THE BAG OF SANE. This has been my saviour since lockdown started: a small bag packed with means of playing music. This is what we need to survive a world where personal space has gone missing. Just grab your personal portable music stuff – for me, it’s the ipod, a personal CD player, a personal DAB, headphones, a USB power pack, and a notebook and pen – and stick it in a bag.

Then keep it somewhere you can always get it. Because when the opportunity or the need for music arises, the last thing you want is to be scrambling around for Vital Items from a room that’s about to be out-of-bounds for a conference call, zoom social or whatever. You need to be ready, always. 100% music mobile in the confines of your own house.

And with a Bag of Music Sane, you’re sorted. BOMS will level your head and bring inner peace. Any corner, garage or back step can become your music world.

Sure, the smartphone could do all this, but that’s not the way I listen to music. Nil by Spotify. CDs are the dominant format, which is why I got a new personal CD player a couple of years back – to play them more often. And it’s been a great addition, especially when a creaking laptop renders the ipod less versatile than it once was (it’s still loaded, mind. Just not with any CDs bought in the last two and a half years).

Lockdown Music Week 6, here’s what it sounded like.

APRIL 25
Radio … often the way of the weekend. 6 Music

APRIL 26
Wire – Mind Hive
Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts VI

APRIL 27
Tenesha the Wordsmith – Peacocks and Other Savage Beasts
Bruford Levin – Upper Extremeties

CD skidding like a pigeon landing on a waxed floor? Nope. It’s Bill Bruford being a proficient time-shifting bastard in this high-muso hook-up with fellow King Crimson bass/stick player, Tony Levin. Guitar by David Torn.Trumpet Chris Botti. Impressive. It’s a mistake, nay shameful, not to play this more.

APRIL 28
Music Blues – Things Haven’t Gone Well
Metallica – Hardwired … to Self Destruct
Gnod & Joao Pais Filipe – Faca de Terra (new track)

Gnod: mentioned this track in the Rewind, but then it prompted a little Gnod dig, and … well, Infinity Machines was checked quickly (not heard it before) and sounded too vast not to order. Immediately. A little expensive, but surely worth it.

APRIL 29
Wire – Pink Flag

Listened to this album from start to finish to accompany the end of a book I just finished – Pink Flag from the 33 1/3 Series. Brilliant read, very much recommended. The last section has notes on each track in album order, so OF COURSE you need to play it while you read. Thing is, the tracks are shorter than the time it takes to read the notes. Must go back and read more fully. And yes, it does enrich the Pink Flag experience.

APRIL 30
Didn’t make a note. How remiss

MAY 1
Prince – Around the World in a Day
Henry Rollins – The Cool Quarantine 2

Keep safe, keep the music ON!

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