December: I was sitting in Botanics and an old man started talking to me about ancient ash trees brought over from America. I went to Edinburgh for a day and collected my thoughts among the dead bracken and cracked seedpods in the Botanic Gardens. I carried a Christmas tree home over the bridge on Great Western Road, wrote thousands of words and lay on my floor listening to Bjork and dreaming of fairy lights, the superimposition of each glow and glare over imaginary cityscapes half-borrowed from mid-noughties video games. People gave me mixtapes for Christmas which I’ve cherished with care and reverence, loving even the tracks that skip. I carried enough plates to make my wrists hurt, spinning trays and polishing glasses to a proper sparkle. I threw glitter over things until they started to change, remembering the eyes staring back at me and the way the music would fall through the catacombs of darkness, all the while forgetting the beauty of that drunk feeling. Knee socks, lipstick, tequila, lost garlands. Wrapping things in holograms, I hope for another decent year with all these magic people.
Laura Marling – Soothing
Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One
Hippo Campus – The Last Snowstorm of the Year
White Baer – The Tide in My Lungs
Sibylle Baier – Says Elliott
Fionn Regan – Lines Written in Winter
Bright Eyes – When the Curious Girl Realises She is under Glass
There Will Be Fireworks – Your House Was Aglow
Minor Victories – Scattered Ashes (Song for Richard)
salvia palth – i was all over her
Sufjan Stevens – Fourth of July
Kirsty MacColl – A New England
Max Richter, Ben Russell, Yuki Numata Resnick – Dream 3 (In the Midst Of My Life)
Angel Olsen – White Water
Portico Quartet – 4096 Colours
Kinbrae – Constellations
mariaology 