February Notebook
Some musical/storytelling things to share with you from OneTrackMinds HQ
Hello friends,
I trust you’re all very well and that you’re in the right frame of mind to greet the arrival of February with open arms, despite the cold and the rain, the rain and the cold… the rain… the endless rain…
Anyway…
We’re coming up to six weeks until our next live show - our first at Wilton's Music Hall in nearly two years - and to our absolute astonishment, we’re very nearly SOLD OUT. As of writing, there are only twenty-one tickets available for March 10th, which is, quite frankly, ridiculous. We’ve spent absolutely no money on marketing, and haven’t done too much to bother the algorithms on Instagram or TikTok, so we are bemused, bewildered and utterly bloody delighted that we’re looking at a sold out show for the first time in ages. Thank you to everyone who’s already bought a ticket. And if you haven’t done so already, let this be a five-alarm reminder to get a bloody move on, or you’ll almost certainly miss out on the chance of seeing Felix White, Michel Faber, Shaparak Khorsandi, Tom McRae and Katherine May share their stories about the songs that changed their lives. It’s going to be great. I can hardly wait…
If you do miss out - or if you’ve already got plans on that Tuesday - we’ve got another show later that week (on Saturday March 14th) in the form of our return to the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre for our spin-off Hidden Tracks show. This will be our third visit to the Southbank Centre, but our first in conjunction with the residency of the world-renowned Montreux Jazz Festival. We started the process last Sunday with our first cohort of volunteer storytellers, and over the next six weeks, we’ll be working with them to help them find, shape and hone their stories about the jazz tracks that changed their life. If our previous two adventures with the brilliant team at the Southbank Centre are anything to go by, it’s going to be a lot of fun and another fantastic show. You can get your tickets now!
For our Hidden Tracks workshops, I put together a little (actually, quite a large) playlist of various jazz (and jazz-adjacent) tracks as part of the exercises we’ve been doing with our participants. Here it is, in case you’re curious:
While we’re on the subject of jazz, we’re coming up to the centenary of the birth of arguably the greatest jazz musician of all time, Miles Davis. This piece in The Guardian celebrates his amazing legacy…
And, in another effortless segue, while we’re on the subject of legendary musicians with anniversaries, the tenth anniversary of the death of David Bowie has seen a mini-avalanche of Bowie-related books. Our pick of the bunch, comes from our friend and OneTrackMinds storyteller Paul Morley, whose new Bowie book Far Above The World is published in hardback this week.
And (segue #3…) while we’re on the subject of superlative books about pop music legends, I finally got around to picking up a copy of Ian Leslie’s book John and Paul: A Love Story In Songs. I’m six chapters in, and already can understand why Dylan Jones called it ‘a masterpiece’.
A swift obligatory reminder that you can buy copies of both these books (and many many more) from the OneTrackMinds Bookshop, and we’ll get a handsome little commission when you do.
Despite the best efforts of OneTrackMinds storytellers Andy Miller and Adam Meggido, I’ve never quite understood the appeal of Stephen Sondheim… Maybe this piece in the New York Times, will help… 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Sondheim.
Another enjoyable piece in The Guardian - How Aphex Twin overtook Taylor Swift to become the soundtrack to Gen-Z Life Online.
In an idle moment waiting for plane home from Gothenburg last week, I stumbled upon a terrific YouTube channel called Trash Theory, which serves up excellent little music documentaries on subjects as varied as how Weezer made the Blue Album, the weirdest number 1 singles of the 1990s, and, my personal favourite, this exploration into the brief existence of the subgenre of indie-rock known as Stomp Clap Hey.
Also while in Gothenburg, I wandered into a terrific little record store called (somewhat discordantly) Peckham Soul, where I spent an unreasonable amount of money on records that I couldn’t really fit in my carry-on luggage, but which I couldn’t bear leaving behind. And it’s from this mini haul of vinyl that I’ve selected our album of the week - strictly speaking, it’s an EP, but at 43 minutes long, this little gem from electronic dub/grime/ambient artist Burial is still a sizeable treat. Like his landmark album Untrue, Antidawn is a dark, eerie, somewhat unsettling piece of electronica, and just perfect for these cold, rainy evenings…
Right, that’ll do. We’ll be back on Monday with more news from OneTrackMinds HQ.
KB.
Next Show - March 10th 2026 - Wiltons Music Hall | Tickets Here
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Great shout on Antidawn. Burials sound design has this way of making empty urban spaces feel simultaneously haunted and comforting, if that makes any sens. The way those textures sit in a mix during rainy evenings is unmatched, kinda perfect forlate winter like now.