Today is a full year since I stumbled across Spin by Sasha Cay one rainy day in a cafe, and it’s since become inexorably linked to the last twelve months of my life. Some songs important to me bring back memories of a specific weekend, a section of a semester, or one particularly brilliant day. Spin brings back everything. Late-night walks through town, visits with my parents, tense hours waiting outside exam rooms. Luminous summer evenings and beautiful snow-globe afternoons. Difficult days spent hidden in my room and joyful evenings sprawled on the floor next to the record player with my closest friends. Packing and unpacking and packing up again.
Notes linger, each mixing into the next, while Sasha’s beautiful voice, feeling both distant and intimate, steers each song forward. Instruments weave across one another, pulling each song together tightly, not letting any piece stray too far. When I’m stressed, the revolving melodies, ever shifting, tidy me back up like a fresh ball of string. Each track blends into each other so perfectly, through the flow of tempo and the contrast of melodies, giving you what the previous withheld, and letting drops of memory slip out between evocative glimpses of moments in present tense. My mind will be resonating in harmony just a few minutes in, a hum spreading across my whole body that stays for hours after the last song plays.
The first chords of Sugar wash over me like a warm drink on a cold day, filtering down through my body until every inch of me is made warmer. Shadowboxing and Black Fly draw me in the beautiful melodies and clever lyrics, eroding a cyclical groove for the rest of the songs to follow. Comedy comes in with a strong chorus, energetic despite the grim story it tells. Then Do I, with haunting lyrics, the last few verses stealing the air from my lungs, slowing my heartbeat. Is/Not follows up with a gentle melody, clearing my mind, and giving a chance to rest (and flip the record), before launching right into the strict oscillating rhythm of See You Soon. Man Man Man keeps to its beat, ending as it begins, keeping you held close. Loose Teeth starts slow and solemnly, building up to a grand finale, pulling on every thread left by the songs before, then comes crashing down in a beautiful conclusion, ending in faint applause. Then finally, Spin, quiet and simple, diminished, with a smooth looping melody and gentle verses almost whispered, with a lone horn signalling the last verse as the music fades away, leaving me empty.
What’s to say about Spin, the entirety, the work of art? This post has been written and rewritten a dozen times over the last year. I could never capture its essence in a bottle, even through a hundred centuries. I can’t pretend to be even remotely objective in telling you what it is; I’m far too intertwined to separate myself from the music. To me, Spin is in part about love, because it’s tied to people and places I love. It’s for remembering, because it is so closely tied to a wide collection of memories. Sasha sings of mourning, of recovering, of the days dragging on, and you feel it, the droning and the repetition nearly overwhelming, and between tracks you can hear her friends laughing in the basement of her apartment where she records. Even though Spin feels cold on the ears, there’s a warmth at its heart that captures me whenever it plays.
Spin is chords oscillating back and forth, the cycle of days blending together, hands in mine as we twirl together across the floor, a bike flipping end over end past the hood of a car, the record revolving in my living room, the earth finishing its orbit, and the year starting anew. The last song ends, I flip the record, and the first begins once more. Let’s go through one more time.