Attention '24

All told, perhaps the most wretched year of my adult life, the centrepiece for which was a full-blown mental health episode that resulted in my taking several weeks off work. These were the first real sick days I had taken in any aspect of my life since I was 16. It was a particularly pressing time at work - such is the state of education that even my absence as a relatively small cog in the school machine made a whole load of dominoes fall. I felt guilty. Then I felt horrified at my guilt. The time I had away from work forced me to completely re-evaluate my relationship to my labour, something I had never expected of myself. It was during this time I also found my passion for music completely disappear. I was thankful in the last few weeks of the year to truly rediscover it, but there was a long period where I thought it would never return.

Here I am, alive, 6 months after escaping to my mother’s, to a friend’s, to the comfort and safety of my old flat. I hid away, and it was only in the final few weeks of this year that I realised just how hermetic I had become. Not long after the year began, Los Angeles started to burn again. The sense of borrowed time is potent. No time like the present.

4 New Albums for ‘24

1. Sarah Hennies - Motor Tapes

2. Loidis - One Day

3. Still House Plants - if i don’t make it i love u

4. Xylitol - Anemones

4 Old Albums for ‘24

1. Microstoria - init ding (1995

2. Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas (1990)

3. Ornette Coleman - Science Fiction (1972)

4. Kuniyuki Takahashi - All These Things (2007)

4 Old Films for ‘24

1. Haut, Bas, Fragile (Rivette, 1995)

2. Simone Barbes, or Virtue (Treilhou, 1980)

3. Tenebre (Argento, 1982)

4. SPL2 (Cheang, 2015)

4(+1) New Films for ‘24

1. Eat the Night (Poggi and Vinel)

2. Meiyazhagan (Kumar)

3. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Cheang)

4. A Traveler’s Needs (Hong)

5. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Grimonprez)

4 Books for ‘24

1. Honoré de Balzac - The Human Comedy: Selected Stories

2. Mike Davis - Ecology of Fear

3. Can Xue - Frontier

4. Adonis - Songs from the Damascene

4 Miscellaneous for ‘24

1. A cat who, despite his best efforts, is at least the most loved feline in our postcode

2. The cinnamon buns from the bakery up the hill

3. Herding cows, sheep, and sundry other animals in what was strangely the last bit of peace before my year went south

4. The continued support and fierce devotion of my partner to my own wellbeing, especially when I get in the way of it