February 2026

Hello. Early January was a slog, culturally speaking - and other types of speaking - and I found it hard to find a sense of rhythm and structure to my watching, viewing and reading. This is not uncommon. For me or I think a lot of people. It’s a hard month, a hard time. I definitely missed having the excitement and focus of producing a new podcast season to guide my creative practice and film watching.

However, a new book project has emerged recently, which I am excited about and which will guide my viewing for the next few months. It won’t be as arduous a task - one I acknowledge I put on myself - as when I wrote my first book. I look forward to announcing and sharing more on that as it concretises.

My month kicked into gear culturally when I started reading Volcanic Tongue, and used it as a means to ignite my music listening for the month. I get into that in a bit. The month was enjoyable, even as it was stressful. In the last couple of years, following a conversation with Beth, I have tried to replace the word but with the word and as much as possible. So, January was hard and fun. Stressful and enjoyable. I don’t believe stress to be a bad thing in and of itself. A little stress is good for me. Helps me focus, adds frisson and energy to tasks and days. As with any feeling, it seems for me to be about balance and allowing the feelings just to be.

Apropos of nothing, on January 2nd, Miles (my 4-year old) said the phrase that gives this month’s post its title. The lemonade of victory. I have no idea what it was referring to or the context he was using it in. All I know is that he said it and it made me smile. I also know it made me remember and re-feel the absurdity of life in all its glory. I have smiled repeatedly recalling that moment across the past month. Oh, that and him singing the line “damn right, it’s better than yours” from Kelis’s ‘Milkshake’ as he strolled around the house. And the four of us singing ‘Shake Your Booty’ in the van on a few drives. Another Miles recommendation if I recall. So many small moments of cultural connection this month with my children and Beth as we geared up for the year as a family.

In addition to the book news I briefly mentioned above, there are other nice things in the works over the coming months that I’m excited about. Largely because they are based locally to me in Kernow. I’m looking forward to a year of being more connected to the local cultural community and thanks to a friend, Matthew Shaw, that will happen through a series of film screenings, as well as a new radio show. This all kicks off with a season starting in March, monthly until June, so more on those in next month’s newsletter, and thank you Matthew for the opportunity.

Patti Smith is one of my favourite humans that I don’t know in person. Her music has been an important part of my life yet more than that it’s her writing that I am drawn towards. She’s one of my favourite writers. I’ve read all her books and one of the ideas that has resonated most closely is her articulation of her idea ‘proximity’ and the power of being near certain places and spaces (graves most viscerally for her), and the force of objects.

I’m excited to read her latest book, Bread of Angels, and loved hearing her on the Talk Easy podcast this month. So many insights and crystallisations. What captured me was the way she talked about being replenished as an artist. It was fascinating to hear how it wasn’t the artistic or creative work she undertook that replenished her, it was small joys of living. Coffee, sitting, a new book. There’s something about the way Smith sees things and shares them that connects with me. No new ideas, just new ways to see and know myself.

I share this as a way of segueing into what I’ve been reading, listening to and watching this month. A way to overcome the nagging feeling that it doesn’t amount to anything. That it isn’t grand or profound [btw, I know it isn’t grand or profound and that is ok, I’m not aiming for that, ever I don’t think]. In truth, so much of what has been enjoyed this month has been small and in snatched time yet has replenished me in a variety of ways. Patti Smith calls herself a worker. That’s how she sees and defines herself, when asked. I like that formation of self. It’s all the work. The work of being a human. Of enduring.

Volcanic Tongue

I like bed books that are giant in physical size with bite-size entries where I can read a couple of pages and feel a sense of completion. This January I added the collection of David Keenan’s music writing, Volcanic Tongue, to an ostentatious pile that already includes the complete works of Emily Dickinson and William Blake. Keenan’s This is Memorial Device, his authentic telling of a fictionalised post-punk Airdrie is one of my favourite novels and I picked up this tome at one of my favourite bookshops, the Portobello Bookshop, in Portobello, Edinburgh, last summer.

