Jazzy D's Soul Notes

Olver Sacks "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain" (Picador)




A diverting look at music and the brain. Some chapters were a bit shorter than I would have liked (one was only two pages long), but at least there are plenty of topics to choose from. Of particular interest to me were the chapters discussing musical hallucinations, musical synesthesia, and the positive effects of music on patients with dementia. This last chapter was oddly heartening (I say "oddly" because the idea of dementia is absolutely terrifying for me), because when the dementia patients listened to their favourite music, they seemed to come back for a bit and act more like their old selves. This is a common theme in the book, that music appreciation and recognition is something buried deep inside the brain and diffused so that it's not easy to get rid of entirely. It's an aspect of the self that endures long after other brain functions such as language and episodic memory have deteriorated. As someone who immerses herself in music, I was glad to read that.

The book is liberally sprinkled with anecdotes about Sacks himself (he has led quite an adventuresome life), patients discussed in previous essay collections and cases taken from elsewhere in the scientific literature. If any of the chapters whets your appetite for more information, there is a long bibliography at the back to browse.

It's a good book to read a chapter or so at a time, perhaps with some background music. Recommended for music lovers.

Why new vinyl is getting so expensive

1. Raw costs went up and stayed up

PVC, paper, jackets, shipping — all spiked 2020-2021 when supply chains broke, and inflation hasn’t fully reversed.
Pressing plants pay higher wages now, and that gets passed on.
Small runs are brutal: 300-500 copies can cost £8-£12 per record to press. Even big runs are £4-£6 before licensing, mastering, art, etc.

2. Industry + label markup

“Industry greed” is what a lot of shops call it. Labels know people will pay £30-£40 for a single LP now, so they do. Blue Note Tone Poets hit £45+ in the UK.
Major labels also pay for priority at the few pressing plants left, pushing small bands back.

3. Demand vs. plant capacity

Vinyl is the top physical format again — 47.9M units sold in the U.S. in 2025, 19th straight year of growth.
But we lost most pressing plants in the 90s/2000s. High demand + limited plants = bottlenecks + price hikes. Small indie releases get bumped by big-name jobs.

4. Artists rely on it now

Streaming pays almost nothing. Vinyl/merch/touring is how artists actually make money. So the £25-£35 price isn’t just manufacturing — it’s recouping what they lost on Spotify. Corporate shops now run deals like “2 for £55 or 3 for £80” because single LPs have crept so high.

Why older vinyl often sounds better

It’s not magic aging. It’s 3 things:

1. Analog from start to finish
Pre-1980s records were usually recorded to tape, mixed on analog consoles, and cut directly to lacquer from the master tape. No digital step. You’re hearing the original signal path.
Lots of modern LPs are cut from 16-bit/44.1kHz digital files — basically a CD pressed to wax. You’re getting CD quality + surface noise.

2. Mastering intent
Old albums were mastered for vinyl. Engineers like Kevin Grey and Bernie Grundman today still do all-analog cuts that rival originals.
But many new reissues are mastered hot for streaming/CD, then slapped on vinyl. Dynamics get crushed. Older cuts had more headroom.

3. Scarcity = better pressings got saved
In the late 90s/early 2000s, vinyl almost died. Press runs were tiny. The few that were made used good vinyl and careful plating, because plants weren’t slammed. Those first-presses now go for £200-£400+.
Meanwhile, 70s oil-crisis records used cheap recycled vinyl and can sound crackly. So “older” isn’t always better — it depends on the era/pressing.

But nuance:

Not all originals beat reissues. Some 60s pressings were rushed. And some new all-analog reissues beat the originals. It’s about how it was made, not when. Plenty of collectors say original pressings typically deliver superior sound while costing less, and recommend hitting used record shops.
Collector reality check: New LPs at £30-£50 feel like luxury items, while used bins still have £5-£15 gems. That’s why so many UK shops say “go local” — cheaper and often better sounding.

