Being stuck in the office for fourteen to sixteen hours a day for the last ten days has not been fun.  At all.  There is something uniquely depressing about an office, no matter how relaxed and informal, when everyone else has gone home and you are drinking the same piss-poor instant coffee you were drinking at three in the afternoon.  At ten o’clock at night, that coffee ceases to be a welcome five minute break and becomes something much more demoralising.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Proper Job, I really do.   But after having done nothing but work and sleep for this long you enter a sort of trance – a kind of twilight half-life of sitting in an empty room by yourself with computers humming gently and a slightly surreal stillness prevailing in a place that is usually bustling and busy.  Meh.  Well, the presentation is on Monday, so by Tuesday I should be able to draw breath again, at least until the next time we take on more work than we can reasonably do in such a short space of time – maybe a couple of weeks, then.

The thing is though, as depressing as it sounds, I don’t actually mind.  I’m a creative sort working in a creative job, so staying late to do more creative things is no great hardship, as tiring as it might be.  But the real perks are twofold.  Firstly, the privacy: I find it quite pleasant to potter about by myself with no-one bothering me and no-one trying to interact with me.  It may be antisocial, but it’s true.  Secondly, the music: I have my backup hard drive here in the office so my entire music library is here with me.

This second point is huge.  Given the explosion of new music people have started sending me since the start of Song, by Toad I barely get that much chance to listen to my old albums.  I listen to new things at work, and I am as often as not out in the evening either with friends, or my Midget Companion Mrs. Toad.  This means my archive has been utterly neglected, which is a shame because surely the point of collecting this vast amount of music is so that you can listen to it.  I have sold all my CDs and all my music now resides on a hard drive, so the pleasure of collecting beautiful objects and lovely graphics is one I have foregone.  Thus it is, as they say, entirely about the music.

So this weekend I have been rediscovering things.  Old albums not heard for years, recent albums that have been neglected as newer ones displaced them at the top of the playlist, and new groups I’d always intended to get into but never quite got round to.  Sixteen hours is a long time to soundtrack, it turns out.  You can listen to a lot of music in sixteen hours.  And here is what I have discovered.

Milburn – They were dismissed – or at the very least neglected – as a sort of Junior Arctic Monkeys when they released Well Well Well last year, and I know they sound just like Alex Turner’s lot, but this is a good album in its own right.  Revolutionary, no, but it is a solid album of catchy hooks and good tunes and Arctics-style lyrics.  Just because the Arctic Monkeys did it slightly sooner and arguably better, doesn’t mean this isn’t good.

Milburn – Lipstick Licking

Kraftwerk – I’ve always meant to try and get beyond Radioactivity and The Model and really get into these guys.  Well I’ve tried, and I won’t be bothering  again.  I’m glad I’ve given it a go, but I’m just not that impressed.

Kraftwerk – Radioactivity

R.E.M. – Fables of the Reconstruction – Oh yes indeed what a superb album this is.  A bit like U2, their really rather turgid recent output tends to obscure just how good these guys were when they were in their prime.  An all-time classic album that should hopefully endure through the ages.

REM -  Old Man Kensey

Micah P Hinson & the Opera Circuit – This album is a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.  Truly it is.  Like the book, except in all sincerity this is an actual description rather than a facetious title.  An amazingly beautiful album.

Micah P Hinson – Little Boy’s Dream