Kaleidoscope

Last month the DJ Food album 'Kaleidoscope' had its 20 year anniversary.

It's obviously a strange time right now in which things like birthdays and anniversaries, anything with associated memories or emotional significance, arrive with additional gravitas and tend to trigger a period of reflection and pondering. We've been on 'lockdown' for such a short time relatively speaking, but we're already pining for suspended associations and swerving off down nostalgic paths of reminiscence. This particular record's anniversary has had us reflecting for a few weeks!

DJ Food is really called Kevin Foakes (but see below) and has been a chum for about a quarter of a century. It feels completely bizarre to type that, having been a bunch of cocky, sleep-deprived twenty-somethings when we first met, with the concept of middle-age not even a speck on the horizon of expectation, but here we are.

'Kaleidoscope' the album was released in 2000 and was the first DJ Food album produced by PC and Strictly Kev, two producers who'd been part of a larger squad known as 'DJ Food' for a few years, around a core of Matt Black and Jonathan More, themselves otherwise known as Coldcut. So Kevin Foakes is Strictly Kev - come on, keep up - everyone's got a DJ name haven't they? (Well we should, even if we don't DJ) - and it was buying and playing his records on the new and exciting Ninja Tune label from the early 90s that brought him into our line of sight (he designed the label's iconic logo).

In the early to mid 90s Leigh and I were fast and furious, setting the pace for future life, playing, buying, performing and reviewing records with a voracious appetite. With no 'online' or streaming - just tapes, CDs and vinyl - music was sourced through record shops, gigs, trips to London, word of mouth, sharing and swapping, making tapes for each other, radio (both legit and otherwise) and through hassling record companies for their new releases. We were just beginning to play regularly on a pirate radio station in 1997, and 'acquired' much of our material by telling record companies just that, who in turn were eager to get their releases heard by the people who were bored with the mainstream and would be the hands that spun the records on the turntables of clubs and festivals. If you wrote an honest review and faxed it back to the label, your feedback helped shape what was released and in what form (this remix or that one?) and the deal worked handsomely in both directions.

      

We met Kev in 1995 or 6. We were fans, and I'd sent a keen and wordy fax from my Grandma's vacant bungalow where we were living. I'd sent it to what I thought was his Openmind fax number - that being the design and art direction side of his operation - by phoning directory enquiries for the number. We knew roughly where he/Ninja were based, so when a London number came back I didn't question it. I think it was a children's television company who politely rang me back to say 'wrong number, but thanks for the enthusiasm' - so I tried again, I think via Ninja direct.

Either way, we got through and swapped a few faxes (the phone phaux pas breaking what little ice there might have been), talking about music and art and life until at some point, Kev pointed out I didn't have to keep faxing, we could just have a phone chat. So we did!

And that was the beginning of a friendship that went on longer than any of us could even be bothered to think about at that time. Leigh and I went to gigs, we visited, drank tea, we swapped little pressies; we made him post-gig cakes, he gave us records and coveted guest list spots. Nevertheless, when April 2000 rolled around, the annoying millennium guff finally out of the way, and we received an advance CD copy of 'Kaleidoscope' with a hand-written note, we were chuffed to bits.

It was a barking mad but brilliant record made of cue balls, jazz, riffs, big meaty breaks, velvety Ken Nordine voiceovers, the near-goth sulk of 'The Crow' and some Debussy. You could dance your bollocks off to it (let's say in Hoxton Square's so-cool-it-got-annoying Blue Note, long since closed) or noodle away to it in an armchair with headphones,  pontificating about the samples and nodding. Or, in my case particularly, you could get a shitload of work done to it, such was its pace and absorbing texture. It never, ever feels old, or tired; we're wary of nostalgia, and are reluctant reminiscers, so we never like to ruin a good record by loading it with too much memory or colouring it with one of those emotional time-stamps from which it can never progress. Thankfully, though, this record never succumbed to that; as well as being very much of its time, 'Kaleidoscope' was always well ahead of its time, so it's still as fresh and silly and ornery as the day we first played that CD.

What 'Kaleidoscope' always was was a 'trip' - in both senses of the word. Composed of what feel like two distinct halves, the album is nonetheless a journey, rollocking through tracks which flow into one another despite being very different from each other (hmm, I sound like an apprentice music reviewer...) You can dip into it repeatedly, if you just, for example, fancy the pick-me-up of 'The Riff', or the soothing goth-tinged murk of 'Nevermore', a swooping fantastical thing of whispers which erupts into a drum frenzy of trumpets and cymbal crashes.

