21 Tracks for the 21st Century is a series of playlists organised in collaboration with Q-O2, a Brussels-based space for experimental music and sound art. Each time, we invite one artist, thinker or musician to prepare a playlist of those sounds, songs and pieces of music that will best equip their listeners to approach what is left of this young century. This month: Francesca Hawker.
Francesca Hawker is a London-based artist, formerly and still frequently in Brussels. Her work takes the the form of performances, poems, installations, music, self-published materials and comedy. In 2022, she led a caterwauling open mic night in a former notebook factory as part of Q-O2’s annual Oscillation Festival, an event which cemented her reputation amongst Brussels’ dilettantes of the oft-maligned open-mic format. The themes of her work ('failure, friendship, and the maintenance of communal fantasies') wash through her ‘21Tracks' selection, which succeeds in combining moments of pathos-ridden bedroom production, tracks by friends and heroes, songs about transcendence and songs about getting by.
- Stormtrooper in Drag (Replicas Rubato: Piano interpretations of Gary Numan titles) – Terre Thaemlitz
First, my only lyric-less song, although it's from an album of piano covers of songs by Gary Numan, so you can imagine him yelping in the wings. I also suggest reading this accompanying text, maybe even while listening along, which is how the project was presented when I saw it at Casco in Utrecht.
- I Got A Man – Positive K
‘Are you a chef? Cause you keep feedin me soup… I’m not waiting cause I’m no waiter …’ – one of countless exchanges that take place between Positive K and the unnamed woman, who is in fact also voiced by … Positive K, making the entire song an elaborate and futile role-play.
- Only Love Can – Ailie Ormston + Tim Fraser
The first song on neighbours Ailie and Tim’s album, which was made together over lockdown by stretching cables through their windows. This song features snippets of Kelly Llorenna from N Trance, and it sounds like she’s at the bottom of the garden.
- Woman Dances On Backhoe On Top Of Skyline vine – Unknown
My favourite vine.
- Hymn Eola – Tonstartssbandht
Just like Amanda Fielding’s thoughts on trepanning, I think this song should be prescribed on the NHS!
- BB – Shygirl
It’s still my favourite song by Shygirl, but somewhere along the way, the vocal sample on the YouTube version changed slightly (apparently taken from the Spice Girls, so I guess there were copyright issues). I’d been sad about it for ages but thankfully found that the old version is still right there on Bandcamp.
- I, Oh, I – Instruction Manual
This is from the collective project of (my brother) Ollie Hawker, Scott Morrison and Katie Muir. They play such graceful hosts to the disembodied ‘synthetic choir’, ploughing ahead through the pleasure and unease!
- Ima Dog – DJ Nate
My favourite song from a compilation album of Chicago footwork called ‘Bangs & Works’. By the end I’m just about convinced: they’re a dog.
- Love Letter Part 1 / Bruno Part 1 / Love Letter Part 2 – Robert Ashley
A little treat, which I first heard in a park in Berlin, when Jame St Findlay played it out loud and we pretended one mandarin duck was singing it to another.
- Betrayal – Lolina
Also (or perhaps previously?) known as Inga Copeland, I prefer this persona ‘Lolina’, whose album ‘The Smoke’ has been nice to return to since recently moving to London - in another song she sings provocatively ‘in the river I throw away my Oyster’, something I now understand the gravity of. You should listen past the bouncy fairground first bit for her descriptions of all the men: the invisible man, the man behind you, and best of all the man inside you who says ‘no signor, you’re late.’
- Drinking in L.A. – Bran Van 3000
An ode to the ultimate transubstantiation: apathy into output. If they really did ‘absolutely buttkiss that day’ as they claim, then when did they get around to writing this? ‘I’ve got the fever for the flavour’ too, but I haven’t managed to churn out any records. I also love its flawlessly staged radio-call-in sample at the beginning.
- Someone’s Lifework – Jura
Jura is friends with not one but two of my friends. It sounds like she has a lot of friends who all want to feature on the album, and she hasn’t got quite enough room in the recording studio but has said yes anyway. When she sings ‘it seems that you’re older, performing to the bends ahead’ I always hear ‘bands’, which I prefer.
- Theme Song from Raised by Wolves – Mariam Wallentin + Ben Frost
Very few people I know watched this show about humanoid clones who crash-land on an alien planet and set to work raising an intergalactic nuclear family, despite Ridley Scott directing the first episode, perhaps because the name is so rubbish. It was nice to look forward to the theme song each episode instead of skipping it.
- Your Hands – Chassol
Jeannette Slütter recommended this to me, and I think it parallels her work in that it's like listening to someone trying to get to the bottom of what they’re doing as they’re doing it.
- When The Sun Stops Trying – Lea Rüegg + Francesca Hawker
Lea brought these lyrics to life, which I wrote right after listening to an episode of ‘This American Life’ in which the writer Starlee Kine calls up Phil Collins to ask him for break-up-song-writing advice. I love break-up songs for their ability to become carriers of all sorts of chart-unfriendly losses.
- WAP x Someone Like You – KJ Mixes
This late addition replaced ‘Ghosts’ by Japan in my list. KJ claims to have ‘cried while making this’. As a teenager I was really excited by these sorts of Youtube mash-ups, and my enjoyment increased the further away the two songs seemed, as though it was a sort of alchemy to be able to get them through the same speakers without either of them dying.
- Women of the world take over – Ivor Cutler
I never listen to this as a song, unlike ‘I Worn My Elbows’ or ‘Face Like a Lemon’, but I'm so grateful for the gesture.
- Our Town – Iris Dement
Iris letting us know its ok to let go!
- Κρέμεται η ψυχή μου σαν δέρμα ζωου (My soul is hanging like a piece of flesh) - Krista Papista
She performed at Brasserie Atlas in the summer, and her set was an absolutely ideal and impossible combination of influences, but I most liked the moments that swerved into stadium r.o.c.k.
- Snow – Lucian Moriyama
Lucian wrote this Christmas song for Delphine Navez, who is collecting 24 artworks for advent. O to spend a Christmas in this cabaret grotto.
- 22nd century – Nina Simone
Finally, Nina’s predictions for the 22nd century: “Your heart is a plastic thing which can be bought, there are no more diseases which can be caught.”
You can find more about Francesca's work on her website. In January 2024, Francesca will be staying at the Woning Van Wassenhove as the upcoming resident for the Writing Residency organised jointly by MDD and Morpho.