I haven't updated the blog in a little while because I've been in the process of moving house, so don't be confused by the title. I'm talking here about music to move house to, not moving House music like some sweeping beatless remix of Trentmøller's 'Moan' or the like. It turns out one can go on quite an unprecedented journey when going through every stressful stage of moving house, even to the point where you can to give up and pack the record player.
It's a journey that takes you by surprise as you never think to plan what you'll be listening, not unless you're very particular and plan ahead for every single aspect of your life. You find yourself beginning the packing process by simply moving things around, and whatever is playing at the time seems fitting enough. When you've accumulated years worth of stuff that suddenly needs moving, it can be extremely difficult to figure out exactly where to begin.
Therefore, when what I happened to be listening to at the time finished, I had to think about what would best fit the mood for packing away the big stuff into boxes. The potential shown in Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More seemed to fit well with my apprehension about getting a mortgage and moving to the country. Like my move, the record shows great potential, but like packing, its tempo and rhythm can get somewhat repetitive. The attempt at a grand scale of folk rock did fit well with the whole 'beginning of a new era' that our household was feeling at the time, and it really added something to packing up the big furniture.
When it got down to packing the little stuff, it took a lot longer, so the whole Fat Freddy's Drop back catalogue was in order. Starting off with possibly the longest and most value-for-money EP Live At The Matterhorn, it shows not just how far the band has come since 2001, but how tight they were way back when it all began. Hardly surprising when you have the likes of Trinity Roots founder Warren Maxwell playing with you. It seemed appropriate since we'd be moving to within a stone's throw of Maxwell's Stonefeather Studios.
Fat Freddy's Drop: Good to move to.
By the time Live at the Roundhouse was finishing up, we were getting behind schedule, and needed to kick things up a notch. So, with the help of Christchurch-born producer Tom Cosm we finished off the packing with some good old fashioned happy hardcore, a little technical dubstep wizardry thrown in, and his superb 2007 set at Melbourne's Make It Snow Festival to round off the frantic packing, taping, shouting, and heavy lifting.
Once everything but the sound system was packed, it was down to cleaning, and Cosm's superior had put us in the mood to go out rather than stay in to do the cleaning, so we needed a complete mood changer. Brian Eno's four seminal Ambient albums did the trick, and strangely, gave scrubbing a kitchen floor quite an epically ethereal quality. Somehow I found myself really feeling that I was making a great social difference by cleaning this floor. I suppose I was in a way, giving my family the best start for the future by scrubbing the hell out of this floor and ensuring we got our full bond refund. But Eno's sweeping dream-like album which, at over 35 years old, remains as contemporary as ever, will make anything you're doing at the time seem like the most important thing in the cosmos.
When the boombox was finally packed away, the last thing to leave the house before we did, all that was left to do was decide on what to listen to while driving through the Rimutaka Ranges. As has been done on so many day trips away, it felt wrong to listen to anything but old faithful Salmonella Dub's One Drop East.
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