If all you have is a hammer

As demanded of me by precisely no one, I thought I’d share my current writing jams. I haven’t written much of anything while we’ve been working on the house, but now we’re finally out the other side of it, I’m trying to remember what words feel like. If all you have is a hammer, indeed.

Anyway — writing to music is important to me. I need music to get myself into a place of focus, and most especially to maintain it. Focus is pretty hard to come by at the moment, but I’m working on it, little by little, as my brain starts to process stories again after a year without them.

I recently caught the astounding film Arrival. First of all, it’s extraordinary, and secondly the soundtrack is exactly the sort of thing I look for when I’m working. I’ve known of Johann Johannsson for several years, and his album IBM 1401: A User’s Manual is a longstanding favourite of mine — but his work on Arrival is even better. Nuanced, complex, curious, cohesive, entirely otherworldly, always evolving — it’s perfect for the film, and perfect to write to. Johannsson was a mighty talent gone too soon.

I’ve also been listening a lot to Thomas Was Alone by David Housden, and added another computer game soundtrack in Disasterpiece’s tremendous music for Fez. The palette of instruments from both games is ideal — all bloops and synths and fuzz and chimes and the sound of the sea.

Special mention to Roni Size and Reprazent, too — I haven’t been story-writing to this, but it’s been the soundtrack to the last month of college marking. I think it was in 1998 or 1999 when my friend Bob and I caught the first train out of Aberdeen and danced all night at Homelands, where Reprazent played a set much like this. Sobering to think of that being more than half my lifetime ago. Roni Size is still banging though.

That’s me for now. I’m finding it very hard to write at the moment. I’m missing the fizz of being fully immersed in a story, but I’m trying to give myself a break for the physical and emotional toll of renovating the house, plus running two film courses, plus this fucking toxic Brexit bullshit, plus the colossal existential horror of environmental collapse in our lifetime, all of which I soak up, constantly. There’s sometimes not much left for writing. But without it, I’m not sure who I am.