Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this new series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Here are their love letters to records that forever changed their lives.
Nick Acquroff, nyck: Leif Vollebekk – ‘Twin Solitude’
I’m sure life will find a way to take a dramatic, downward spiral sometime soon, but right now I’m happy. And over the last six months, as I went through a transition from someone who was uptight and shit company to someone who is feeling like nothing at all needs to change, Leif Vollebekk’s album, Twin Solitude, became the soundtrack.
We were recording our EP in February. Dom, Hayden (Calnin), and I would be in the studio until late at night recording vocals and piano. We’d smoke a joint and order some dinner and take it outside to eat in the laneway behind Rolling Stock in Collingwood. It was the end of summer and it was light until like 8.30pm. The concrete was warm to sit on, and Leif just captured this incredible sense of sweetness and melancholy that – like all albums you really love – made you feel like every word and melody was written for you and what you were going through at that very moment.
It’s warm and aimless. Perfect for summer. None of the songs really go anywhere. There’s no defined hooks or repeating melodies. He’s just saying words over these tight, live, beautiful grooves. And because of that, there’s nothing too much to focus on other than the feeling it evokes.
So, in turn, it heightens all these moments you have while you’re listening to it, like those nights out in the lane. They become something more than just rudimentary. They solidify in your mind and become something magic and memorable. And so, as I move dangerously close to wanker fuck-wit territory, this was the soundtrack to a bit of a wonderful unravelling for me. One of those albums that helped me sit back with two of my best pals and realise that things didn’t need to get better or change at all. They were good just as they were.
I won’t give much of the album away, but it needs to be listened to from front to back. Don’t expect too much out of it. There’s nothing in there that’s going to blow your head off on the first listen. But as a whole album, it’s special. And if you’re anything like me it will make you really feel like things are settled, and make all those little moments you have through the day feel more profound and important.
Shout out to St. South for sending it to our way.
Go To Songs:
Vancouver Town
Elegy
Michigan
Big Sky Country
Rest
Go To Lyrics:
“Kicking over trash cans and telling jokes in Atlanta. And I got the fever, it hit me like a fan on the back of my hand.”
“Nothing is forgiven if nothing is for certain.”
“Pacific North West on a southbound train. Buffalo clouds hanging above the planes.”
“Some say I’m different, some say I’m the same. Some say I’m going through the motions.”
–
nyck’s debut EP ‘Alive’ is out now. Listen here.
