the time out to stop and identify individual tracks.
Then I heard ‘As I Walk Away’ and was convinced that Winamp (!) was done with the album and had skipped over to an unheard treasure in my music library. I was wrong. On this fateful day, I realised that Yuck was not a single band, but a portal to a sonic multiverse – or a biverse at the very least. I could listen to ‘As I Walk Away’ indefinitely and it would still stop me in my tracks every time.
23. Destinos – Have A Nice Life: I confess, I am not an OG Have A Nice Life fan because my first taste of the group was Voids – the informally released collection of demos and unreleased tracks from their magnum opus Deathconsciousness.
I have no recollection of what I knew of HANL or even life itself before I heard ‘Destinos’ – a track so strong, so vivid, you can see it, feel its weight throbbing in your chest. ‘Destinos’ is the last track on Voids and has no counterpart on Deathconsciousness, which makes perfect sense given that the track – dark, heavy and soaked in a meaning none of us can comprehend – is an album all by itself: a palate cleanser at the end of Voids, overpowering any memories of what you heard before and leaving you with echoes of itself.
24. Maggie Says I Love You – No Joy: We don’t really have the kind of summer here in New Delhi that this song evokes. It’s undeniably geographic. I can tell you right off that it sounds like a California summer; despite the harsh realities of: 1) never having been and having no desire to go to California; 2) knowing a summer more akin to the fires of hell than the mellow haze ‘Maggie Says… ‘makes me imagine. Still, I maintain this to be an accurate description of the track in question, even in the face of the harshest reality of them all: 3) No Joy are Canadian.
25. Sunbeam – A Place To Bury Strangers: I used to listen to this track in the park in the evening on my way home from work. I’d take a break between trams to escape the peak hour rush and the crowds it brings, to sit under a tree with ‘Sunbeam’ watching time crawling over us.