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Music

Mike Skinner, Spliffs and the Dissociative Chase of the Night

On the first track he's self-released to Spotify, Skinner details the dangerously beautiful self-destructive duality of staying out far too late.
Ryan Bassil
London, GB

As with physical strength, the brain's stamina can be built up through training. In preparation for a marathon, runners use techniques – reinforcing positive affirmations, using meditation to combat stress, etc – to ensure the mind is ready for endurance. Similarly, smashing your way through a night out – week in; week out – can build a sense of strength and character. Or at least that's how certain people present it when leading the charge back to the dim glow of their flat at 3AM on a Thursday.

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Mike Skinner's latest track from his The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light project voices both the promise and conceit of these nocturnal endurance tests. Called "Bad Decisions in the Night", the track follows upa few quietly released and unannounced singles from The Darker, self-released through Skinner's Soundcloud. Like his best work, there's no preachy moral code here. Instead, "Bad Decisions" simply details the topography of pushing a night out to its ultimate limit – the wraps on the table; the jittering legs underneath it; the shifting of happiness among the tippity taps and the guilt of looking in the mirror and not recognising the charged-up, disassociated face that looks back.

Of course, it would be reductive to say every night out resembling the above is wholly hedonistic, self-destructive behaviour. As the name "The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light" seems to suggest, those who push through do find some salvation, whether by proxy of learning something darker and deeper about themselves and others or – when it gets really dark – deciding to stop going out altogether. Like anything in the world, there's a stark duality to going out. It's a battle through transgression and routine, cultural education and shit chat, sad lonely walks home in the early drizzle of the morning and reaching a transcendent end goal buoyed by the bare arms of your peers. It's just there's a danger to getting lost in the middle somewhere, consumed by the search.

With bands like Sleaford Mods describing a similar scene to Skinner – in the case of the former, of men in their late thirties/forties continuing to chase the night yet losing their sense of self along the way – it's clear there's a prevalent social issue here. On "Bad Decisions in the Night", you get the sense if Skinner chose to pursue the topic with more new music he could offer up a nuanced insight into this environment, building on the previous work of his career in a different yet no less cultural way. That, or he really needs to make an album of production for everyone else to listen to when hungover and dry-mouthed to fuck on a Monday morning in a strip-lit, air-conditioned office.

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