Romance Nouveau – Surrender

As stated in the prior entry for ‘Together’, Romance Nouveau has been brought about by an evolution of a prior set of playlists I’d made in the past called ‘Sensual’. The ideologies of sharing time together in different ways, casually, playfully and intimately, to name a few, have inspired me to focus on some of these elements through their own modes of music.

‘Surrender’ originally was the first, stand-alone evolution of ‘Sensual’, but focussing more closely on what I’ve come to call ‘the moment of surrender’, the point at which one fully accepts, embraces or pursues infatuation and engagement, the moment lust gives birth to love (note, does not replace it), and entanglement begins. Each of these tracks represent different stages of surrender, and almost all of them at some point encapsulate that moment of surrender – at least by the way I reckon things. For me some of them just express that moment so perfectly, each in their own unique way. One or two of these tracks and songs also represent surrender as a whole, as-in the entire piece is the advent of surrender itself. Towards the end the music begins to describe a surrender of a very different kind. Instead of something akin to giving-in or perhaps acceptance, I feel there’s a part of surrendering that is just about enjoying intimacy and letting it happen. Sometimes we try, sometimes we feel trepidation, doubt and uncertainty, but sometimes I believe we have periods of being naturally and easily in-love, and there’s a peculiar kind of vulnerability that comes about that is I feel, quite natural.

I’ll list the running-sheet as usual for my own notes (all of my listings are for my own notes), but then I feel it necessary to record how I feel about each track. These are my own interpretation only, and I’d like to note it all down while I have the clarity to do so.

The centrepiece that inspired this playlist is without a doubt ‘Is It Ever Enough?’ by Crazy Penis. In my private fantasies I often create very theatrical dramatisations of infatuation and romance, many involving choreography – in particular with Bjork’s wonderful ‘All Neon Like’ which is included here, and ‘Is It Ever Enough’ fit this mood just perfectly.

1. Shrift – Lost In A Moment – Lost In A Moment (4:44)
2. Gavin Friday – Angel – Romeo & Juliet ’96 (4:19)
3. Crazy penis – A night on Earth – A night on Earth (7:03)
4. William Orbit – Sea green – Hello Waveforms (6:23)
5. Crazy Penis – Is It Ever Enough? – Love On The Line (5:04)
6. dZihan & Kamien – Homebase – Freaks and Icons (7:20)
7. Bjork – All neon like – Homogenic (5:53)
8. Pramod Upadyaya – Ambala (dZihan & Kamien remix) – Fakes (4:35)
9. Massive Attack – Teardrop – Mezzanine (5:30)
10. Jon Hopkins – Fading Glow – Opalescent (6:58)
11. Helios – Dragonfly Across An Ancient Sky – Eingya (5:41)
12. Shrift – Yes I Love You – Lost In A Moment (3:58)

1 hour, 7 minutes

‘Lost in a Moment’ is the foreshadowing, something I did with the second Sensual collection with a quiet track by Four Tet called ‘First Thing’ which will almost certainly reprise the same role as opener for Romance Nouveau – Intimacy when I finish it (Intimacy will be the evolution and ultimate replacement of the core Sensual theme). Lost in a Moment has Nina Miranda’s divine voice lilting gently along with the most minimal and surreal sounds. It is an open vessel for romance, a suspicion in the self of infatuation, the tiniest flame of eagerness tempered with self-control and the natural checking to prevent disappointment. I love this kind of thing – after engaging in a relationship for a while, we tend to go back through our thoughts and romanticise things, and this song is very much in the ideology of that indulgence.

