Psych Couture

That Heat

   I hate summer time

   It has precisely little value outside of its voyeuristic cachet. The mixture of loss of inhibitions and sensible practicality that leads to pleasing feminine visions also results in disgusting visuals of cross-gender partial nudity that gouge into the mind for the longest time. Lord knows why you all love to throw your clothes off and cavort around open spaces, frolicking without the mess


   I have an outstanding request from one reader to advise on dressing for intemperate climes such as the one we share here in Accra. Presently, the sun has rendered me insensible; there's an ice cream headache waiting for me whenever I move to overturn these circumstances in my favour. Yes, I have air conditioning. And yes, it consistently gives me a nasty cold


   For the sake of my aesthetic theory, there are usually few photographs of my summerwear; to dress for the occasion, I normally sport something elegant in black that also functions as a fitting expression of self:

   All in all, I’d rather be in Iceland


   However, request my presence at a gathering with a British Summer Time theme and the topmost photo is the result. It's intended as pastiche only, with the mode owing more than minimal guidance to the photographic submissions section of The Chap. My ramie Junya Watanabe jacket, one of the few lightweight designs that can be comfortably sported above 25 degrees, deserves better than such purposeful irony. The artifice makes it wrinkle faster


   One's summer jacket is a garment for pleasure because your dress options remain open. That Panama, the linen scarf, the silk neckerchief, the correspondents, the open-necked psychedelic shirt, the tasteful eyeframes, the go-to-Hell trousers in M&M palettes; it's a framework that has lasted almost a century but there's a protean manner of stretching it if one loves a challenge


   For all my scepticism, I like the idea that summer is a two or so month-long Traffic Light Party for gentlemen. Consider it; sun and insensibility - what else should encourage a sartorial frolic in primary colours?


   I'll be going Green

Neil & Iraiza - 'Wednesday' (2002)

It's elegant listening

Cut Down

   Perhaps a compounding factor in my reaction to the sad event of ex-Gang Starr rapper Guru's death is that he passed on whilst still hugging his grudge against his former partner, hip hop creative legend DJ Premier

   There's a natural disappointment to seeing such fertile partnerships dissolve into acrimonious ruin; nevertheless, everything has its time and Gang Starr certainly had theirs. Premier's prolific approach to furnishing artists with his output will certainly fly the group's flag for time to come, whether indirectly or not

   There is a hint of artistic ruin to Guru's end, unfortunately - the alleged amount of control over his affairs that was entrusted to MC Solar has more than a tinge of addle-minded desperation that also suggests some paranoia. I don't like to speculate on the personal circumstances of the newly dead, however

   Rhyming skills are in a dearth of supply today; hip hop is assuredly lesser without his capabilities. Find peace, fellow; we'll always have Jazzmatazz

Supergrass - 'We Still Need More (Than Anyone Can Give)' (1998)

"Because here it comes

Here it comes"

   Last week delivered the news that Supergrass, previously enjoying a certain veneration within the canon of Britpop survivors turned good, had opted to part ways. And so, I opt to remember them in song; one of their own, of course

   I'm perennially drawn to any form of underdog and so my choice is one not fondly recalled by the band itself, although that opinion may also be symptomatic of an unfondly remembered experience. A rerecording of a b-side during their second album's campaign, behind the boards are the Dust Brothers - John King and Michael Simpson - helmers of the ever-memorable Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys and Odelay! by Beck. Bearing the provenance of two of my favourite albums, this song would always receive an open-minded first listen from me. When last viewed, my iTunes displayed a listening count in the 50s - considering my mp3 files number in the thousands, that represents an addiction by my standards. Of course, optimistic itinerancy as fetching, upbeat song does easily fixate me

   'We Still Need More...' has place of pride with the various listeners of the soundtrack to the MTV Films-produced black comedy Dead Man On Campus, for which it was commissioned. The Dust Brothers irregularly supplied various films with original music around this period and produced around half of the soundtrack, for which they also served as executive producers. The following year, their facility for pop cultural anthropology through hip hop and electronic music would deliver one of my favourite ever scores for one of my favourite ever films, Fight Club

   The juxtaposition of vocalist Gaz Coombes' glam rock propensities with the surf rock flirtations of the backing exemplify the Dust Brothers' easy approach to recombinant genre play; it's to their advantage that the band had already written a strong enough song that could paper over any potential production missteps. However, responsible as King and Simpson were for encouraging scores of white men to sing over any "classic" hip hop breakbeat, indirectly or otherwise, their own approach was always far more nuanced, unprejudiced and witty than the obvious and capricious takes offered by their followers

   Its greatest trick is not that it is a Beck-like song that sounds expressly like a Supergrass one but that it sounds like a song produced by the Dust Brothers and still - due to the fact that it is augmented rather than outright altered - very much the creation of a band; a pleasing irregularity when Supergrass' own feeling was that they lacked control over its recording. Besides, all sounds better with strings

   As for Supergrass, a reunion would not be unanticipated

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream? 

- "for Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes. And Barbara with infinite love as I falter on the road to Ithaka." Edgar Allan Poe, 1849 

Salon Music - 'Chew it in a Bite' (1996)

   Salon Music is Yoshida Zin and Takenaka Hitomi. In operation since 1981, their career encompasses intricate synth pop, full bore rock'n'roll, ethereal shoegaze, krautrock and breakbeat-impelled psychedelia

   I'm specifically fond of their version of 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye,' recorded with Sparks

Colour Wheel Spins

   Kaleidoscopically speaking, this is a year-round ensemble. The sobriety of the deep navy (in person) double breasted and the grey-green of the trousers is enlivened by the exuberance of the accessorising. It's waggishness meets temperance. As I prefer it

   The laces are only for the playful

How to Show Up Your Friends

   Ahmet Ertegun, late founder and chairman of the revered and iconoclastic Atlantic Records, had a penchant for correct dressing to the extent that he made other grown men, such as Paolo Nutini and Kid Rock, who flank him above, appear even younger than their Wikipedia entries would have you believe

   Of course, whilst this appears to be a mere clash of refinement and unruliness, one cannot dismiss the twinkle in Ertegun's eyes that implies a capacity to be as indelicate as his companions, at least once upon a time. Nutini was a great admirer of Ertegun's sartorial sense, likening it to that of his own grandfather, but also reminisced that when it came to retaining a finger on the pulse, he was more like a 25-year old. Indeed, one would expect nothing less than precise attunement to the zeitgeist from Ertegun, the man who wrote 'Mess Around' for Ray Charles, signed Led Zeppelin and fell asleep in a nightclub whilst finalising negotiations with The Rolling Stones

   His instincts were not only used to make Atlantic one of the most hallowed of record labels - as an exemplar of the conservative mode, he sought little more than quiet perfection - and achieved it