One of the noticeable features of the DJ Food albums that Kev had more of an influence on - those he worked on with PC or, later, solo - is that sense of a voyage, with stops along the way, rather than a collection of separate tracks. They're more like epics - 'The Search Engine' is something of a magnum opus - than the early DJ Food albums which were essentially a box of DJ tools which you could remove one at a time and fit to your DJ set! We adored them though, because nothing like that really existed before; they spoke to our love of beats, scratching and hip-hop, and also ANYTHING coming out of Ninja at that time was exciting and novel. Picture these albums arriving at about the same time as Portishead, also new and vivid, and you can begin to visualise the scene. (I also thought the knife and fork in the Food logo were supremely clever.)

What Kev's always done is something we feel we've always done too: projects that he WANTS to do, which may or may not work, and are certainly not driven or shaped by commercial outcomes or monetary gain. 

If it's interesting, creative, hasn't been done before and represents a bit of a challenge - and we think we people will enjoy it - we'll give it a go. Our working lives have been peppered with projects that wouldn't make any commercial sense - in that they cost us more to do than they will ever return - because we want to do them, and we think we can do them, and because we're only on the planet once. We've been inspired by Kev for many years; who memorably told us "I look forward to Mondays, I can do exactly what I want every day of the week".

Take his 4-tonearm turntable project for example. When he told us what he was plotting to do last year, we were delighted at this gleeful release of the (not so inner) nerd, being an investigation into using four tonearms on a single turntable. It's more sophisticated than that of course, but I'm writing as a turntable outsider with almost no technical knowledge. He's also got the confidence to recruit his heroes into his work - weaving his writing, archiving and design prowess into live projects based on his love of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and all thing ZTT, for example, and bringing in "The" Matt Johnson to work with him on his own cover of The The's GIANT, a boyhood favourite, on 'The Search Engine'. Bold moves, you might say, but it shows you really can work with your heroes when you're offering something creatively interesting, relevant and authentic.

Now sharing all of the outcomes of his new turntable experiments with locked grooves and effects on Bandcamp under his new label Infinite Illectrik, you can hear the present and future sound of DJ Food.

 

Kev and his music have remained in our lives ever since we first made contact, through over two decades of creativity, house moves, a wedding, new albums, kids, life and evolving careers. Funny, kind, prolific and a total realist (not to mention hardcore archivist and mighty handy with the pencils and a Mac) he was the first person we thought of to feature in our 'Stupid Enough' documentary - about how real people carve out creative careers for themselves - and we liked his 'Search Engine' album and ensuing body of visual work with Henry Flint so much that we put on an exhibition of it in our little gallery space. We hope we'll creatively cross paths again in our lifetimes, we just have no idea yet what form that might take, if it does.

So I suppose having said all of that 'Kaleidoscope' is loaded with emotions and memories, just not the sort that hobble you with backwards glances in the middle of doing something, or leave you thinking 'those were the days'. Those WERE some days, and then there've been all these other days too, since, full of more music, and friendship, and laughing inappropriately at things in the small hours.

It's awkward to write about your friend when you're also still a fan of them, but what a wonderful thing to be feeling awkward about.

~ † ~

'Kaleidoscope' can be heard on Apple Music or Spotify

can be bought from Ninja Tune

or read about in more detail on Kev's massive and incredibly thorough blog

DJ Food's visual work can be explored here

and he has a busy Mixcloud collection here, which is added to weekly.

DJ Food In Your Ears, Cocoa Amore In Your Mouth.

It might have become obvious over the past year that Inkymole has been building on its involvement with chocolatier Cocoa Amore, whose shop and all-round hub of chocolate education moved last year into its beautiful new store in ancient Silver Street, in the heart of medieval Leicester (just along from the cathedral where Richard III is buried).

Our role there began with an event we put on - a chocolate-infused Buddy Wakefield show co-organised with Pete, Cocoa Amore’s owner - and has evolved from helping out with a little window decoration and signage here and there to fully immersive Creative Direction. We’re currently enjoying the fulsome challenges of everything to do with getting an exciting new franchise off the ground - branding, consistency, interior decoration, marketing, merchandising, communications…and more. It’s hard work, but we’re loving every part of it.

