HIGHLY RECOMMENDED W/ BROKEN SHOULDER
* Providing the A's to the 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Q's today is Neil Debnam from Broken Shoulder — the latest Audio Antihero label mate to get the ‘rarities retrospective’ with the wonderful ‘Shark Islands: A Broken Shoulder Archipelago’ (and you can catch the opening track in the HI54 Mix CD ‘STOP TALKING… I’M TRYING TO THINK’).
#1 - WHAT IS THE ONE ALBUM (OR EP OR SONG) THAT YOU THINK SHOULD BE THE VERY NEXT MUSICAL THING THAT EVERYONE PRESSES PLAY ON THE NEXT TIME THEY FIND THEMSELVES THINKING “WHAT SHOULD I LISTEN TO NOW”?
In an attempt to not make it look like I’m promoting my label, I’ll not say Sonotanotanpenz, Geeker Natsumi, France, Posset, Benjamin Shaw etc, but I’m hoping that but subtly drawing your attention to Kirigirisu Recordings releases I will end up interesting you in them.
I’m going to cop out slightly by choosing two releases though. I’ve been listening a lot to Charlie McAlister’s ‘I Am The World’s Richest Man’ LP recently. It’s very sad, but also funny in places. It might not be his best album, but it’s the most poignant one as he passed away before finishing it. As it sounds nothing like Broken Shoulder, I’ll also mention Kali Malone’s ‘Organ Dirges 2016-2017’. This album, along with all of Sarah Davachi’s albums have really shown me how powerful music can be when it is relatively minimal. It’s pretty lazy to put the two artists together but both of them seem to put so much thought into writing their music and making it sound minimal and simple in spite of what I guess is its considered complexity.
It makes me feel embarrassed that I usually just hold down some random keys with a few pedals on until I find something that sounds good.
#2 - WHAT IS THE ONE MOVIE OR TV SHOW THAT YOU THINK SHOULD BE NEXT IN EVERYBODY’S NETFLIX QUEUE (OK, DOESN’T HAVE TO BE NETFLIX, WE’RE ALL INTERNET ADULTS HERE AND KNOW HOW TO FIND ANYTHING ONLINE, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER)?
I live in Japan but I’m not a massive fan of Japanese TV. Although I should probably watch more of it to try and get a bit better at speaking Japanese. The only show I really watch is called ‘Monitoring’ and it’s a pretty much lowest common denominator hidden camera show that I think is quite often fake. That should give you an idea of the sophistication of my tastes.
My favourite movie is probably still ‘The Big Lebowski’, but that’s hardly an original choice. Equally unoriginal is the fact that I’ve recently started watching the ‘King Of The Hill’ boxsets from the beginning. There are a load of amazing lines in there and even though I’ve always enjoyed the show, as I get older I find myself really appreciating the sentimental moments more.
But hang on, that’s not so cool either so let’s say Bela Tarr’s ‘Damnation’. Pretty depressing, totally bleak but with some amazing combinations of music and camerawork like the dance scene. I quite like these kind of films when things happen pretty slowly or not at all.
#3. I (and by “I” I mean “whoever is reading this”) am going to the local book store (ok, maybe the local library first) to find the very next book that I will be putting some valuable ‘me-time' aside for. Which book would you get, if you were me (and, I suppose, you hadn’t already read what you’re about to suggest)?
I guess it would be easy to just choose the last book I read but I’m sad to say that I didn’t really like it that much. This year I’m trying to read more, which means I’ve been flying through books and then apparently forgetting them afterwards. But one that has stood out recently was Richard Wright’s ‘The Outsider’, which was really great and epic, but should not be confused with Camus’ ‘The Outsider’, which I also think is really great but considerably shorter.
There are a few things that I’ve read multiple times, but they’re a bit cliched so i’ll skip over them too. If I had to recommend something that I haven’t read but I think it will be good it would be ‘In The Field: The Art of Field Recording’ by Cathy Lane & Angus Carlyle which I’m really interested in as I want to make my field recording a bit more interesting as there’s a lot of average stuff around. Going to start that one soon.
#4 - WHAT IS THE ONE WEBSITE (OR JUST ANY OLD INTERNET THING: APP, GIF, SERVICE, WHATEVER) THAT YOU WOULD GET REALLY DOWN IN THE DUMPS ABOUT IF IT WERE TO SUDDENLY GO AWAY?
I use Facebook way too much but it is a bit too useful. But given that I wish it would go away and be replaced by something that had the same benefits but without all the bad bits I can’t say that I’d be sad if it went. I’m a bit sad that ello didn’t really take off to be honest. We could really do with a facebook alternative that wasn’t quite so snoopy.
But, although it means that I always have anxiety about an ever-growing and usually out of control ‘listen later’ list, I have to say that if there was no Mixcloud, I’d be missing out on a lot of good new music so I’ll go for Mixcloud. There’s so much interesting stuff on there.
Oh, and here’s a bonus gif that I just really love:
#5 - AND FINALLY… PLEASE GIVE ONE COMPLETELY UNAIDED RECOMMENDATION THAT YOU THINK EVERYONE SHOULD START DOING / USING / WATCHING / EATING / THINKING / QUITING / ETC-ING TO MAKE THEIR LIVES A LITTLE BIT MORE BETTER AND/OR BEARABLE.
I am effectively giving this recommendation to myself. Get obsessed with to-do lists, but don’t get too obsessed.
They really help me get stuff done instead of just sitting around doing nothing, but they do tend to take over my life a little and possibly contribute to an underlying feeling of anxiety.
OK folks, there you have it. Things that Neil Debnam from Broken Shoulder thinks you should consider incorporating into your day/life. Before you log off and go make a list of things you need to do next, make sure to follow Broken Shoulder on the Facebook / Twitter and then also give ‘Shark Island (Crow Versus Crow Session)’ a listen below…
