January 23 - Noctifer Birmingham

Something about this song feels like a dream. The sort of not quite asleep, not quite fully awake place where the mind creates things and latches them on to actual sensation. It's a place where Nick Drake lived a lot, and much of the instrumentation in this song reminded me of him.

Lyrically this was delightful and small, a cozy spot in a cold world, like an insulated apartment in a cold city or the warm spot under blankets on a winter's day, with cold surrounding but not getting in.

This is a studio recording, a rarity in this collection so far, and seems to have come from a chaotic mixtape. The second vocals on this are from Rachel Ware, and are a beautiful addition to the sense of this song as two people from huge distances experiencing a brief meeting that feels like it lasts too long and ends too soon, moving from perfect anticipation to imperfect life and into perfect memory.

The first years of the relationship that became my life were carried out largely by telephone. Night calls from necessity because of the time difference, late nights talking online after everyone else had gone to bed, conversations about nothing that existed just to hear each other's voices. The feeling of someone being so far away, too far to ever reach, and yet so close that they could whisper in your ear. I miss those days. I never want to experience those days again.