Singer/Songwritermusicophilia
[Musicophilia] The-Beauty of Water (1996-2000)

MIX / TITLE: This is a mix CD made pretty much exactly as Ian (at age 19) would’ve made it for his friend Tariq if he’d known him then, in say December, 2000, using then-recent music that he played all the time. But instead Ian made it in February, 2023, for both of them as variously “middle-aged” old men. It’s a mix of sad-bastard, weepy shit of the sort Ian (at age 25) would’ve pretended he’d never liked; but that now, as an old man (age 42), he has to admit still moves his arthritic, feeble, jaded heart, a little. So we can call it “singer-songwriter” to be kinder than “sad-bastard shit”. It’s lovely, spare stuff, mostly acoustic guitar, piano and strings, recorded in various fidelities, made by musicians who were relatively young, with their hearts fully sewn on their sleeves. As old battle-worn people, it’s easy to be cynical, to mistrust such earnestness, to distance ourselves from it (as in, for example, this winking text). But if two old men can become true friends, who can say “I love you” to each other and mean it (which they do), then they can admit they are still sad-bastards, and that this open-hearted stuff makes them feel better.

In a world so often on fire,
why would we deny the beauty of water?