No Coincidences

The latest album by Coyote came out recently, a six track album titled The Higher The Sky, The Deeper The Ocean. It follows three other six track albums they've released in the last few years (as well as numerous singles, 12"s and edits). Five of the six tracks feature very well chosen and apposite vocal samples, taken from a variety of sources, that are built into the Notts duo's music- Balearica, dub and ambient tunes that are always like a ray of warm sunshine. 

I reviewed The Higher The Sky, The Deeper The Ocean for Ban Ban Ton Ton where I got into the idea that what Coyote are doing with the voices that appear on their albums is making meaning or trying to find answers or make sense of the world/ life. The voices that they drop into their songs become lyrics in the same way I guess that actually writing the words for a song does for songwriters. The review is here and the album is available at Bandcamp, digital and vinyl. 

The album ends with No Coincidences, six minutes of music that have become one of my favourite songs of 2026. The lazy drumbeat, double bass (reminiscent of Danny Thompson's bass playing on Nick Drake, John Martyn and Pentangle records) and wash of sounds are intoxicating and the voice on top elevates it further. 'Life is a colour... there's no such things as coincidence... hurry up please it's time...'. 

In the review I linked the vocal sample, a repeated line  of 'hurry up please it's time, hurry please it's time', to T.S. Eliott's The Waste Land (the line appears in the poem, the barman trying to get drinkers out of his pub at last orders). Which felt a bit pretentious (I asked Rob at Ban Ban Ton Ton to feel free to tell me if it was a bit much) but I think we run the risk of pretentiousness form time to time in blogging and we just have to accept it. 

Anyway, it led me to think about what other songs have been inspired by The Waste Land and these three turned up. Pet Shop Boys' breakthrough single West End Girls is one of them, Neil Tennant finding inspiration in the streets on London as portrayed in the poem, the noise and strife of the city and the class struggle of those East End Boys and West End Girls. 

PJ Harvey's On Battleship Hill is also apparently partly inspired by The Waste Land, both commenting on the aftermath of the First World War and the slaughter of a generation of young men in the name of Western values. Polly pulls no punches. 

I found out too that Lana Del Rey's Do You Know There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is possibly inspired by the poem, the search for meaning and themes of memory, loss and decay. And it's a rather dramatic and affecting song too. When I set out writing this post I didn't plan to end up with pet Shop Boys, PJ Harvey and Lana Del Rey and that just confirms what the voice in the Coyote song is saying. There's no such thing as coincidence.