MUSIC - DUNCAN HASKELL

Album Of The Month

Rapture by Emily Breeze

Considering that we live in a city with one of the UK’s most vibrant music scenes, it’s about time that we shine a light on one of the most talented local artists out there making it happen. Emily Breeze describes her new album as being, “A collection of coming-of (middle) age stories which celebrate flamboyant failure, excess and acceptance.” Combined, these musical vignettes make a compelling argument for why we should all grow old disgracefully.

It’s also an album anchored in the local scene. On shimmering opening track Ordinary Life, Breeze muses on the passing of time, reflecting, “Someone was gonna spot me walking down Stokes Croft and say/ ‘Hey kid, I’m gonna make you a star.’” It’s not all nostalgia and the everyday, Breeze also gazes up at the sky by sprinkling the album with excerpts clipped from science articles and quotes from cosmologists.

For us though, it’s the insights into Breeze’s life that draw us in like snippets of conversations escaping a warm pub on a cold winter’s ever. That pub is specifically, The Bell, where Breeze has popped in for a few drinks with friends Amy and Mike. In the company of people who know her better than she knows herself, Breeze is replenished with love, hope and happiness – and has written a rocking anthem to tell us all about it.

Sonically, Rapture feels like a collaboration Patti Smith and LCD Soundsystem may have created had they been raised in the West Country on a diet of Pulp. Breeze’s insouciant delivery imbues songs like Confessions of an Ageing Party Girl with authentic cool. Don’t be fooled though, she is also a singer of range and beauty who just chooses to use those weapons sparingly, making them all the more potent when fired. Part of Me, the album’s centrepiece, is one such track. It’s Chrissie Hynde fronting The Pogues and is both cinematic and down-to-earth - a microcosm of everything that makes this album such a delight.

Next Step CACTI by Billy Nomates

Though originally from Leicester, Billy Nomates, the project of songwriter/ multi-instrumentalist/ producer Tor Maries, is now based in Bristol. Such is the strength of her recently released second album, we’d be fools not to cling on to her and claim her as our own.

Post-punk, electronica, indie-pop… Nomates adroitly changes lanes throughout the record’s twelve songs. Her observations, equally cutting and poetic, are the constant that keep things from veering off track. Those thoughts often act as a mirror. “I’m the saboteur/you know I get a kick from turning you off,” she declares over a synthy pillow on Saboteur Forcefield, before revealing on wonky ballad Fawner, “I put my foot in my mouth/And do things inside out.” Yet, as we all learn to readjust to life following the pandemic, her reflection seems universal.

By the time of album closer Blackout Signal, with its industrial percussion and 80s production, Nomates has exposed her struggles, traumas and successes to the listener. Vulnerable yet bold, her story is one we can all relate to.

Podcast of the Month

Joanna Lumley & The Maestro

We’re leaving our beloved city behind to spend some time with Joanna Lumley and her husband, the revered conductor Stephen Barlow. Inviting the listener into their home, the couple take us into the world of classical music. Lumley plays the role of the enthusiastic amateur, a surrogate voice for those of us who have always wanted to ask questions such as, “What do conductors actually do?” As charming as it is informative.

Duncan Haskell

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Senior Snippets Senior Snippets The welcome sight of Spring

Welcome to the latest edition of Senior Snippets: an advisory column with the older members of our community in mind, brought to you by John Moore, Director of Home Instead in North Bristol.

As we see the evenings becoming longer and lighter, and the daffodils starting to bloom, we know that Spring is on the way. This gives us all a welcome boost and the opportunity to spend a little time outdoors and enjoy some fresh air and exercise.

Spending time in the garden tending plants and flowers or growing vegetables can be relaxing and rewarding. Gardening comes with many therapeutic and health benefits, including helping to burn calories and strengthen muscles.

You don’t need a huge space, tubs and window boxes can bring just as much pleasure, as you watch the colourful blooms grow. Spending time with nature is wonderfully satisfying and helps to clear the mind of worries.

Gardening can also trigger the use of motor skills to boost endurance and strength, while reducing stress levels by enhancing relaxation.

Encouraging birds and wildlife into your garden is also good for mental health and wellbeing. Watching the birds is great for brain health, as you learn to identify different species and their behaviours. It helps distract from life stresses and find solace in the beauty of wild birds.

By placing a few bird feeders in the garden, you will get to see regular visitors, and their young. If you don’t have access to outdoor space, there are bird feeders that can be attached directly to a window.

If you would like to speak to someone at Home Instead, please do get in touch. Similarly if you have any ideas for a future topic, please call 0117 435 0063 or email john.moore@homeinstead.co.uk

Trauma, of course, can be multifaceted and is generally well beyond the scope of a single article, so this may well be a subject I return to in subsequent columns. For now, though, what might trauma look, sound or feel like?

Therapeutically, we often differentiate between small-t and big-T trauma - although a potentially more useful distinction may also be overt and covert trauma. Many people will understand the more overt traumas borne from circumstantial life events such as major car accidents, death of a loved one, sexual abuse/assault, being caught up in a war zone or other natural disaster, etc. Yet, equally impactful, are the more subtle, covert traumas; the life events that happen to us which systemically overwhelm us – and usually those which have no discernible end point; they go on. How we respond to these events potentially have seeds sown in childhood.

When our core emotional needs [broadly speaking: love, safety and healthy boundaries] aren’t met, as we develop we unconsciously gain immature coping mechanisms which then continue into and throughout adulthood. As a result, people may go on to cultivate anxiety, or even high anxiety – the latter being characterised as high functioning, meaning they always feel the need to be on the go and achieving, and otherwise find it difficult to simply be, until they reach a tipping point; this is when distraction can be added to the mix with substances or other unwanted behaviours to get away from emotional discomfort. But what we often don’t fully realise is that unwanted behaviours are a legacy of trauma held in our bodies; held in our unconscious.

Trauma also has no concept of time and can sit in our bodies on high alert for many years waiting to be triggered; ready to keep us safe. Therefore, we can carry trauma with us without being consciously aware because how well these coping mechanisms have continued to function.

What are these covert traumas and how might they continue to impact me?

Fundamentally, by their nature they are highly individual. Something that may affect one person may not impact another in the same way; even the same experience.

Consider two soldiers seeing their friend shot down. They may share the same, extremely visceral, immediate experiential trauma, but subsequently one soldier processes the event and recovers, while the other spirals into darkness. In this example, the first soldier potentially had their core emotional needs met in childhood allowing them to be better equipped to witness such a tragedy, but the second may’ve have been triggered by seeing his mother on the ground the result of an abusive relationship.

I’ve taken a relatively extreme example to illustrate the point, but it’s often the covert traumas that sit on high alert in our bodies which can cause ongoing issues. Consider the young child whose parents separate, then as an adult they experience their own separation or divorce. It’s possible the adult relationship wasn’t a particularly happy one, maybe wellmeaning friends assure them it was the best outcome, but while the ongoing unhappiness was a covert trauma, the overt trauma was their mother or father leaving them as a child – the fear of being left all over again. In this example, perhaps it could hold us back from embarking on potentially fulfilling relationships. Or the unconscious lack of trust or fear of commitment will jeopardise future relationships.

What makes all this matter?

It’s the importance of understanding that our traumas are unique to us and that the perceived size of the trauma is often conspicuously less important. Minimising our trauma as relatively insignificant – when, as we often do, compared to others – is what traps us and makes it likely to resurface again, making it harder to understand or deal with.

Change the things you can. Seek the help of a therapist to help change the things where you feel stuck.