Beyond Skin

Sometimes one album can mean so much…and it’s important to remember that. To hold it, to have it…

I’ve been thinking, a lot lately, about the album Beyond Skin by Nitin Sawhney. It was released in 1999, which is when I first heard it — it was Sawhney’s third or fourth album, but the first I’d heard by him; indeed the first I’d heard of him. But he’s now got something like 20 records, and a bunch of contributions to film and TV and BBC radio drama, he had a stint as a comedian too across the mid-90s, part of a duo, then returned to music full time.

I stuck around for a few of his albums, and maybe I’m missing something — I’m not saying there’s not more gold in them hills — but all I truly care about is Beyond Skin. But that’s not relegating a genuine talent from 20 albums down to only one that matters, it’s saying that one of his albums is probably in the top 20 albums by anyone I’ve ever heard anywhere ever. I love this album so, so much.

And, when I wrote recently — ostensibly about Todd Rundgren’s sprawling double album of genius, Something/Anything?, though I was really writing about my introduction to that album via one of the greatest record store clerks anywhere ever — I could have mentioned so many other albums that I was introduced to at that time and in that way.

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Well, Nitin Sawhney’s Beyond Skin is another of the albums recommended in that store by that Beyond Helpful record store owner.

It was also one of the very first albums I ever reviewed.

My friends, connected with Victoria University’s Law School, started a magazine called Lemon. I imagine it was something to do with U2, we were all fans in that era. Add whatever other links and puns to the title, something about being ‘fresh’, something-something about serving up a lemon (protection for if it bombed, etc).

I had a story or two in there, a poem or two as well — we even did a set of readings one night, and published a wee booklet. There were lofty plans. And it was cool. We had all-nighters on those glowing eyesore iMacs in a flat in Mt Victoria trying to put the damn thing/s together.

And I got to do a double-page spread of music reviews. The plan: Four local releases, four international — a great spread, and I still remember most of them, we had Charlotte Yates’ album of the time, and a brilliant compilation by EELman Records…some jazz too, okay, I remember about half of them. The big one for me though was Beyond Skin by Nitin Sawhney. I felt like I was the first person in the world to hear it and wrote about it with all of the reverence I could pinch from the glowing reviews of any other records I’d read and stored. I was learning the style. And Beyond Skin was the perfect album to experiment with, since it was ‘world’ music in the sense that it was a whole world of music, bits of jazz and hip-hop and pop and a range of British-Asian flavours sprinkled atop. There were guest vocalists and lush instrumentals, and it was just a whole giant trip for me. I was young and in love with the idea of writing about music. And though I’d been published in Salient and Capital Times, and maybe one or two other places, it was the Lemon music sections where I really got to stretch out.

I wrote essays about Joni Mitchell, and Split Enz, I wrote reviews of a bunch of bands and some soundtracks and other compilations. And I felt like a real music writer, even though I would never ever technically be such a thing — I never held down any full time role as a paid employee anywhere to write about music. And I never made more than ice-cream money contributing to places as a freelancer.

Anyway, Beyond Skin was the first time I really felt like I might be able to do it — say some things about music. And I kept listening to it through the years, though my copy disappeared long ago when I jettisoned a load of music. Everything you and I ever need is online right?

Well, sometimes you just have to hold it. Have to have it. I don’t know what it is. A sickness maybe. But if so, it’s not particularly contagious. I truly believe it’s hurting nobody.

I found a copy of Beyond Skin by Nitin Sawhney in a record store this week for $4. On CD. It might have been my copy — imagine that. (It obviously wasn’t/there’s no way of knowing that). But, whatever, it’s my copy now. Again. And I took it home and played it through, and though how fresh it mostly sounds, a quarter-century on; how it truly is the best thing Nitin Sawhney ever did, the most complete statement.

And I thought, again, of the very kind man (Seamus) from the record store. He organised those review copies for me. Wrote off the stock, was reimbursed by record companies or whatever, made introductions so that I could approach the record companies and start building bonds to write reviews.

I could never forget that. As memorable as any gloriously melody. Truly Beyond.