#48 katie dey: forever music

have a fistfight with your brain

second guess your body

every single day

equidistant

That album cover though, it…

Wait, how well can you see the album cover? I know I’ve set it as the featured image, but I don’t know if WordPress is going to cut that up to present it. Hang on, let me ask my subeditor to post it within the body of the text:

No, it really wasn’t that hard to do, but it’s the principle that matters to me.

Why did I do all this? Well, on one hand: who knows and who cares?, but on the other hand I believe I was about to make a point… about… like…I dunno, I think I was going to warn all readers that if they encounter anyone with a similar PFP on social media then stay well clear, you’re guaranteed to hear a lot of centrist scientific reasoning behind believing all trans people should be executed and why the age of consent should be lowered to eight years old.

But we’re not here to talk about fascist cretins online (nor, to be fair, are we hear to discuss the substandard subediting skills of one Michael ‘Shawn Michaels’ Hickenbottom, though our hands were unfortunately tied there), we’re here to discuss the continually gorgeous Katie Dey.

The Australians fifth proper solo album perhaps hits harder than ever before. The backing tracks are more sparse than before (though are still an astonishing musical collage), and her voice comes across far less treated and digitally altered than before. And early album goes unflinchingly into some dark places, such as when Dey explains how exactly what she terms real love:

mostly i remember

screaming fighting

constant violence

smells of alcohol

and cigarettes

when you got home

i made myself small

you made yourself big

i still see the wall i stared at

it makes me sick

i don’t know what of you lives within me

but i know that

now i want love that hurts

in my skin

i want love that rots

through my limbs

i want real love for us all

real love

But then something rather beautiful happens over the course of ‘forever music’. It might be Dey’s most personal and honest record which… No, stop, come back, I know what you think that’s going to mean, but it actually sees Dey reach something close to happiness. Not by simply ignoring all of her pain, which is my method and has served me absolutely fine so far, but more by acknowledging how many other people are suffering through very similar things, and what alleviation there could be from recognising everyone’s shared traumas.

Isn’t that right, Shawn?

Yeah, he’s busy right now. We’ll catch up later

BandCamp

2020 #4