Memoir

My specific memory is, in fact, part of a sequence of memories from a few years back that stick prominently in my mind. For whatever reason, this series of recollections come with a feeling of comfort, however this remembrance stands out in terms of long-lasting effect and feeling. The setting – my home bedroom – was dark, near pitch black had it not been for a sliver of light eking out from the edges of my blinds.

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It was sometime in the morning (though remembering how far along in the morning it was is hard to visualise, thanks to the darkness), I’d just woken up and turned to my phone, which so often happened and has since happened upon waking up. In the silence, I remembered a new album I had put on my phone, by an artist I hadn’t heard before; what and who they were are irrelevant now, because the overriding feeling left is a product of the music in that moment. In an instant, stillness became rhythm, and the silence was overridden by entirely new sounds, a new genre entirely. There, amongst the darkness, lying still for what must have been well over an hour, I let this noise wash over me, immobilising me entirely. Baritone pitch. Steady tempo. A relaxing state of being that I’ve yet to recapture for so long.

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The album, and the artist, I still love to this day, however neither have had the same effect on me as that first encounter, that moment in a place so familiar but the moment and place now seem impossible to recreate as they were then. Regardless, the memory of that feeling of tranquillity is still fresh and clear, and some songs from the album give a subtle taste of the first listen still.