Hawtin and Proust

The shuffle button today provided my ears with a Ritchie Hawtin set recorded at the Arches in Glasgow some years ago - a night at which I was at. 

Hearing the music took me straight back to those sweaty catacombs. Memories came to mind of the feeling of the speaker-maddened air moving my insides; of the combined sensations of light and sound as the anticipated drop hit; of the feeling of rightness of being there with exactly the people I was with and at exactly that time. 

All very invigorating for a journey on a grey Hong Kong bus, but probably all completely fabricated. Thinking rationally about it I can't pick out that night from all the others; that one dose of bass or that one drop from the many that I enjoyed around that time of my life. Much more likely that I have been doing a bit of confabulation based on my recognition that I was there and so should have such memories. 

Does that matter? Not really, I don't think. The feeling and recognition was a genuine one of my general experiences around that time. That my brain chose to attach some specific, although imagined, link between those states and the night a recording of which I happened to be listening to doesn't seem to detract from the specialness of my true but more generalised memories. 

Nor does it take away from the train of thought that the memories initiated - all the people that came to mind that are linked with that time, some of whom I have spoken to recently, some not since then, and some that we will sadly never get to speak to again.

Now if only there were any decent clubs in this city...