One of the first things we focused on is the in-store music. It’s well-recognised that music can help enhance the atmosphere of a cafe and store (Cocoa Amore is both) and so as soon as we were given the ‘keys to the shop’ we installed a new amplifier, good speakers and a live music streaming system. Playlists curated by us or by our guest artists is not only streamed live into the shop from our studio, but as Cocoa Amore Radio can be listened to anywhere in the world courtesy of Tune In.

Our first playlist we put together ourselves, but our second has been by our long-term friend and collaborator Strictly Kev aka DJ Food. Pivotal in the founding of groundbreaking record label Ninja Tune in the early 90s, Kev’s worked non-stop as a musician, designer, collector and writer ever since, staying ridiculously busy at the forefront of new music and design for music over a jam-packed two-decade career.

His current playlist takes a sci-fi, cosmic/psychedelic vibe and smushes it into different genre corners, roping in such glittering gems as Radiohead (from the new album), Gaz Coombes, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Jane Weaver, Annabel (lee), The Dragons, Lalo Schifrin, Jan Hammer and Vangelis. It strides across decades easily and with audible panache, and has provided the soundtrack to many an overnight session working at the shop. And we’re still not bored of it - in fact, it’s one of my favourite playlists of all time.

Listen in at any time, and feel the cocoa-y feels as you go about your day! (better still, if you’re close enough, get a gingerbread hot chocolate in the shop and listen in the warm chocolatey fug):

Cocoa Amore Radio

You can also listen to more DJ Food music and mixes and/or follow at these online establishments:
Soundcloud.
Bandcamp.
Facebook.
Twitter.
Instagram.

There is plenty more happening at Cocoa Amore to write about, but here are some historic blogs about our work at the shop:

Halloween Windows http://blog.inkymole.com/2015/11/halloween-signwriting-at-cocoa-amore.html

Share Certificates http://blog.inkymole.com/2015/11/i-liked-company-so-much-i-bought-it.html

Christmas Trees http://blog.inkymole.com/2016/02/christmas-trees-at-cocoa-amore.html

Mothers’ Day http://blog.inkymole.com/2016/02/snug-like-two-beans-in-cocoa-pod.html

The Legend That Is Solid Egg http://blog.inkymole.com/2015/03/solid-egg-2015.html

DJ Food's 'The Illectrik Hoax' - multi-coloured vinyl!

Continuing in the generous vein of the launch of his album The Search Engine in January, DJ Food aka Strictly Kev is releasing this tempting package for April 21st, Record Store Day.

It's a remix of his track 'The Illectrik Hoax' by Amorphous Androgynous (aka The Future Sound of London) - the 'Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Mix'. If you're familiar with Amorphous Androgynous you'll be familiar with the sorts of sweeping soundscapes they make, so imagine this applied to Kev's bouncy jazz spaceship of a tune.

The sleeve is a blisteringly bright skullface in a helmet with his coloured Henry Flint illustrations in the background, and the vinyl is a slab of fabulous meaty-looking marbled vinyl (bit corned-beefy) the likes of which I haven't seen since the 80s (and I DID have a fair bit of coloured vinyl - none with this sort of sound quality though!) What a generous treat. People think 'vinyls' (grrr) are obsolete, but with people like Kev making delicious things like this, and this, and Demdike Stare doing this you'd be barking mad to labour under that illusion for too long.

There are only 1500 copies available, and you can read more about it here on Kev's blog:

http://www.djfood.org/djfood/the-electric-images-in-my-mind-14-2

http://www.djfood.org/djfood/the-electric-images-in-my-mind-8

http://www.djfood.org/djfood/the-electric-images-in-my-mind-14

Thanks Kev!

Flint and Food

On Thursday we went to the Pure Evil gallery in Shoreditch, London for the opening of Kev Foakes (aka Strictly Kev's) exhibition of album artwork from 'The Search Engine', a collaboration between him and Henry Flint, who made the drawings in ink and allowed Kev to colour them up.