‘Angel’ has been a favourite of mine since I saw and fell immediately in love with Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 iconoclast Romeo + Juliet. I’ve never been overly fond of the story, but his and his crew’s translation of the film brought it to life for me. I’m much more in-love with both the cinematic atmospheres created and the supporting characters than either the literal story itself and the two main protagonists themselves. ‘Angel’ is such a buoyant piece, so full of optimism, easing into the party spirit. It’s light engagement, enjoying time with friends and the rare ease of meeting new people which inevitably bring potential new lovers… of-course it sounds terribly contrived, that’s entirely the point of one whole aspect of romance (not all of it mind). Angel is enjoying the company of someone almost without knowing just how good it is. Heady spirits perhaps encouraged by swirling alcohol – good food, good wine, good company and great music. It’s driving through the country-side or by the beach in the sun; it’s relaxed but still spirited dancing well into the night, but well before the end of things; it’s relaxing on comfortable couches while talking about everything and nothing; finding yourself with someone on a balcony in the cool Spring or Summer night air and realising that you find them not only physically attractive, but intellectually and emotionally too. Angel brings about all of these things and lays the foundations for unconscious seduction.

‘A night on Earth’ became my immediate favourite on the album of the same name from Crazy Penis when I first heard it. Some of these songs may contain lyrics that seem a little contrary to the romantic theme, but in their own way they’re relevant, or it’s a case of the overall atmosphere of the music overtaking any one direct interpretation of the lyrics if not disregarding them all-together. The mood of A night on Earth speaks volumes to me of falling for someone. It’s a slow but steady build-up of unruly and un-containable emotions that simply will not be quieted by any means. Slowly but surely you find yourself falling for someone, watching their every movement, listening to their every word. You watch them from across the room and they seem to make unreasonable and illogical sense to you… or your hormones. Then at 4 minutes 25 seconds, the moment of surrender begins. It’s when the world starts changing and there’s nothing you can do to stop it; like it or not, you’re hooked and all you want is more. If we allow ourselves the indulgence of joining at the hand and the hip, then we slow-dance through the last two-odd minutes of the song while slowly drawing closer together; breathing each-other in, dashing sense and logic away with wild abandon and giving into the closeness and the gravity of one-another; the very tangible objects of desire.

‘Sea Green’ by William Orbit is all about curiosity. It’s about a little bit of that sense and logic trying to fight their way back… and not knowing what they’re in for. We begin spending more time together, trying to find flaws and perhaps finding them… but then realising that they’re endearing, or that we’re beginning to enjoy understanding more and more about the other person. Sea Green is meals or coffees during the week, casual weekends with very loose plans, engagements with smaller and smaller groups, yet realising how different we’re behaving when there are the usual crowd of friends about. It’s about unconsciously including the object of our affection in all of our thoughts, clumsily catching ourselves, admonishing and chastising ourselves only to be immediately distracted by the thought in a instant. There’s a wonderful playfulness about this piece though; try as you might to hesitate, to slow-down and even not fall in-lust and in-love all-together, you find yourself delighted more and more that it’s happening. Vulnerability brings on a great sense of fear, but it acts as adrenaline. You become more and more curious about them, and you find yourself thrilled that they’re curious about you. You’re over-eager when talking about yourself and feel the flush of embarrassment, but can’t totally read their reactions, painfully caught between trying to read into subtleties or being totally encouraged to plunge on. Overall I feel Sea Green is about the sensation of delight, the joy of infatuation, the joys of tiny discoveries, the buoyancy of countless good things that encourage the most romantic and devious of thoughts. It’s not all seduction and being seduced though, there’s an openness to the piece that still preserves that idea of delight, perhaps one of the most pleasant things ever to experience in life.

