Deborah Kant, Terminal Rail/Route (2014)

Where bought?: I was in Toulouse in 2017 and some guy came up to me and said 'you left this here last time you played and I looked after it'. I don't think I did leave it - I'd considered buying it but not done. But I did want it, so fate sped it into my arms.

Also - we were meant to play with this band in Lyon in 2014 on our second French tour but they split up the week of the show. This is how their name came known to me and it stayed with me (is it a reference? A joke? I don't get it) and I went away and had a listen and liked what I heard.

Deerhunter, Cryptograms/Fluorescent Grey (2007)

Where bought?: I can't remember where I bought this exact copy - probably Piccadilly in Manchester. My original copy was off the band at their merch table. Why did I have two? Read on!

 
I've never been one of those people with terrible vices that ruin their lives. I've gambled a bit but quit after a heavy loss that left me up a tiny bit across the course of a life, avoided smoking, and never really been a prodigious user of drugs or drink. Salt is probably as bad as it gets now.

That said, if you're buying only trivial amounts of things you can't really afford or justify then it counts as a problem, even if what you are buying amounts to a fraction that others are. In this case I'm talking about records, which I used to buy at expense of eating, travelling, or in some tragic cases personal hygiene products. I'm not proud.

In about 2009 I had a total financial collapse where I could not afford any of the basics, let alone records. My parents didn't help me financially, and even though I worked between classes I just couldn't keep it together. I hit the wall and sold my bass and then loads of my treasured records for absolutely peanuts.

One guy who took advantage of my predicament took about 20 records off me including this. I'm not bothered about buying everything else back - some of it represented a fair parting of ways - but losing this record hurt the most and I vowed to get it back when I could next realistically afford it. Which wasn't for about 10 more years, but hey: I got it.

In 2007 I chipped in to put Deerhunter on in Manchester. The gig about broke even (would have been a profit had the band realised they didn't need a hotel at all) and they were decent guys so the record was a nice memento of me managing to be part of something ahead of the general curve for once (I am NOT cool! At all!). I like the music on it too, but the knife twist was more from handing over memories than a slab of music which I probably had on MP3 too.

Anyway: Cryptograms is still my favourite Deerhunter full-length record and yet their least popular on Spotify (though I note that Turn It Up Faggot/Deerhunter isn't there). They shimmer between ambient/shoegaze sound experiments and songs that sound like a slightly narcotised Quickspace in an appealing way. The inward turn on the back third where they emerge into melancholy is what brings the whole thing together in a way I find irresistible.

Side four in this issue is the EP Fluorescent Grey. In the past I have said this EP is the equal to the great EPs of yore: 4 A-Sides, Slates, Watery Domestic, Admonishing the Bishops, In A Beautiful Place out in the Country, etc. Four great little songs that work together, that could have been the spine of a great album, but here it is as this perfect moment in time.

Hopefully hanging onto this forever now.

Dead for a Minute, Diégèse (2002)

Where bought?: Given to me by my friend Florian in Metz. It is his band from his youth.

 
A single-sided 12" and reissued in 2015 is the band's only 'album' though there is a cassette of the Vitry-sur-Orne band's entire discography (30 songs) out there somewhere. At a certain point of abrasive hardcore I don't really know which bands to compare it to: sure they're named after a Botch song but I feel that this is drawing more from more obscure stuff on Gravity and ThreeOneG.

Deafheaven, New Bermuda (2015)

Where bought?: I kept asking if they were going to get it in Rise in Worcester when I lived there but nobody took the bloody hint so I got it in Bristol, probably from Fopp.

 

Conceived of as 'the more metal' follow-up to Sunbather which is partly true in that there is a greater quotient of tugboat-pulling muted chugging and strident wind-smeared rifferama. But there's also some other colours in there too, which is why it doesn't feel like a defensive 'no we're metal actually' record at all.

Deafheaven, Sunbather (2013)

Where bought? Oh there is actually a definitive story to this. In 2017 my band played a festival in the French Alps and after we performed I roamed around the site in a daze and stumbled across a record stall. I'd tried to buy the album at home but couldn't find it anywhere, but as soon as I saw it I had to have it. In an excited rush, I borrowed 20 euro from my pal/deputy guitarist Thom and thrust it into the stall holder's hand and ran off with it. Apparently the stall holder rolled his eyes and got another one out from under the rack and re-stocked the shelf as if to say "why so excited, this shit isn't exactly 'You Left The Water Running'?" but this dude obviously didn't live in Worcester.

Now the dust has settled on the real black metal or fake black metal debate (me: probably fake actually but I don't really care for authenticity) I still see Sunbather as a strange and brilliant achievement.