We got out of our usual rhythms during lockdown, didn’t we? The lack of structure played merry hell with our self-motivation which, we realised, relied surprisingly heavily on regularity and routine. Time simply melted into irrelevance, and instead, a kind of bored introspection took over. Some people were pleased to find themselves lapsing into brief and laconic creativity, and others discovered genuine insight into new ways of being an artist.
Glass Ankle’s new single, For Another Day, was one such heartfelt product pressed out of our songwriter’s interminable Lockdown ennui. The beat is unmistakably a straight-four, but the phrasing and the numbers of bars that make up each section are not quite predictable, as if feeling a little lost and dazed, and vocal lines are not quite able to remember where they used to break. Through this, you feel the songwriter’s own discomfort created by an obvious juxtaposition: we rely on the awareness of the current time to keep track of the day, but now we are checking the clock simply out of habit. We know it’s important to know the time, but no longer remember why timekeeping is so significant.
There is a certain propriety in the interaction between music and lyrics, and even listeners without innate songwriting sagacity will realise that “run away” is not typically a line to pair with a major seventh, in much the same way that you don’t wear trainers just to go and lounge on the sofa. The effect captures the mood rather well: an emphasis on the lethargy with which he leaves the washing up sits down and contemplates perhaps going for a walk instead. Or maybe writing a song.
During moments of indecision, we try to initiate some get-up-and-go. So here, in the second verse, the beat tries its best to pick itself up into a brisk and decisive 2/4 — but the vocal line, like the homuncular voice of your inner thoughts, still floats high and dreamily over the top. If you listen to the lyrics, you find the purity and stability in the vocals are merely a façade for a mind genuinely driven to distraction (half of it is deliriously nonsensical, incorporating a bizarre and incongruous haiku). It really feels like the musical embodiment of your own unconvincing attempts at making normal activities feel normal, like when you felt strangely self-conscious just ambling down deserted streets to the Co-op.
I will admit that, on first listening, I was initially disappointed with the capture, which is all a bit spare-room production. The drummer, rather than exuding easy-listening, off-beat vibes, sounds like a percussionist trying not to upset the neighbours, and the electric guitar has a rather grotty twang, played half-heartedly through the kind of cheap amp you keep for bedroom practise.
Enhancement of the audio seemed to actually be one of those tasks left For Another Day, too, and perhaps a few more independent ears could have been sought for opinion. At best, the lifeless thud of the bass drum and the frustrated smack of the snare sounded as though someone had a rather uncertain handle on equalisation and multi-band compression. That said, the instruments are mixed and balanced with immense clarity and precision to create an undeniably honest sound full of natural textures. Even the synths sound like the backdrop of nature which we could finally hear when the traffic stopped.
At the end of the track, time is still being frantically counted even after the songwriter thinks it has finished. But eventually, they do realise that they can just stop, listen to those familiar whooshing, flappy, fluttery sounds of nature, and enjoy simply being.