‘Is It Ever Enough?’ – the awesome centrepiece that started it all. This song is without a doubt one of the most amazing modern pieces of music I’ve ever heard, though I tend to have a lot of those. It’s a slow-burn, a descent into the… darkness, obscurity, danger of absolute envelopment of infatuation. Infatuation now isn’t just about having a crush, about finding someone only physically attractive, or casually charming with wit and behaviour, it has grown into desire, into a want to have more and more stimulus and engagement from the other person. Cinematically I see a woman entering a venue with a dancefloor, the entire ‘stage’ grows dim and she’s soft spotlit. The crowd around her form pairs and choreographed places, they begin a coordinated dance to the beat as she moves slowly through them towards a man with which she is falling in love. Of-course the roles are interchangeable, and as always by no means strictly heterosexual, but for my own romantic sensibilities it’s one of the ways I see it. There would be some lovely gliding edits that pan-around and track the woman as she moves, coupled with some nice long boom-shots to show the wonderful, twirling choreography. This is the first piece of music outside of Bjork’s work that I have naturally envisaged this kind of thing. On the woman’s face is a subtle look of mixed emotions; of determination to be steel-willed, yet another kind of determination to pursue what she wants… but overriding all, the sense of surrender that she’s being drawn in almost against her will, and the underlying, smouldering ecstasy that comes with heightened infatuation. There are several moments of surrender in this piece I feel, but overall it itself as a whole represents the advent of surrender. Certainly the organic piano amongst the wonderful, rhythmic electronic sounds reveals the endearing nature of the woman’s vulnerability and desire, while also representing her seeming helplessness. In our cinematic scene, at around 3 minutes, our lovers have come together and the chorus has stilled. They touch and join bodies, beginning small movements to the beat. At 3 minutes 39 seconds, they begin to dance and the chorus all synchronise in a subtle mirror or complement of their movements. As the lush pad disappears into the 4th minute, their eyes close and their lips begin to brush over skin – the venue grows darker and darker until we can see only the lovers. Soon only piano remains, and they are clasped in firm and certain embrace.
(Remember the naturally contrived nature of romance… this is absolutely about indulgence…)

‘Homebase’ was the first dZihan & Kamien track I ever heard, and constantly keeps finding its way into my playlists. Just last year I included it in a playlist I made for a fictional expression of a fashion show, and for lingerie to boot. Seems strange, but there is so much I love about this track. An organic acoustic piano takes a more prominent central role now, and it signifies to me great subtlety and seriousness. The rolling rhythm of the piece to me signifies the momentum of entanglement. We are well and truly beyond just being at play, at this point you realise that you’re actually seriously in-love, not only in-lust. Now begins the aching when you’re apart, yet the hesitance to meet yet again this week; trying to convince yourself to take it slower, or that you’re unsure – perhaps you are unsure, but your emotions have joined forces with your hormones, and your intellect is probably not far off. It begins to make sense, it begins to fit. You may already be encountering conflict but you’re dealing with it well and it’s frightening. At times you may encounter an issue that you may think has the potential to undo you and the entanglement, but instead it results in only growing closer together. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months. Slowly you begin to realise that you may actually be ready to set aside your own selfishness… that you already have begun to, and that you may have found yourself totally engaged with someone, not just sexually and hormonally, but intellectually and emotionally also. At 4 minutes 35 seconds, you realise that it’s not a question any-more; the moment of surrender. From this moment on the trepidation and doubt don’t go away, but you are so intimately entwined with one-another that it is held firmly in check, suppressed and perhaps even ignored. Passion now isn’t just about being physically assertive, but it’s about the inclusion of another person into private and hidden parts of your life to which you permit no-one, often even yourself. You find your lover being able to read you, to disarm you, to point out your flaws yet still love you, and you delight in doing the same to and for them. Of-course from a romantic perspective, I’m glossing well over the very real effort it takes to cultivate this level of intimacy, but this playlist is after-all about indulging the pay-off, about the gratification of all of these turbulent emotions.

‘All Neon Like’ was one of the centrepieces of the very first Sensual collection. It is wonderfully theatrical for me, yet at the same time capable of intense and private intimacy. Bjork’s voice and the various superstars who produced Homogenic (Marius de Vries, Nellee Hooper etc.) can carry you through a similar theatrical choreography to what was described as inspired by ‘Is It Ever Enough?’, or it can lock two lovers alone in the dark, entwined as slowly moving shadows, touching, exploring, pleasuring while warm breath washes over bare skin. This for me is also a piece of absolute surrender, the sensation akin to falling backwards deep into some kind of blissful and very serious liquid manifestation of love; emotional, sexual and all forms of intimacy. The 2 minute mark certainly is a climax, perhaps even an orgasmic one, but even outside of a sexual translation, it still to me represents a freeing of the will, of letting all checks go and allowing the wild movements of love and engagement take their course. It’s not about suggesting some element of passivity, rather a shift in thought where we no longer fight for certain things, and rather cultivate others. I can’t speak for anyone else, but as for myself there is certainly a time, probably several times, when I shift my way of thinking. Each shift brings about new levels of vulnerability, risk, probably agood serving of hurt but infinite, indescribable rewarding experiences, not only that gratify myself, but my lover in equal measure. All Neon Like isn’t just about the movement of bodies, but of minds and thoughts.