The resultant album imagery you'll have already seen on the previous blog post ('11 Years In The Making'), but there's never anything like seeing artwork in the flesh, and we were able to stare at Henry's drawings one inch from our noses, and drink in the black ink at close range. Henry Flint is a comic book artist who works mainly for 2000AD. You'll see Judge Dredd makes an honorary appearance below, and his comic book work has the writhing, muscly appearance you'd associate with big superheroes wielding massive weapons and snarling metal-headed foes.

(I AM THE LAW)

But the stuff he did for Kev is personal work. It's still writhing but much more 'organic' looking - creatures stroll through the images, faces appear, and you can see the evidence of a family of ink pens allowed to do what they fancy, rather than the strict, carefully-spaced and space-filling narrative work of 2000AD. See here where he's scratched into the ink with something sharp (this was on tracing paper):

This is the main image Kev used in creating the artwork - lonely spaceman, charmingly knock-kneed and delicate hand held aloft. Kev's deleted the inkblots under his massive back pack (wouldn't be done if I was in charge!):

In other work on show, little people leap and hide and faces loom out of shapes and corners. Henry sometimes works with his daughter Rosalie, who contributed to a couple of pieces on show. She draws, and Dad fills in the details! Can you spot Rosalie's bits?

I took a swig of beer and made myself brave enough to approach Henry with a few questions. I'm not one to wander right up to 'famous people' or those I look up to, especially when there's a queue of other people doing the same, preferring to watch from afar and speculate. But I wanted to know what tools he uses. As usual I shouldn't have fretted about appearing a goon; Henry was quietly charming and not at all the Comic Book Uber-Geek I foolishly expected. He talked me through all of his different pens - 'whatever comes to hand' was a common theme! - but the answer was mainly fine liners and the odd Rotring. He didn't mention an ink, but I think he must have one in his artillery in order to get those splats. I felt bad for not buying his book, but we'd just spent the last tenner on...

...one of these, a limited run of 30 postcard-sized records, which were, for obvious reasons, in high demand on the night. We managed to get one, but the pile was gone only an hour later. Check it: tiny but playable grooves on an A6 full colour plastic postcard. Sweet! (we haven't played it yet...not sure whether we will!) Number 22 of 30.

The night had the same warmth and joy as the Planetarium event, Kev beaming with the contentment (and relief) of a man for whom everything's gone smoothly, and he can relax a bit finally. We know that feeling from doing any shows ourselves, and in particular the immense amount of work that goes into producing one, and we've often wondered why Kev's not held or been part of a show of his visual work before. 'Look at me having exhibitions!' he was finally able to beam as we walked in. Indeed Kev - except you hired the Planetarium and made a record with one of your music heroes! Matt Johnson (The The) was at the show, but again..my nerves forced me to turn back as before I could tell him 'if it wasn't for your albums I doubt I'd be doing this job' (but that's another blog...!)

A contented Kev with a deserved beer:

Henry and his wife:

And this photo could have been taken at any time at any Ninja gig in the last fifteen years - lights on faces, music too loud to speak over, a chilly underground room...and check the old banner! Ah... (Kev also made a 12" slip mat on his inkjet, colourful and cute and sitting on his little record player on the stage. it was still there when we left, but it had 'cheeky souvenir' written all over it!)

Right then Kev, thanks for everything - we'll be expecting you to top that lot next time, OK?

You can read about Henry Flint here:
http://henryflint.wordpress.com/

and DJ Food here:
http://www.djfood.org

and his and Henry's collaborative album artwork is for sale as prints here:
http://scraffer.com/shop/?p=116

11 years in the making.

'In the past, trying to listen to everything has almost destroyed my desire to listen to anything' - David Toop*

Sometime in 1995, I was living in my grandparent's house and had just brought home a new fax machine. About a year before, we had begun to buy records on a new label called Ninja Tune. They were ace. They weren't like anything I'd ever heard before, knowing Coldcut only from 'that Yazz single', but we liked them a lot. (There was another label called Mo 'Wax which, if you recall the 90s Blur vs Oasis side-taking, was said to have shared a similar rivalry with Ninja Tune - though we're pretty sure this was just music press hype.)

We went to the clubs, we read the interviews, we listened to the relevant shows. And we admired the artwork. One day, in a fit of enthusiasm, we decided to send a fax to Openmind, the mysterious creative hand responsible for all of Ninja's artwork. You know, just to tell them how much we loved their stuff.

