To Create Is To Love
Continuing last issue’s topic of writing about receiving curios in the mail, recently this humble author received his copy of the Birds In Row/Coilguns collaboration You and I in the Gap. A truly collaborative record, with the two bands forming as one and creating three wholly new songs in this new configuration.
Years ago, I saw both bands on tour together, accompanied by Cult Leader. It was 2019 and this was my first encounter with Coilguns, whose energetic and confrontational style of performing saw me falling in love with them. It reminded me of seeing Yage in the early ’00’s, conveying the same sort of feeling: that a live music performance is a communal experience. Instead of performing at the audience, the band conjures up a whirlwind of energy and emotion that sucks the audience in and forces them to care about what’s happening on stage. It’s beauty in motion and sound.
Birds In Row I already knew a bit better through their recorded output, though this 2019 show was the first time I saw them live. I would see them often in the years after. Any time I could get the chance, really, which all stemmed from this first encounter. Also energetic and emotional, be it in a different way that I struggle to put into words. A bit more stoic, perhaps? More poetically driven where Coilguns flies full into its near-feral nature?
Who’s to say. It's been a while.
All this said to make clear that when both bands declared to have made a record together, of course my interest was piqued.
Written, produced and recorded in a tight seven day window, the final songs are haunting and driving, flowing from aggressive desperation into calm reflection and back again. The signature sounds of both groups shine through enough, but meld in such an organic way you’d be forgiven for thinking that this makeshift band has been one for far longer than seven days when committing this to vinyl.
But enough words about the music. In an age where you can experience it yourself with the mere push of a button below, words will always be insufficient. Just listen and undergo it. This is is infinitely better than what I have to offer in the way of florid descriptions – the world doesn’t need another Pitchfork.
What struck me when I received the physical record in hand, is how much of a work of creative love this is. The passion for the process almost emanates from it. And by that, I don’t mean fancy packaging or gatefold sleeves or extensive companion booklets or whatever you can get mass produced at any record pressing plant these days.
Instead, the bands opted for a limited run of around 500 copies in three different editions, with the B side of each screen printed by hand with a beautiful piece of art.
It's the working-within-limits that has an appeal. A finite number of records for a record made in a pre-established amount of time.
That’s it. Quite humble in a world where labels will push out seven disc versions of records you already own, filled with demos and outtakes that you will never listen to.
But because it represents such a limited endeavour in the scope of production, it feels special. It represents a short stretch of time where two bands came together, melded and made something of beauty and put it out into the world, only to then part again. Who knows if these songs will ever be performed live?
To share creations
Making something, of course, is what humans do. It’s how we cope with the dreaded, unescapable certainty of death. Many times in the past I’ve sent missives out into the world about this, so I shall not belabour the point once more. But besides faux-dodging that dark inevitability, making things is also an act of defiant love, a yearning to share oneself with the universe with only remembrance requested in return.
Capitalism makes it hard for anyone to create anything at scale and not make it look, feel or taste like millions of other things. So then to make a limited run of records out of a document of seven days of creativity and emotion, decorate them by hand and send them out into the world – that is love.
What’s more, the record is sold at a pay-what-you-want price point, mirroring Birds In Row’s consistent philosophy of selling their merch at shows in a similar way. I don’t mean to suggest this as a way forward for any other band – it’s hard enough to make a band self-sustainable as it is. But it is commendable and it so firmly focuses the point of this entire endeavour on sharing something created.
After all, to create is to live passionately in the face of the inevitable. And to share freely what you have created, is to share a lust for life itself. It is an act of the most vulnerable kind of love, for which I am grateful.
