𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 - this week: Range of Time

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly - an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙍𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚 - 𝙀𝙘𝙝𝙤 𝙒𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙚

Charles momentarily forgets the past…

With the passing of time, time passes. This is without exception and by definition what happens. There is no time when time stands still. “Now” is instantly “then”. The future becomes the present, and the present becomes the past. Which is why people get so excited about the lottery, yet couldn’t give a damn about last week’s numbers. But with time comes change. Change in all ways, always. What was once so popular becomes so impossibly unfashionable. A young green fragile stem with but one leaf, becomes a great, grand awe-inspiring oak, towering above almost everything, given time. But given more time, its life is forced to a close, and it becomes, say, a table. Time is everything here. Without time, life is a photograph. Without time, there would be no war, no destruction, no death and no rush. But then again, without time, there would be no peace, no conservation, no life and no rush.

This all made me think about the past and whether it matters. “It’s all in the past - bygones”. If the past is in the past, then why care about it? Isn’t it all just last week’s lottery numbers? Yesterday’s news? Little Tommy doesn’t fit into his red dungarees any longer; so those red dungarees are relegated to the past. A pointless relic. But they live on in the memories of when little Tommy was still sweet. So therefore the past perhaps has some sort of significance, no? The demise of Tommy’s red dungarees is hardly an important one. But it does make one wonder. Wonder about history. So many seem so stuck in the “now” these days, and seem to think that the past is insignificant or irrelevant - with the exception of wanting to change the past or delete various instances of history altogether - neither of these can be done. It would simply be a lie. I think I can sum up in two words why the past is so important. Learning, and Consequence. Without the past, we would know quite literally nothing. The exact definition of zero. It would be the deletion or avoidance of memory. What would a physicist know without hindsight? What would an old person have without memories? The past is far more important than the present, really. And the future depends on the past: hence consequence. Everything in the world is a direct consequence of the past. Like it or not, this is fact. The pessimists might say that because of the past we’re all completely FACT!

In music, where would we be without the past? Gone is the influence of such greats as J.S. Bach, The Beatles and Vanilla Ice. How could we create a new digital synthesiser without having had any instrument beforehand upon which to build…? You could not be taught how to play the euphonium, because there would be no tutor. Because there would be no euphonium. I suppose one could start from scratch and slowly work things out. But the problem with that would be that by the time you were 90 and close to death (or 30, as there would be no medicine), you would perhaps have little more than a couple of rocks that made a differing noise when struck with your head. And by the next generation, these vital observations would be struck from the records, only to be repeated in a slightly different way by the following generation of headbangers. The past really is everything.

Let us now turn our attention to a brand new artist on the New Artist Spotlight. One who is currently writing about the passing of the years in his new single, Range of Time. Please welcome, Echo Wilde! With the plethora of great new singles, EPs and LPs released in the last couple of weeks in the NAS community, it really was (as usual) a difficult task to finalise on one. But it has always to be just one. Range of Time caught my ear within exactly one second, as opposed to other songs that took maybe as long as 4 seconds for me to latch on. Having spent a lifetime so far listening to all styles of music, most things remind me of other things from the past. This song didn’t. Those who know me well - or even a bit - will know that originality in music is everything to me. But it must still retain cohesion and make sense. Otherwise I would welcome free jazz with open arms. But even free jazz is not a new thang - hence to me it is simply a self-indulgent pretentious noise with little more than dissonance and irritating dullness. This is NOT what originality is about. The man behind Echo Wilde is Jack Evans, from Rose City, Michigan. Jack is a true artist of the old way, in that he is solitary in his art. The “Y” of DIY stands for “Yourself”, not “Yourselves”. The “Why” of DIY stands for “Why not”. Because he can. You see, Jack Evans does everything himself on all his singles so far. Now, while this isn’t too rare in the New Artist Spotlight, it is quite rare for other artists to reach this high level or standard in ALL sides of creation from first idea to finished product. He writes, sings, performs, records, produces, mixes and masters all on himself. Even the coolest artwork. All by his own! As this is exactly the way I do things, this obviously struck a chord with me. I forget which chord, but he was instantly a man of my own heart.

I can’t tell you what genre this song is, because it is many and none. Like my own (oh, of COURSE I went for this song)! It is sort of acoustic, but acoustic with drive and tenacity. It is also hip-hop and lo-fi, but not like you would know. There is pop, but not the sort one would find in the charts. It sounds both personal and a song for the masses. It is organic. It is electronic. It is clean and clear. It is thick and fuzzy. There is subtlety. There is brashness. I could of course label this as “alternative”, but we all know this absurdly named genre was invented when the “genre creator” got bored and evidently lost his or her spark. There is only one known artist I can think of who resembles Jack in sound and voice. An artist so completely and utterly undefinable and original that influence becomes meaningless. That artist is Beck. Not Howie Beck. Not Jeff Beck. Just Beck. I have always ADORED Beck. In fact, for me I would say there are only two artists who seemingly had no past to influence them: Beck and Björk. They are perhaps the original rock-bashing headbangers. Oh, and The Beatles. Boring to say, I know. But it’s true.

Jack has evidently spent quite a while honing his craft and absorbing (but not copying) his musical predecessors. And the consequence of this time well spent is music to our ears. Literally. I know you feel that urge to press play now…

If there were to be two volumes of The History of Everything, they should be called Time and Time Again.

Listen to 𝙍𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚 on the 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 Spotify playlist HERE!

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