Burial – Archangel
Only yesterday in my post I was jokingly criticising music for its emotive qualities enabling a certain piece of music (it may only be a few notes) to transport you back through years and across continents to the memories associated with a certain time you happened to be listening to it. Today’s post is another song that does this, but in an altogether more positive sense.
In September of 2008 I went on the best holiday of my life so far, I spent two weeks on a trip trekking around Borneo. One of the albums I had recently heard and was giving regular spins was “Untrue” the much acclaimed second album from mysterious dub-step artist Burial. On a long, quite hairy, mini-bus trip in the second week I was so engrossed in listening, hunched down in my seat, eyes closed, noise cancelling earphones plugged in, that I managed to miss seeing the near miss we had! I felt the brakes go on, hard, opened my eyes to see the pale, alarmed but relieved faces around me, their hastily taken breaths escaping with audible hisses, “what was that?” I asked nonchalantly, “WE NEARLY DIED!!” they all chorused!
But other than keeping my stress levels down on a three hour bus journey in Borneo, in a vehicle with no air conditioning (at least, nothing noticeable back where I was sitting!), the main memory is of listening to it at night when we reached our destination, Sabah Tea Plantation.
After three days and nights in a stifling jungle it was a glorious relief to emerge from the sweaty mini-bus at a higher altitude to be greeted by a cool breeze, aaahhhhh, lovely! 😎
Lying in the dark in my room (really just a divided section of the huge longhouse where we all slept), listening to “Archangel” (or indeed anything off “Untrue”) was something special, and if I listen to it now on headphones and close my eyes, I could be back in that wonderful chilled out place!
Sabah Tea Plantation at dawn, Mt. Kinabalu on the horizon.
"I Prefer Their Old Stuff" 
#1 by MickeyD on March 19, 2011 - 7:27 am
Our tour guide in Australia had fantastic taste in music and the bus was always filled with good tunes, however, the one that sticks in my head kinda bucked the trend… it’s a dance track by someone called Sharam, and the track is PATT (Party All The Time). After some very long, hot hours on the bus, we’d stopped by the roadside, been given some rubbish bags, and were instructed to pick some of the unedible melons growing by the road. All back on the bus, a bit more time driving along the incredibly long, straight and uninteresting Stuart Highway, and we were told about the rules of ‘melon bowling’. Basically, you take it in turns to hang out the bus window and attempt to hit a passing road sign with aforementioned melons. Not as easy as it sounds while you’re barreling along the highway at great speed, eyes watering and hair all over the place! Much hilarity ensued, with this track playing along at full volume on the bus. Good times!