That the fax never made it to him didn't stop a friendship forming that was to last longer than our early-twenties imagination was capable of envisioning back then. Kev Foakes was Openmind, and my fax was full of clever plays on words, praise for his typographical trickery and unashamed admiration (read and replied to, with gentle amusement, by Openmind the children's TV company). Kev Foakes was also, it turned out, Strictly Kev, one half of DJ Food, and responsible for the music as well as the art.

On Thursday 19th January we went to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich to take part in the launch of his latest album, The Search Engine. As one part of DJ Food he's made many albums with collaborators DK and PC, but this album is entirely his own, and has been gestating for eleven years - a period in which he's not only become a father (twice), but taken an entire year off from his own music to design the enormous amount of collateral generated for the Ninja Tune XX 20-year anniversary (which yes, does make us feel our age). It was also a period in which the quote by David Toop above, taken from his album sleeve, became very relevant in our musical lives. Breathtaking changes to the way music was bought and sold, discovered and shared created a period of uncertainty and anxiety in which physical releases were no longer a 'given', promo releases stopped coming through the door and record shops on which we depended for new gear (and to which we sold our own goodies) closed. Factor in the loss of John Peel and dramatic changes to radio programming, and you begin to sense the slow panic induced by the loss of the structure on which we depended for our musical life blood.

Unless you lived through this dramatic shift in the landscape it might be difficult to communicate the joy and warmth of a creation delivered so thoroughly, so carefully and with such consideration as The Search Engine. Against a backdrop of thousands of pushed-out digital releases, faceless tracks composed only of pixels and megabytes (of which we have plenty), Kev's beautifully considered offering of CD LP, lovely-quality book containing CD and gold-and-silver Flexidisc, sticker and poster, along with music postcards and a show of original artwork at a London gallery, is breathtaking. He chose the Planetarium to launch it, perfect of course for the space theme of the album, an elegant venue which saw Kev 'making their stuff do things it wasn't designed to do'.

Using the Planetarium as screen, viewers sat with upturned faces, mouths full of flying saucers as familiar images hoved into view. Slices of Henry Flint's detailed space-machine illustrations were kaleidoscoped, chopped and woven across the circular screen, appearing to move up, away and then bearing down on us with sometimes horrific intensity, all the while playing to the now-familiar tracks of the album. Since this album was created one EP at a time, released a few months apart, hearing the album was like Skypeing a friend for a couple of years - when you finally get to meet them for the first time, you feel already know them, even though there are still some nice surprises. The nearness of the screen and the handful of seats made it feel all the more like it was put on 'just for us'.

Images of moon, stars, nebula, dark matter and space dust placed our tiny existences firmly into context with the certainty of Carl Sagan, but also gave the whole thing the sense of a man who's had time to reflect on his life and his creations, and is gently pleased with both. There's a generosity to this release that we're not sure we've encountered before, even in the heady days of flamboyant vinyl releases full of gimmicks and treats - because it goes further than just the products themselves; an appropriate venue, nice staff, a considerate release schedule, and careful, rich artwork, combining state of the art technological experiments with a rebirth of one of the oldest, the Flexidisc. The show wasn't perfect; the little flaws were still there, just enough to keep it organic and away from being an Amon Tobin style smoke-and-mirrors-behemoth (brilliant as that was). it had an otherworldliness, you could say.

I recommend a listen. The album features in this mix by Pinch, Strictly Kev and DK, with an interview with Strictly Kev at the end:
http://ninjatune.net/article/2012/jan/20/solid-steel-radio-20-01-2012-pinch-dk-strictly-kev

The offical review of the actual show:

http://www.djfood.org/djfood/planetarium-post-mortem

Details for his forthcoming show at the Pure Evil gallery:

http://ninjatune.net/article/2012/jan/10/dj-food-and-henry-flint-at-the-pure-evil-gallery 

and Kev's website is here:
http://www.djfood.org

Footnote: *David Toop (born 5 May 1949) is an English musician and author, and as of 2001 was visiting Research Fellow in the Media School at London College of Communication. He was notably a member of The Flying Lizards. A prominent contributor to the British magazine The Face, he also is a regular contributor to The Wire, the UK based music magazine.

Home-made

What is it about celebrations that bring out the creativity in everybody?

