I find it hard to recall dreams. I know I have them, and often in the moments after waking I feel like I could reach out and grasp them in some form, only to realise the images I have are the equivalent of random jigsaw pieces falling through fingers. A long time ago though, in another life, I had one that stuck. To cut a long story short, I was standing in a room full of people with a close friend next to me. Details are not particularly important, apart from the very clear recollection of Leonard Cohen approaching my friend, head bowed, and uttering the phrase ‘fashion tomorrow’s moment’. It was such a mundane thing really, but those words… Fashion. Tomorrow’s. Moment. Like some shiny new self-empowerment hashtag. Go out there and make something happen. Leonard Cohen. My friend. Shuffling over and croaking out those three words in that order, nothing else before or after. I remember Googling it as soon as I woke. You can try it now; you won’t find anything. Anyway, the reason you’re reading this long-winded inane tale (or non-tale) is that the news broke when I woke the next morning of Cohen’s passing overnight. What that’s all about is anybody’s guess. I’m 100% sure that the soul of Leonard Cohen didn’t leave his body and visit me, but there’s also something so extraordinarily weird about the whole thing that seared the disjointed three-word mantra into my mind. I think about it a lot.
I didn’t know it then, but my subconscious brush with Leonard and the meaning I assigned to it was a good example of what can be termed as magical thinking. All of this brings me to Essex-based M G Boulter‘s new LP, Days of Shaking; an album inspired by exactly this type of thing. For those unaware of the term, it’s born from humans being the only species on the planet (that we know of) that have fiction. We find patterns, create narratives, mythologize, tell stories, and look for meaning in almost everything. Some of us will not go near a black cat, whereas others will be convinced that every time they look at a clock the time will be 11:11. There was a boy from my school that remained convinced his television going off at precisely the wrong moment caused Gareth Southgate to miss that penalty. Call these things superstition, wisdom, or fantasy, but it’s something that’s in all of us. The reason I’ve spent a ludicrous amount of time talking about this stuff is that the narrator at the heart of one of the twelve tracks here, “James Mason”, experiences something similar, with a strange nocturnal visitation from the late English actor (of all people) offering reassurance that “we are all not just destined for dust”.
Those that know M G Boulter will know that he’s a songwriter extremely well versed in finding beautiful and ingenious ways of taking the mundane and the everyday and turning them into something extraordinary. Across his three previous LPs to date he has honed a lyrical style and a sound that has grown richer with each release, and Days of Shaking is no exception. 2021’s Clifftown was a superb collection of songs presented as snapshots capturing suburban lives lived out in the sprawling shadow of London, and one that set a high bar for anything that was going to come after. Having lived with its follow-up for a good couple of weeks now, it feels like a further refinement of the elements that made Clifftown feel like such a fully-realised whole, and another clear step forward from an artist that gets better and better.
But what about the music? Well, one of the things that immediately hits you is the decision to tackle these songs without drums. It’s one that pays off too, giving each track room to breathe. The opening title track pretty much serves as a blueprint for the eleven that follow; with an ethereal air matching a lyric that begins with a childhood recollection of witnessing a UFO and ends up with an aimless late-night drive in search of meaning. It’s a fantastic opener too, with an attention to detail in the lyrics that comes from years of craft. The description of a neighbour’s son as “a weekend child who visited occasionally” says so much with so little, and sonic details like the swell of strings that enter in the second verse are early indicators that you’re listening to something special. Elsewhere, as on “10 Habits of Successful People”, arrangements are stripped down to reveal acres of space for gorgeous vocal harmonies and distant string flourishes to dance. Other highlights include the Jenny Sturgeon duet “Talk to me of Water” which at times feels so fragile in its yearning beauty that it could snap, and “The Jaws of Nothing” with its insistent refrain of “limbs like verbs, teeth like silver” lingering in the mind long after the close of the record. The truth of it is that you could close your eyes and stick a pin in the tracklist and land on something great, such is the standard across the set. I was fortunate enough to attend the small album launch show in picturesque Leigh-on-Sea a few days ago and the joy and love that has clearly gone into this record was palpable. In short, Days of Shaking is an intimate, essential collection from an artist who you really should get to know.