‘Ambala’, dZihan & Kamien’s remix of a Pramod Upadyaya track comes from Sensual 2… and is about sex. I don’t mean that in a funny way, I mean it in a very serious way. I’ve never heard the original nor have I visited the city in India, so I am not privy to whatever original intention the track or song had, however I find this piece amazingly sensual. It is physical intimacy of the highest order. Experimentation, learning, development and use of non-verbal language, and the absolute indulgence in physical pleasure for hours on end, in ways that gratify the heart and mind just as much as the body. I judge no-one on their motivations and actions, but for me, I don’t believe I would be capable of such love-making unless I intimately knew my lover, and in the same way, they knew me. Absolute trust, confidence to correct without losing the mood or moment, and to guide hands and lips to the most sensitive places of the body to be pleasured. A passion almost animal, yet directed and performed under the natural talent of the intellect; slow, intense, eye-rolling, muscle-spasm inducing, irregular exhaling, lip-biting, shoulder-clutching, gasping, moaning, back-arching timeless pleasure. Ambala is surrender.

‘Teardrop’ – perhaps another strange entry, but for me perfectly fitting. For me it has this amazing sound of transcendence, of inclusion of all things at once, and each one exclusive of the others at the same time. It is the paradox that is the amazement at such a multifaceted experience in life, this thing we call intimacy and relationship. The sound describes disbelief, fear, hesitation, hope, stumbling error, embarrassment, amazement, engagement and entanglement, intellectual intimacy, verbal intimacy, physical intimacy, sexual intimacy, emotional intimacy, conflict and resolution, separation, disappointment, reunion, cultivation… the weight of it all – absolute surrender to the unmeasurable massive size of it yet its almost painfully intimate closeness. 3 minutes 56 seconds brings the moment of surrender… the acceptance of everything known and unknown, experienced and not-yet experienced, hoped for and desired never to have happened, all in one mode of surrender – mode, because it’s not just one moment, it’s yet again a realisation and a shift in thinking, in feeling, and in behaving and living. I’m sure many doubt this kind of love, but it’s something I’ve experienced before, something I’ve done, and the ultimate failure of a relationship resulting in separation does not negate the advent. It is the sheer size and weight of it, and also the closeness and intimacy of it at the same time, that seems to threaten to tear our very physical bodies apart, yet somehow also steadfastly binds our very cells together. Once again, I don’t speak for anyone else, nor do I excuse my flaws and mistakes, but I am very well aware that when I love, I love this much. Teardrop stands at the other end of the bar before knowing your lover’s name, and it sits at the end of a life shared, reflecting back over all the things you’ve felt and done together.

‘Fading Glow’ is a more recent addition to my music library, and a wonderfully quiet and intimate piece. The second Sensual collection brought me to the final bracket in a sense of acceptance of intimacy, of quietly and seriously enjoying it. There comes a moment after turbulent times both joyful and hurtful, that you feel something additional to (not more or less than) all the wild emotions of love. It’s a sense of perfection that accepts and embraces imperfection. It’s the knowledge that you love someone completely, knowing that you have a willingness to be open to them, to assist them, and the knowledge that they will be open to you and assist you when you need it, when you act out of selfishness, habit, misunderstanding or fear. It’s when you begin feeling less trepidation at the onset of an hours-long talk about serious matters, or revisiting traumatic memories of events past. Fading Glow is intimate in the most emotional and intellectual sense. It’s warm cups of fragrant tea cradled in winter-softened hands. It’s walks together in obscure and unpopulated places. It’s sitting together and talking of serious things, talking of cursory things or not talking at all. It’s non-verbal language in-place of functional language; the language of touch and subtle facial expressions that form a dialect built over months and years of intimacy. It’s being able to turn to your lover in bed, move yourself toward them in embrace and weep silent tears, knowing that you won’t be pressed for anything, that not a word will be spoken, and that in time, should the right time come, all will be shared. Impatience is rare, and acceptance is complete. It doesn’t mean everything is perfect from the perspective that nothing ever goes wrong, it is perfect in the way that when things go wrong, you both deal with them maturely and affectionately, even if some conflict has been caused. It is intimate knowledge of one-another, and the gentleness of acceptance, encouragement and tenderness.

