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Somewhere I've Never Been
Nature… has further complicated her task and added to our confusion by providing not only a perfect ragbag of odds and ends within us… but has contrived that the whole assortment shall be lightly stitched together by a single thread.
Contents:
(Introlude)...
…In counts of three: “Tu jest Polska / nie Bruksela! / Tu się zboczeń / nie po-piera!”— “Here is Poland, not Brussels. Here we don’t tolerate perverts.” The looping, echoing anti-EU meter wheels into a climax then halts abruptly in time for the man who’s just been speaking to introduce a priest who’ll commence the exorcism…
2. Dubai Dreamwork: “All roads lead to the shopping mall.”
“Good evening, we have a lost boy, green jacket and pants, would the parents please proceed to the front desk immediately,” a woman says over the PA, in English, interrupting a far-off symphony of panpipes, bass and an occasional electric guitar. Wafts of perfume, a stream of advertisements and moving images are met with a rotation of stock music; instrumental covers of ‘90s US hits, from Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” and Vanessa Williams’ “Save the Best Till Last,” to something I recognise but fail to name, and that song from Dirty Dancing. Cara Delevingne, Natalie Portman and a nameless woman on a monitor crimping her blonde hair at an unsupervised aisle stall, all sexy and dead-eyed, stare outward. “. . . ‘Cause I’ve had, the time of my life. . .” thunder Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes.”
3. Oman: “full wadi no rivers.”
“The muezzin’s prayer pivots the day, broadcast either from the small minaret poking out from the green-palmed oasis that’s next door, or Dubai TV in the lounge… I’m stressed, trying to figure out how to unblock Skype while fucking around with the not-great Ethernet connection so I can interview a band from Australia. Hype Williams’ “London 2012” mix opens with the digitised English accent of Mac Dictation’s “Daniel” asking, “Can you spell the word on the screen?” over the subtle flush of a low-end organ.”
4. Jordan: “Ya Habibi.”
“The cute-boy harmony sings over Lebanese pop star provocateur Haifa Wehbe’s silky-sexy MILF vocals, “Easy mama, don’t worry,” in English, on the predominantly bbic , “Where is Father?”. It’s a track that comes on The Best Kid’s Song compilation CD I bought at an open-air market stall under Cliff Hostel. The vendor is listening through my headphones to snippets of songs I’ve recorded to see if he recognises anything but so far he’s only found Wafik Habib’s New Best of Collection. Its bootleg graphics look like Christian Rock re-imaginings of punk rock fonts. Otherwise, it’s the almost-entirely instrumental saxophone songs by Samir Srour, that are probably the Arabic equivalent of smooth jazz, and pop star Nancy Ajram, whose “Ya Tabtab Wa Dalla” is one of the most exhilaratingly phonetic and polyrhythmic interplays I’ve ever heard.”
6. Iceland: “We have pain on the brain, Mr. Herzog.
“It will be at the “Lunch Beat,” mid-afternoon, that the clapping (and my over-coded fixation on it) really reaches fever pitch. An Olof Dreijer remix of Sudanese child soldier-cum-hip hop performer and political activist Emmanuel Jal’s “Kuar” marches on a beat juddering towards crescendo on a CLAP. clap. CLAP. clap. CLAP. clap. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. Etc. A trill holler opens Jal’s version, a contribution to a global campaign for Sudan’s first vote in 24 years. It rips through the intended and incidental soundscape as a mass of gyrating Nordic bodies converge at the front of the Seyðisfjörður town hall-cum-improvised LungA canteen. An English-speaking insert eulogises a childhood lived through war—”kids carrying guns and welding heavy spears”—and the odd Bacchanalian scene turns with the tempo in the click and cut glitch of The Chemical Brothers’ “Electronic Battle Weapon 8″”
7. Palestine: “I was doin’ alright.”
“The music shifts audibly in mood, tempo, genre, language, depending on the day. It’s mostly Arabic drumming (and the occasional gangsta rap) when the Palestinian boys arrive. A girls’ school trip is met with Minnie Riperton singing the barely subtle innuendo of “Lovin’ You.” Her famously disjunctive ribbon of a squeal drifts gracefully out of her frolicking . . . la, la, la, la, laa, laa, laaa. Do, dn, do, do, doo, dooo . . . . A teen girl in hijab says “Shalom” and giggles as I walk past in my shorts and t-shirt. Far East Movement’s “Live My Life feat. Justin Bieber” features heavily when the Israelis are about, along with the winding electropop of Dev’s “Kiss My Lips.” ”
8. Poland: “Bóg. Honor. Ojczyzna.”
“A woman asks me for a cigarette, then a light, then some gum as I’m sat near the water fountain of the recently renovated Kościuszko Square. We’re facing the relatively new Pizza Hut on the corner of Sienkiewicz and old Lipowa Road, and I’m recording an awfully formulaic pop song sung by a woman singing in English with an overpowering Polish accent about being alone and empowered and moving on. Her voice travels shakily with a finger-picked guitar current alongside an equally vanilla drum routine that seems to just loiter along beside it. It’s like the composition itself is cringing at the quality of an English pronunciation that Ania imitates after the pre-recorded announcement that follows four chimes on the Belgian-owned Polskibus, swapping “aisle” for a word that sounds like “ale” among other things.”
10. Griffin, GA: “One Thing Remains.”
“Madonna’s 1986 dance-pop hit “True Blue” is pushing along a chug-chugging cheap karaoke rhythm as a noticeably not Auto-Tuned vocal moans along an almost mundane, unvarying melody, “IIII’m still in love with you”. The pop music ambience in the Japanese restaurant is so crisp, so clear and so easily applicable to all the themes of my projected personalised account of a life lived through its mediation that I switch off my recorder after Naked Eyes’ “Always Something There to Remind Me” follows Nate James’ painfully appropriate (and equally boring) Z-grade Summer pop formula in “The Message.” “I want you to express yourself through music/ and don’t hide it/ and just sing, yeah.””
15. London: “It’s only suffering.”
“Taz is telling me I need to be more specific about my favourite part of the New Age meditation music that Shazam doesn’t recognise at an organic coffee place in Camberwell. “Give us some warning next time. Creepy journalist,” Bex adds as I accidentally record her thoughts, said out loud in response to someone’s Instagram post. I was actually trying to get a song by Sade, playing after D.O.C.’s “It’s Funky Enough.” I wonder why Londoners like to shorten their names to an “x” or a “z” to end—anything angular, like graffiti tags (“enunciate well/ so that you can tell”). I realise it’s probably because of grime music when I’m dragged out to see DJ Slimzee play with an emcee who isn’t Dizzee Rascal, rapping his words in what I think is a rendition of “I Luv U” because of the mention of a “mobile phone.”