I’ve decided to start keeping a monthly music diary, more for my own purposes than anything else, so I can look back on what went on in my musical world every month. It’ll include a playlist of the songs I’ve been enjoying this month, the shows I’ve been to, and commentary on musical events and discourse.
Feels like this diary is an endless list of the reasons why I’ve not been able to listen to as much music as I would like in any given month, and November is no exception, with illness sweeping through the Brodie-Wray household. What I have been listening to has fallen into two main categories:
- Music from the 2020s due to the BlueSky music challenge I mentioned last month
- Nina Simone
In the first category have included some wonderful new to me discoveries as Octo Octa’s 12 minute house epic ‘Late Night Love’, Mancunian rap from Lady Ice with ‘Up North’ and dark, stacatto indie-rock with ‘Cigarette Packet’ by Sorry? Also lots of excellent jazz from Xhosa Cole, Mary Halvorson, Elori Saxl and more.
In the Nina Simone category are way too many songs to mention, but a new favourite is Rich Girl, musically jauntier than a typical Simone song, but with suitably biting lyrics. I’m working on a playlist of my favourite Simone songs and the more I listen the more she moves from being an artist I like and respect to being one of my very favourites.
Music discourse has already started to move on to end of year lists, with Pitchfork’s top 100 songs of the year already out. It feels like a bit of a down year to me. Partly perhaps because I haven’t been listening to a lot of new music this year. I have heard a lot of pop though, and very little as impressed me as much as Charli, Chappell, Jade and more did in 2024. Perhaps as the end of year lists and music challenges come in, I will discover some new favourites.
Live music wise, November took me to see the Terje Isungset Ice Quartet at Howard Assembly Room in Leeds, a lovely show, performed on instruments made of ice, along with some mainly wordless vocals. Something different to anything I’ve seen before, which is always a bonus, although I did occasionally find myself distracted by thinking about the logistics of the ice instruments.
Onto December and hoping for a month not entirely dominated by Christmas music. Hope you all have a great month. Below is my musical playlist for November, through TuneMyMusic, which you can use to convery to any streaming service of your choice.
Mark J Wray 