{"id":84175,"date":"2016-12-19T18:47:45","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T16:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/imperfect-soundtracks-from-2016-for-people-who-wish-for-a-different-world-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2016-12-19T18:47:45","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T16:47:45","slug":"imperfect-soundtracks-from-2016-for-people-who-wish-for-a-different-world-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/imperfect-soundtracks-from-2016-for-people-who-wish-for-a-different-world-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Imperfect soundtracks from 2016 for people who wish for a different world | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imperfect soundtracks from 2016 for people who wish for a different world<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Detail from Jenny Hval's album Blood Bitch.<\/span> Supplied<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Review 2016:<\/strong> This has been a year most of humanity would like to forget with war, disasters, racism, sexism and, especially in arts and culture, the deaths of revered icons. But it is also in the arts and culture where people look for and find hope.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Conversation Africa has asked a number of our contributors to give us five books, records, buildings, works of art and so on in their field that made a difference to them in 2016. Here is popular music lecturer, record label boss and musician John Harries\u2019 year in review.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

A year all in music from me, since it\u2019s where I live most of the time.<\/p>\n

Much of my 2016 has been given over to releases on my tiny London record label The Lumen Lake. It doesn\u2019t appear here because its importance to me is self-evident and I guess I wouldn\u2019t want my enthusiasm for the work of my friends to seem like self-interest or promotion. <\/p>\n

Elsewhere in my musical world, the following have been important in the last 12 months \u2013 important for saying something about the world as it changes around us, and for offering solace \u2026<\/p>\n

1. Jenny Hval \u2013 Blood Bitch (album, Sacred Bones Records)<\/h2>\n

In 2015, Hval\u2019s album Apocalypse, Girl dropped into my life without much warning, and instantly became essential to me. <\/p>\n

This year, Blood Bitch added vivid reds to that album\u2019s greys and pinks, deftly wove pungent images of vampirism and menstruation amongst the warp threads of Hval\u2019s world-weary but resolutely defiant personal narrative in song to date. <\/p>\n

As Hval struggles with the idea of romance in an increasingly sad and frightening world (Conceptual Romance), her repeated exhortation, \u201cI\u2019m working on it\u201d, strikes a peculiar chord. I don\u2019t quite know why it\u2019s so affecting, except that for all of us who would wish for a different world, to keep trying is what we\u2019ve got \u2026 <\/p>\n