The Surprise

by Jazzy D




The latch holds firm until it does not hold.
A draft without a door rearranges air.
My hands were full of yesterday’s dull weight
When something not-quite-named stepped through the frame.
No thunder, only the sound a shadow makes
Unstitching itself from the floorboards’ grain.
I did not choose to widen, yet I widened.
The world keeps its new shape inside my ribs.

Derek Wall "Climate Strike" (Martin Press)




Derek is a long-standing and committed environmental activist who, for many years, held leading positions within the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW), first as Principal Speaker and then as International Co-ordinator. My review copy of his book arrived just as I’d finished the 5C chapter Mark Lynas’s Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency - which makes painfully clear why drastic climate action is needed right now.

And that is precisely what Derek’s book also does in its first two chapters - but what makes Climate Strike so timely and useful is that, in the remaining eight chapters, it also analyses various attempts to build pressure for change, and suggests practical ways in which, via open debate, analysis and increased co-operation, we can try to achieve those changes.

Before moving on to examine some of the important issues raised and examined by the book, one general strength should be pointed out early on: other than Alan Thornett’s comprehensive Facing the Apocalypse: Arguments for Ecosocialism (2019), you will not find another book on the current Climate Emergency that introduces you to so many valuable thinkers and positive initiatives on all the most critical issues. It is this aspect makes Derek’s latest book such an incredibly rich - and important - book to read.

As a companion piece to it, I would also highly recommend reading his Elinor Ostrom’s Rules For Radicals (2017) - particularly useful for considering possible ways in which to organise a post-capitalist future that is based on co-operation, and doesn’t depend on either markets or state structures.

As the book makes clear, the central dilemma for climate and environmental organisations and activists today is that we need both immediate emergency action to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stop the ecological devastation of the natural world, along with a longer-term strategy to create a world that is ecologically sustainable.

One problem for environmental movements, explored in Chapter 8, is the difficulty in persuading enough people of the seriousness of the Climate Crisis, because of the ability of many individuals to banish worrying or unpleasant things - including the Climate Crisis - from their minds. Derek cites George Marshall’s Don’t Even Think About It (2014), which deals with this phenomenon of cognitive dissonance.

Another book which explores this is Stanley Cohen’s States of Denial (2001), which explains how not acknowledging (as opposed to simply knowing) a threat or an injustice allows people to avoid the need to take action.

Although Derek argues that the ever-worsening Climate Emergency the planet is facing stems from capitalism’s entire economic and social system - based on unsustainable continuous and ever-increasing production, consumption and capital accumulation - he does so in way that is free from any narrow dogmatism.

What this book does do, exceptionally well, is to analyse, in a balanced way, where we are now, and how successful/unsuccessful the various climate campaigns and organisations have been so far. In particular, as regards the UK, there are useful examinations of the roles of the GPEW, the trade union/labour movement, and of social movements like Extinction Rebellion and the YouthStrike4Climate.

Derek’s well-argued case is that, ultimately, we need a post-capitalist ecosocialist society. From the most recent developments - XR Scotland’s Reflection Piece, moves to create a new revolutionary Marxist organisation based on ecosocialism, and Left Unity’s recent adoption of an explicitly ecosocialist position, it seems that Derek clearly has his finger on the pulse of the environmental movement. This is most definitely a book to read, to discuss and - most of all, to act on.

 

 

Fake News In 4/4 (with a Blue Note)

by Jazzy D




Snap — Anchor grins, cue the brass,
Teleprompt lies slip right past.
“Breaking, baby, breaking fast!”
Hold the note… is that the truth at last?

Doo-bop — Headline walks the bar in heels,
Half a fact is how it deals.
Quote unquote, spin the wheels,
Footnotes dancing on banana peels.

Shh — A source says, whispers low,
“Trust me, man, I heard it so.”
But sources riff and duck and blow
Smoke rings only insiders know.

Left screen screams fire, right hums rain,
Both play loud, both stake their claim.
Ticker taps a cool refrain:
What ain’t said drives the game.

Ba-dum — Now read  the rests, the empty air,
The solo hiding in the glare.
‘Cause news ain’t always what’s laid bare —
Sometimes it’s the silence that we wear.