‘Dragonfly Across an Ancient Sky’ really is bringing it close. While I’m sure words would not be totally invalid, there is almost nothing verbal in what I feel when I listen to this piece. It expresses dialects and experiences so intimately intertwined between lovers that even a word-by-word description of them all would fail to translate the true meaning of them, the emotions they have evoked, and how they have contributed to the unique love that is shared. Not only is much of what I feel non-verbal, but when I visualise it, I see myself and my lover with eyes closed, whether we’re locked in embrace or whether we’re sitting together in the dark without touching. Dragonfly Across an Ancient Sky is about ‘knowing’. Knowing just what it means to love, uniquely to you, and knowing that you’re loved, uniquely to you both. 3 minutes 48 seconds brings a gentle mallet-roll on a cymbal, the moment of surrender, when all is at peace, there are no more words to be said, and intimacy is so close that in many ways the two people are indistinguishable from one-another. Less about a sense of possession or loss of identity, and more about transcending what one person can be when only containing one’s own self. The inclusion of another person, the vulnerabilities and intimacies that come about, change you forever, even if you separate indefinitely. Love always means great things on a personal and private level, and in that way I don’t believe we ever stop loving anyone, regardless of whether we still live with them or not. This piece is a quiet celebration of love itself, surrendering to the way it has shaped and will shape us. It is the lightest, gentlest and almost silent of kisses, a single touch of the lips against the forehead, fingers at rest in a tangle of hair.

‘Yes I Love You’, the affirmation of love, smiling at the thought of all the silly things we’ve done, all the emotionally turbulent things, all of the gentle, wordless things, all of the wildly passionate and physical things. It is the most optimistic surrender of all, the freedom of giving away selfishness and letting someone inside, of indulging in their generosity, indulging in playfulness, indulging in lovers’ rights of unfairness, bias, illogical actions and childish, guilty penance. It’s serious acceptance, serious setting aside of emotions to arduously work at a seemingly immense problem of relationship. It’s all the desperation and joy and hope we share, that we keep private, that we give away consciously and unconsciously to our lover so that they are dosed daily with little pieces of ourselves. Yes I Love You has only one simple lyric, beautifully and effortlessly sung by Nina Miranda to embrace our lovers wholly and without reservation, the ultimate indulgence of exclusivity, shared experience and mature cultivated dialect in all forms. In some ways, Yes I Love You is a wonderful way of encapsulating the idea of surrender itself, in all its uncertainty, in all its vulnerability, and all of its gratification and reward.

So there it is, what seems to be a lot of definition is actually a very small part of something much larger than any collection of songs or descriptions of romantic fantasy. Life is many faceted, and love and romance are but pieces of it – they are however very important pieces, and loving and being romantic is something I believe can be cultivated, explored, indulged in and engaged in whether one has a lover or not. These collections of music are but one way of augmenting or capturing some tiny fragment of the experiences. I’m sure as time passes, my sense of love, intimacy and surrender will change, and so too my musical translations of them. I’m glad I got all of these thoughts down – some day someone will be very impressed that I wrote all of this down when I did… either that or they’ll think I’m a pretentious wanker, but here’s hoping for the former rather than the latter.

If you’ve been reading and made it to the end, thanks for reading. If it’s me looking back over this in months or years to come, I truly am proud to have written it – never forget these pieces of music and what they meant, in all of the youth and culture I indulged in at the time.