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First Word Records

The Long Player: Notes from a year of listening

from DJ Gilla

Book/Magazine

The Longplayer: Notes from a year of listening.

64 page full colour mini-zine. Printed on 55gsm newspaper. Featuring selected posts from Aly Gillani / DJ Gilla's 2021 Instagram project. More info below....

All profits will be split between The Trussell Trust & Shelter

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On January 1st 2021 I put a record on, something that I’ve done thousands of times since I started getting into music 40 or so years ago. A few hours earlier, as we counted down to the end of 2020, we’d heard the announcement that MF DOOM had died. I always like to kick off a new year with some good music and it felt right to listen to something of his, so I picked out the peerless Madvillainy from my record shelves. As the record spinned I realised that although I’d listened to individual tracks on the album countless times in the 17 years since it was released I rarely listened to the whole thing, start to finish. As I flipped the LP over and ‘America’s Most Blunted’ filled the speakers I looked around the room at the thousands of records I had accumulated over the years. How often did I listen to them? I love music but how much time did I actually give to my most treasured of hobbies? The listening I did was more often scanning through digital releases when preparing for DJ gigs or radio shows - rarely listening to even a full song let alone a whole album.

I remembered how albums were so important for me growing up; learning the transitions from track-to-track and side-to-side to the millisecond. Poring over sleevenotes, re-reading reviews, scouring bargain bins in provincial record shops; soaking up as much information as I could in search of that magic surge of serotonin that can only come from hearing a great piece of music. I hadn’t made any new years resolutions so I tacitly pledged to listen to an album every day in 2021. I wrote a short post about this on Instagram and over the course of the day remembered how bad I am at following through on resolutions. It occurred to me that a bit of accountability would probably help, so on my 2nd post I committed to posting each of the records on my page.

This slightly off-hand promise had a huge impact on my life. I reconnected with my records, giving time to forgotten favourites, undiscovered gems and future classics as each day went by. I also rediscovered my love of writing, another teenage hobby that I had gradually neglected as life got in the way. That reignited passion has led me to this most self-indulgent of publications. I was consistently surprised that people were interested in my daily posts, and I’ve had to put my insecurities aside to produce this mini-zine - a compendium of highlights from a year of listening.

I hope you enjoy it, and discover a few albums you didn’t previously know. I hope it inspires you to listen, or maybe even write yourself. I also hope you’ll get in touch with me if anything in these pages means something to you, or if you have some music recommendations that you think I might like based on what’s written within these pages. Music is great, but sharing it is even better.

Aly Gillani, London • December 2022

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about

DJ Gilla London, UK

DJ Gilla is the founder and A&R of First Word Records, a London-based record label focussed on music with soul. Home to acts including Children Of Zeus, Kaidi Tatham, Don Leisure and Allysha Joy the label was named Worldwide Awards Label of the Year by Gilles Peterson in 2018. ... more

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