The writing is electric. Passionate, with fan energy running through it, and also curiosity as to what the music is doing and also what it’s doing to him as both a person and writer, channeller. The cover lists him as an evangelist, and there is more than a hint of advocacy criticism here. He wants you to listen, if for nothing else than to connect through the sounds and the writing to what it means to him. I’ve only just started the book and the joy of the writing led me to listen to the music being explored so I spent rewarding time with The Pastels and The Vaselines in the wake of reading about them through the prism of Keenan.

Alongside this, I listened to a recent episode of the wonderful podcast Life of the Record, featuring Jim and William Reid talking about how they made Psychocandy, the first album by the Jesus and Mary Chain. This led me to a day playing some vinyl related to 1980s Scotland via my JAMC, My Bloody Valentine (on Creation, Scot Alan McGee’s label) and Primal Scream records. A blissfuly fuzzy day.

Weatherdrive & Maximum Vaultage

My favourite recommendation of 2005 came from a friend at work, Andy, who knows of my love for the work of Andrew Weatherall. He asked if I had heard of the Weatherdrive. I had not. The Weatherdrive is a google drive curated and compiled by fans, featuring over 900 hours of mixes by Weatherall spanning from the late 1980s until his death in 2020. It’s a remarkable undertaking - each mix comes with a tracklist and thumbnail Jpeg for ease of referencing and pulling into your music library of choice. It’s also an incredible document of his work as a DJ. There are live sets, radio shows, compilations for magazines like the NME and all manner of other delights. Sonically the range is as eclectic as fans of Weatherall would expect - from acid house to Psychobilly via The Smiths and all danceable points in between. My work days are immeasurably improved by dipping into a random year and folder and pulling down another slice of sonic joy.

Another Weatherall related recommendation is via the EP series Maximum Vaultage. The series represents the archive of Weatherall’s long-time collaboration with Nina Walsh under the superb name Woodleigh Research Facility. I’m half-way through purchasing the releases to date. In January I bought volumes 3-6, having already loved 1-3. I will pick up some more on this year’s Bandcamp Fridays if they happen. If not, I’ll just steadily grab them. Weatherall’s death hit me hard, as it did many people who admired him. These releases, as the Weatherdrive also is for me, are amazing moments of time spent with him and his work and thanks to him being so prolific with a high quality benchmark, there are always new wonders to embrace.

Unfamiliar Images: Wetlands

Early in the month my dear friend Craig was talking about curiosity in students (and ourselves) and encouraging undergraduates to engage with the unfamiliar. Craig has an energy and passion and love for life that always leaves me invigorated, even via Whatsapp, and I left the exchange wanting to incorporate this language into my teaching - the premise is something I engage with already - and I also thought about my own curiosity and how I could more actively invite the unfamiliar into my life. So, each month I will do that with a film that I haven’t heard of, and also where I don’t know the filmmaker.

First up in this category is the German coming-of-age adaptation Wetlands (2013). I had never heard of it when it popped up on MUBI, nor the director David Wnendt. Its exploration of sexuality was of interest as there seems to be a plethora of recent films circulating, alongside a vibrant rep culture online, about sex and sexuality, erotica and reframing existing notions of sex and cinema. Even mainstream American films have pushed the boat a little way from shore of late. Wetlands is a film about bodies primarily and our societal relationship to our own, to others, and in particular to ideas about (young) women’s bodies.

It is a hilarious film, and also a deeply sad one. It is viscous and visceral, sexy, touching, and brazen in its portrayal of a young woman encountering her own body through self-investigation and the prism of encounters with others. In its frankness and blurry lines it reminded me of Marielle Heller’s wonderful adaptation, Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015). I also loved how cinematic its structure and approach to time is. The main character, Helen, spends most of the time in hospital (I won’t spoil why) and there are sequences that are set either in the past, the future or unreal dream time and we never know which, really. We are with Helen, as she navigates and processes all manner of relationships in the tumult of her late teen years, and it’s a wild and intoxicating ride. Not for the squeamish.

