Spin with me: How I met Peripheral Vision

I dont even know why I bother to keep up with new music when:

a) it’s impossible

b) we all know I’m going to miss out on whatever’s really meaningful because:

• it’ll be drowned in the infinite deluge of daily new releases
• my desperate yet passive listening habits mean I’ll blank on it even if it does find its way to my headphones.

Despite the hopelessness of the situation, I do keep a tiny, irregularly updated, and frequently overlooked list of bands/tracks that have caught my attention. It’s a list written on actual paper and therefore prone to the vagaries of the physical world eg. spilled cups of milky tea, inkstains, and general wear and tear from natural forces of erosion.

One of the tracks written on this loved-but-not-consulted scrap of paper is ‘Diazepam’ by Turnover – a song I heard more than once on DKFM, duly noted/confirmed on my list each time and did not research any further for reasons I can only ascribe to the non-existence of free will (just roll with it, Sartre).

One eternity later, still listening to DKFM, I find myself captivated by a dreamy little song that I learn is called ‘Dizzy on the Comedown.’ I see that it is by a band called Turnover that I have obviously never heard of before, because if I had I would surely, definitely, 100% have looked into them immediately.

If you think I am lying to myself, you are correct, and have been paying attention. I appreciate this, let’s be friends, but please stay where you are. I dont think either of us enjoys meeting new people.

I turn to my trusty parchment, yellowed with age and crumbling to dust, and raise my quill – but wait! what’s this? Staring back at my myopic eyes is the name Turnover, already inscribed not once but TWICE!

Ooo, you didn’t see that coming.

It turns out that not only had my past self already made a note of ‘Diazepam’, she had also had the good sense to add ‘Humming’ to the list. Yet my idiot future/present (and now also past) self needed to be struck by ‘Dizzy on the Comedown’ before making any sort of move towards further exploration. At this point, the shoegaze universe had moved way past ‘giving a sign’ and gone straight to ‘we’re going to have to hit her with the signboard.’ (it’s super effective, btw)

Coincidentally, yet unsurprisingly, all three songs are off Turnover’s iconic album Peripheral Vision. My dawdling has meant that I’m way too late to the release party but I’ve made up for that lapse by listening to it incessantly since then.

The strength of Peripheral Vision lies in the indisputable fact that it is perfect. It is a vial of nostalgia that hasn’t aged a day since 1994 – which is impressive because it was released in 2015. Though it is never overtly implied, the throwback hangs heavy in lyrics like carelessly you pass the hours, humming songs you used to sing when you were young as well as in familiar themes of anxiety and frustration. Like the 90s, it pits impossibly cheery melodies against lyrics that are nothing short of tragic or, of course, angst-ridden.

But this isn’t your garden variety existential, adolescent angst. And why should it be? It’s 2020 and we’re no longer deluded enough to believe that ‘angst’ is a phase reserved for frustrated teenagers. If anything, the angsty kids of the 90s have grown into the still-angsty adults of the 2000s. In a world that’s progressively going to pot, ‘New Scream’ is an ode to adult ennui, to the obligation and pretense that ‘everything’s ok’ when clearly, evidently, it is not:

Can I stay at home? I don’t want to go
I don’t want to wake up till the sun is hanging low
Stay up through the night, sleep away the light
Just another dream I had that’s better than my life

Adolescent dreams gave to adult screams
Paranoid that I won’t have all the things they say I need
What if I don’t want a pattern on my lawn?
All I know is something’s wrong

‘New Scream’ is a lot more subtle than ‘Diazepam’ and ‘Dizzy on the Comedown’ when it comes to talking about mental health, but the latter two hide these bleak references behind delightfully upbeat melodies. ‘Diazepam’ has guitars twinkling over it from start to finish, but it’s someone sinking into depression and worrying about how much of an emotional burden they are to their partner who they’re convinced will eventually have had enough and leave.

It was always a dream just to know you
Sometimes I find I can hardly speak your name
I know one day I’ll come home and I’ll find you
It’s just a matter of time till you break from the strain

‘Diazapam’ finds a mirror in ‘Dizzy on the Comedown’ . You’d be forgiven if, even by the twentieth listen, you hear nothing on ‘Dizzy…’ but the innocent euphoria of young love. But listen a little closer and you’ll realise something’s been off from the very beginning:

Up and down like a red rubber ball,
You’re always back and forth like a clock on the wall
…
If I stay do you think you could change your routine?
I know a trick I’ve always got a few up my sleeve

And right to the chorus

Won’t you come here and spin with me?
I’ve been dying to get you dizzy.
Find a way up into your head,
So I can make you feel like new again.

But it’s still a charmer. It’s a reversal of the dynamic on ‘Diazepam’, with our protagonist doing all he can to support his partner’s moods and insecurities, and it’s only with this reading that we realise that this isn’t quite the naive infatuation initially perceived, but a sturdier, almost desperate, kind of love.

There’s a sketch in an old MAD magazine from back when it turned out quality content that pins 23 as the age when you hear of an artist on MTV and go ‘who?’. I don’t have to explain this but I will – the joke is that by the time you hit the ripe old age of 23, you’re no longer cool enough to be in on the music scene. It also (unintentionally?) implies that there comes a time what’s when you’re no longer the target audience for mainstream media houses.

It’s likely that, had the internet not shown up, us 90s kids would have nothing but our withering, overplayed CDs (and DVD-Rs burned to a crisp) to turn to for a hit of nostalgia. But the internet did show up – and conveniently enough, it did so IN the 90s. And so, while the erstwhile 90s kids aka millenials, may not be the target audience of mainstream music programming today, some of them are taking the sounds they grew up with and reinventing them for the 21st century. Some others are writing words of praise to these revivalists on Pitchfork or Aglet Eaters (an unfair comparison, as P4K comes nowhere close to the superior quality content you find on AE). And everyone else is mesmerised by our absolutely objective, unbiased and 100% correct opinion and is buying Peripheral Vision on Bandcamp.