For many, art and music are the remedies we turn to when searching for relief through the most deeply painful experiences in our lives. Today’s playlist centres on healing, as Note returns to The North Quarter to present his ‘… the thing with feathers’ EP, a highly personal project shaped by themes of loss and resilience. Written while Note was coming to terms with the passing of his brother, the EP provides an unflinchingly personal reflection on grief, in turn forming a poignant and profoundly felt body of work.
Having featured regularly on The North Quarter and Goldfat Music, Note has been steadily carving out his own lane in soulful D&B over the last few years. Racking up an impressive back catalogue of releases across the likes of Shogun Audio, CIA, Gemini Gemini and Vandal Records, he has left a distinctive mark on each imprint with his heartfelt, emotion-rich style.
That unmistakable sound comes to the fore in ‘…the thing with feathers.’ While each of the singles provided a taste of the forward-thinking soulful drum and bass on show, the project truly thrives in its entirety, delivering an unconstrained, emotionally honest journey through Note’s experience of grief and the hope and resilience that emerges from it. As his track selection attests, the scope of influence is wide. Most noticeably, jazz-infused harmonies thread seamlessly throughout the EP, merged with Note’s refined, innovative production to allow for each moment to be deeply felt. Bodies of work like this serve as powerful reminders of just how much emotion this music can convey, and indeed, how it can help heal through the most immensely difficult moments.
From the artist: The way grief and art intersect is a funny thing. Although grief is one of the most profoundly painful feelings that people experience, I was surprised at how often I really needed to experience something that hit me right in it. I found myself revisiting my favourite grief-y books, music, films with reckless abandon and what I quickly learned was that, though I did find it comforting, it was not doing much in the way of helping me recover. Don’t get me wrong, being able to feel my pain whole was vital to my healing, however I found that sometimes I was using the experience as a way to avoid coming to terms with the fact that I have lost someone I love and that I must continue living without them. This realisation set the tone for ‘…the thing with feathers’— I wanted to make something that was an honest reflection of my grief but also something that was centred around healing and finding a way to move forward.
These tracks that I have selected for this playlist are songs I genuinely listened to around the time I was working on this EP: they are songs that helped me return to myself in some way helping me to shape the music I was making in an authentic way.
Saya Gray – DIZZY PPL BECOME BLURRY
I find Saya’s approach to arrangement and production so fresh and inspiring. She is someone who has been in my periphery since her 19 Masters album but I didn’t really give her the attention she deserved until her QWERTY EPs. They were the most interesting bits of music I was hearing at the time, a melting pot of a lot my tastes.
Shabaka – Ital Is Vital
Shabaka Hutchings clearly mines from a very deep place. You can see from everything he touches and the themes he likes to explore, but the thing I don’t see spoken a lot about is just how playful he is. I’ll admit that I can get a bit deep (I mean just look at this playlist) but I like to play and never take myself too seriously. I feel my best work comes when I’m walking that tightrope of depth and silliness.
I mean this is a tune featuring a shakuhachi, harp, guitar and bells and it is truly gorgeous but when you listen to his playing, it feels like he’s dancing.
Flying Lotus – Until The Quiet Comes
I remember the day this dropped, I was already a big Flying Lotus fan, blending forward thinking beat-making with hip hop and spiritual jazz; it’s so up my street. One day this film popped up, this mysterious thing that opens with some quietly striking shots. I was completely taken in and then ‘Getting There’ hits (starts at 1:50) and I was like “yup, the future is here.” As someone who adores the cross-section of different art forms, this was formative for me. It’s an album I come back to so often.
Lucy-Anne Daniels – Nature Boy
My community is easily the most important element of my healing process. I would not have survived this loss if it was not for the people I am so, so grateful to be surrounded by. I also have the ridiculous privilege to also be friends with some of the most talented humans in the world! My good friend Lucy-Anne Daniels (aka LAOD) invited me to join her and help out with some production in a studio session last year. I arrived as she was filming this arrangement of ‘Nature Boy’. She has managed to make such a well-worn standard feel fresh and new. Having my mind blown by friends is one of my greatest joys.
Esperanza Spalding – Formwela 4
Esperanza is one of my favourite artists of all time so I return to her music a lot. This track is from the Songwrights Apothecary Lab album, which is a project where she hosted these residencies featuring scientists, researchers and artists. The aim of the residencies was to create music for healing inspired by actual science and academic research which sounds dry but Esperanza approaches everything with so much heart and playfulness. The idea of the album was that each song would work like an amulet or medicine that you play to help for a specific issue. So this one, she explains, is a “song to help you remember that people who really love you, want to hear what you’re actually experiencing, feeling and thinking. And it’s not a kindness to hide what’s on your heart.”
James Blake – Fall Back
It is no surprise to absolutely anyone that I love music that is designed to be played loud in dark rooms. I mean if you’re reading this then chances are that you’re very intimately familiar with the feeling. Talking things through, allowing space for rest, good food, et cetera are all very well-documented ways of healing but sometimes, alongside all these things, you just need to sweat things out in the dance. And when a track is able to hit you in the feels and still make you wanna throw your shoes at the DJ, that’s a thing of magic.
Kara Jackson – why does the earth give us people to love?
As I mentioned, there are times that I’m just looking for something that can touch the feeling I’m experiencing directly. This is the only song on my playlist that is actually about grief. This is from an album that came out just before my brother passed, and I loved it when I initially listened to it, but after my loss the whole thing hit me like a bus, especially this song. I’ve cried a lot to this, it’s devastatingly beautiful.
Björk – Like Someone In Love
I think Debut is my most listened to album of all time (maybe tied with The Low End Theory). This is my ultimate comfort album. It’s wild, right in the middle of what is essentially an experimental dance/pop record she throws in a jazz standard accompanied mostly by just a harp. On the album it arrives like a breath of fresh air and it never fails to ground me.
Quko – My Darling Spaceship
This one is the toughest one and I have gone back and forth on whether I wanted to include it, but here it is. This is a song written and performed by my uber-talented brother. He was quite a sensitive soul and his take on R&B/soul reflected that. I remember when he was selected to be part of the Brownswood Recording Future Bubblers project, he called me worried about how to navigate it. I had the beautiful privilege of producing his first and only release, watching his confidence grow and the development of his singular vision is now one of my most treasured memory.
Marco Woolf & Rowan Lark – Two (Live)
My final selection is a performance with the most important person in the world to me. My partner in life and all things joyous. I care not to think about how I would’ve come out of the darkest moments of my life without her. An incredible talent and artist in her own right, it’s actually super rare for us to collaborate with each other publicly, so this is a special moment that I like to return to. This is us performing a song I wrote for her with my other project Marco Woolf.
Honourable Mentions:
Mount Eerie – A Crow Looked At Me
FKA Twigs – Drums of Death
Tom Harris – Ivy
‘… the thing with feathers’ is available to stream or purchase here. Check out Note’s streamable playlist below.