Unfamiliar Sounds: Wednesday Knudsen [Kosmos Klub]

Musically, I invited the unfamiliar in back in December in a new, specific way. I love Bandcamp and news of their new monthly album clubs for specific music genres/forms piqued my interest. The title of the one I picked seemed obvious for my tastes. Kosmos Klub.

The pitch, in terms of the types of music that would be shared, seemed right up my street - psych, kosmiche, electronica, ambient, cinematic. Sold. First up in December was the rollicking I Wonder When They’re Going to Destroy Your Face by Prolapse. One thing I love about that record is that it doesn’t sound like the title makes you think it will.

January’s unfamiliar surprise was the album Atrium by Wednesday Knudsen. This is the polar opposite of Prolapse. Ambient electronica but composed, as if a film score for a 1980s idea of the future. A haunted future. It’s sublime. I love that in the past month and change two unfamiliar delights have entered my life and become familiar. Thank you Craig for inspiring this subtle shift in framing my thinking around what I imbibe, culturally.

Outskirts Film Podcast

I don’t know where I came across this podcast, but I’m glad I did. There’s something about it that reminds of me of what Dario and I did with The Cinematologists. The kind of loose, discursive and astute conversation, the focus on a broad range of filmmakers with a commitment to those not given regular inches in print or online, or on audio outlets. I listened to the first episodes, it’s new, this past month. It felt timely as I had been thinking a lot about and watching some of Walerian Borowczyk’s movies of late (EP1, maybe that’s how I came across it?) and I enjoyed their 2025 round-up. I can’t wait to see Ramiro Sonzini and Ezequiel Salinas’s The Night is Fading Away (2025). I particularly liked EP3, with its focus on another filmmaker I have recently spent time with, Lucio Fulci.

Links to Stuff I’ve read online, and podcasts I’ve listened to, this month and enjoyed -

Mark Fisher meets James Hillman [Acid Horizon Podcast, thanks Sarah!] A.S. Hamrah & Melissa Anderson [LARB Podcast] Who is MUBI For? [Vulture, thanks Dario!] Feedback Loop: Where Do We Go From Here? [Screen Slate] Béla Tarr Archive Interview [Sight & Sound] Béla Tarr Obituary by Jonathan Romney [Sight & Sound] The Last Good Thing [The American Scholar] Kelly Reichardt [MUBI Podcast] And the Air Turned Cobalt Blue [Dario’s Substack] Sundance Coverage [The Last Thing I Saw Podcast] On Eisenstein, Godard and Welles: Michael Almereyda & Radu Jude in Conversation [Filmmaker Magazine] Out for revenge: Park Chan-Wook on Oldboy - 2004 Archive Interview [Sight & Sound]

Events, Gigs & Travels in February

February 4, The Cornish Bank, Falmouth - The Orielles

February 8, Plaza Cinema, Truro - Pat’s Film Club presents: Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)

February 10, Newlyn Filmhouse, Newlyn - Performance (Roeg & Cammell, 1970) - I will be screening this classic British film with my friend Mark Jenkin, for the first of planned semi-regular screenings that continue the tradition established by our screenings of Big Wednesday (Milius, 1978), The Doors (Stone, 1991) and Lost Highway (Lynch, 1997) for tapings of The Cinematologists across 2024-2025.Tickets.

February 25 to March 1, London - I am visiting my friend Dario Llinares and we plan to watch some films in cinemas. Get in touch if you want to join or meet up. I arrive Wednesday afternoon (25th) and leave Sunday morning (1st)

Events & Travels Further Afield in Time & Space

London - May 22-24

Sydney, New York, Los Angeles - June [Dates TBC]

Berlin - November [Dates TBC]