This year I had a significant birthday and a Christmas where we cooked for the whole family for the first time. That 9-course extravaganza is dealt with in another blog, but I've spent the last few days soaking up the goodness that's flowed my way over the last couple of weeks, at times feeling a bit overwhelmed by it. Every day, something has appeared at the door in an envelope, or in the hands of the person who made it, which delighted us in its originality and - at the risk of sounding uncharacteristically sentimental - the love it brought with it.

First there was our friend Lisa, who took a handful of our dinks and turned them not only into jewellery but into tree decorations and a Christmas card to be hung on Tom Hare's improvised Christmas trees. These are sure to come out again every year - and will hopefully find their way into the shop.



Following in the creative footsteps of his turntable-and-pencil-wielding Dad, this little boy had his first piece of work published on this enthusiastic Christmas card. We're assuming it'll be his twin brother's turn next year! Go Alex!
Michael, creator of the Inkymole website, made this birthday card from him and his wife Anna (whose yoga classes keep me on the straight and narrow) with the sort of gleeful crayon-work usually reserved for the under-10s - and if the pop-up sunflower and effervescent ladybird weren't enough to have me beaming, it's the sentiment expressed that I love:


And our friend Jed Smith, master chef and food designer for all Inkymole's creative events, even found time to manufacture and post this card between Christmas shifts at his brand new job in New York at Momofuku. The lad's only just moved there, on his own hence the picture. You'll be hearing more about Jed later.


Now. Birthdays in our family come with a cake, regardless of what age you are, which is always made by my Mum. Since this one was 'a particular number', she was tasked with making one which was more about spectacle and flashness than flavour - although, it's impossible for Mum to make a cake that isn't delicious. After a series of experimental cakes tested on Dad's harrassed girth, this one, kept secret till the day, strode into the house in a giant box, showing off its three vegan tiers of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate sponge, and laying the smack down with its fantastically girlish icing. There's a bit left, if anyone wants a piece.

The cake next to its creator. Yes, it is holding up those girders!

There was a companion piece to this creation which came from The Woods - no, not emerging from a dark clearing among trees, although it could have - but from our friends Simon and Caroline Wood. In the shape of a Mole wielding an ink pen, it was a phantasm of insulin-panicking icing and manic Allsort eyeballs; all-chocolate, and largely consumed there and then in the brewery. The cake was a reply to one I made for Simon on his 21st - 15 years ago - which you can see here.

The birthday brought presents of course. I'm not hard to buy for - there's a handful of criteria, but really, if it's sparkly, pretty or hand-made, sounds good or I can eat it, you can't really go wrong. However I was unprepared for the lump in the throat and the thinly-disguised tear to the eye triggered by this, from one of my two best friends who is just three weeks younger than me, knows all my haircuts including the 80s perm series, and has been critic, colleague and sidekick for years. It's not hand-made, but the phrase is hers, and means a lot since we live just a ten minute walk away but sometimes struggle to find each other in the fervour of our day-to-day lives. It's going to live on my desk, to remind me I only have to run down the street if I feel like a chat. (Jules' Mum and Dad bought me a Sindy, but you'll see her another time!)

Birthdays also bring a healthy amount of subterfuge. A giant 'hats off' goes to Melanie Tomlinson, my other BFF, for managing to stay quiet about these. Commissioned by my Mum and Dad, she made these, her first pair of earrings, in collaboration with a local jeweller, via a series of undercover trips to their house and furtive emails to and fro with designs attached. They took my breath away.

In their own hand-made box bearing a quote from Emily Bronte - who Mel knows is a pivotal influence on my early work - they're hand-cut from tin and covered with Mel's tiny gouache paintings.





Each piece - two birds, two flowers, two butterflies, a mole and a dragonfly - was strung together by the jeweller, and are finished with a little jewel. A bird appears to hold each earring aloft by its beak as you open the box.
There were, apparently, other designs - I'm chasing those down, as I can't live with the idea that they remain unmade.

There's no receipt for these objects, nor could I get one; and there were obviously many other objects and acts of thoughtfulness - the hamper filled with vegan goodies and notebooks, the sparkly yoga gear, the running shorts, the fabric-covered Wuthering Heights, Charles Darwin, the Angela Carter edition - that I can't fit on the blog. But they've filtered osmosis-style through the last couple of weeks, as little representations of the people who made them, to colour the days like brightly-coloured inks in fresh water.