WALK OUT TO WINTER.....

I love the changing of the seasons. Those points in the year when one season suddenly makes its appearance: the first frost that reminds you Winter is on its way, the first flowers budding as the earth wakes up for Spring, the moment when an Autumn chill makes itself felt on a late August evening. I could never live somewhere that had the same weather or temperatures year round. And my favourite season is Winter, due in no small part to the festive celebrations that lay at the core of it, but also for the dark clear starlit nights, the possibility of snow, the frosty air that really invigorates you in a morning. The moaners and naysayers can sod off.  Music soundtracks the seasons for me, much as it does life in general, and there are songs and albums that i can only really connect with at certain times of the year, that create a ambience suited to a particular season. Winter has a few perennial favourites for me: Mad Not Mad, the 6th and - at the time - final album made by my musical heroes Madness. A far darker and more produced album than anything else in their catalogue, it is the sound of the remaining six members trying to not only shake off the "nutty boys" tag, but also to continue without their musical director and keyboardist Mike Barson, who had jumped ship shortly after the recording of their previous album, the very autumnal sounding Keep Moving. The layers of synths and programmed drums lend the album a very cold feel for me, and although their knack for a great pop tune is still very much in evidence, the mood is more sombre. One of their best singles - the soulful "Yesterday's Men" - is on there, but the record buying public weren't interested in a serious Madness, and it stalled at No. 18, a far better fate than befell the two following singles which couldn't even crack the Top 20, a first for the band. It took me a few years to really appreciate MNM's charms, and listen to the songs buried under the kitchen sink production. Sharp with dark wit, laced with political and social comment, and full of soul influences, songs like the self-referencing title track, "Burning The Boats", "White Heat", and "Time" have more in common with the sophisti-pop scene of the time than the rest of the bands' work. The wintry feel that the album gives me is topped off by the fact that the last track - "Coldest Day - couldn't have a more apt title. The skittering programmed percussion and muted vocals have a feeling of hushed snowfall. You can almost imagine Suggs' breath in the air as he sings "the coldest night, the coldest day of the year".

Other albums in my collection that evoke winter include Porcupine by Echo & The Bunnymen. A frosty, brittle record full of dark thoughts, even the cover art and accompanying videos are full of ice and snow, having been filmed and photographed in Iceland.

The album that got me thinking about Winter music that isn't Christmas related is Bjorks' Homogenic. Her third album is a far more introspective affair than the previous two, and it is a record whose sounds are very much influenced by her native Iceland. Jagged, crunching beats that evoke the juxtaposition between frozen glacial landscape and violent tectonic activity - Iceland sits on the boundary of the North American and Eurasian plates - and icy synths and strings that sound like bitterly cold winds blowing across the largely empty tundra that makes up most of the country, it's also an album that looks inwards lyrically, focusing largely on failed relationships and regrets, but also has a glimmer of hope. The anger is there in songs like "Bachelorette", "Pluto", and "Immature", but belief in love shines through on "All Is Full Of Love", the last track, which brings to mind the first signs of Spring awakening after hibernation. My favourite song on the album is the epic "Joga", a tribute to a friend, which for me sums up the sound of the whole record: crunching electronic beats, mournful but stirring strings and frosty synths, over which Bjork delivers one of her best vocal performances.