Fade out.

Jon Savage "Teenage" (Faber & Faber)




Savage's detailed work takes us through the development of youth culture in Britain, America, France and Germany into the powerful consumer group now known as 'teenagers'. He details the impact of key events on young people (prohibition, 1929 crash, world wars) and shows how young people are seen to carry the hopes of a nation, only to disappoint their elders with their wayward behaviour. It will come as no surprise that the concept of an influential youth 'movement' has always concerned older generations, with the regular appearence of moral panics about youth delinquency and degeneracy in the four countries discussed across a period of 70 years.

While I did not discover anything startlingly new in terms of analysis, I did learn a lot about the various youth groupings that have arisen at different periods from flappers to jitterbuggers to the Hitler Youth. The impact of specific cultures on youth movements and the transnational comparisons and connections are really interesting - youth groups that developed in Germany in the early 20th century, for example, focused on the outdoors and healthy activities in a way that clubs in the other countries didn't.

Inevitably, this book discusses those groups that came to the attention of contemporary newspapers and social commentators and this skews the work towards those young people who garnered criticism for their apparently deviant lifestyles or who were part of large movements/clubs. I would have liked to know more about what life was like for teenagers who weren't zoot-suiters or biff boys, what my grandparents and great-grandparents lives may have been like. However, this kind of detail can often be hard to find in primary sources and its inclusion would have made what is already a 465-page, small print hard-back far too unwieldy!

Simon Garfied "In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate The World" (Canongate Books)







Wasn't sure what to expect when I decided to read this, having long been fascinated with things originally large are made small. It starts with the Eiffel tower, where for the first time, from a great height, looked down on a world made small. The tower would also be the inspiration for the popularity of the souvenir.

Divided into chapters one is treated not only to some trivia but an interesting history lesson pertaining to the subject. Small villages, popular in England, some still visited during our current time. Road America in Pennsylvania, which I have visited. The exquisitely decorated and designed miniature room at the Art Institute in Chicago. The popularity of the flea circus, " They live off me, and I live off them" Prof. William Hecklers fleas at Hubert's Museum on West 42nd Street.

The reasons for some of the miniatures made, such as slave ships, made to show how terrible these ships were. Toy trains, popular with Rod Stewart and Neil Young. Young started his hobby to have something he could share with his son who was born severely disabled.

Just fascinating, this book includes so much and is wonderfully presented. Quite an interesting read.

Naomi Alderman "Disobedience" (Penguin)





I didn't really like Naomi Alderman's novel, Disobedience.

I found it kind of annoying. But it has stayed with me for some time, near the surface, too. Maybe I don't like it because it hits oddly close to home.

The characters bothered me. I believed in them; I just wanted to smack some sense into them. The books main character is an adult woman, travelling back to her childhood home in London after her father's death. Her father was the spiritual leader of an extremely conservative sect of orthodox Jews who live apart from the world as much as they can following very strict, very rigid, gender roles. She left home after her mother's death because she could not fit herself into the role of wife and mother which was the only option her father's teachings allowed here. But because she has come to the end of a not very good relationship, hit a set of promotion roadblocks at work, and wants a final chance to make peace with her childhood ghosts, she returns to London to sort out her father's things.

Her father's community is less than thrilled.

Two of her childhood friends now married to eachother, round out the set of major players in Disobedience. The two friends both once loved her, but have since come to terms with the desires their community forbids. By suppressing their true desires, and following the rules, they have both become respected members of the community.


If you know what it is to walk away from family members who disapprove of you, maybe you can understand why I found these three so frustrating. In spite of all they'd been put through by the prejudice of their family and their community, they still seek their approval, they still seek their love. I understand that, but I also know that there comes a point when one must simply walk away. I wanted them all to just walk away.

So Disobedience was a frustrating reading experience for me. It's also an excellent book, well-written with complex characters who address serious issues in an honest manner that does not produce neat endings. Disobedience is a book that has stayed with me a long time now.