Science & Magic | 15
I’ve been thinking about 2025. It’s natural to focus and remember the big events - the births, the deaths, the house moves, the nonce princes - but we can easily forget the texture of life found in the small details that hold the whole thing together: a shared joke, a timely phone call, the conversations you have with yourself while waiting for a kettle to boil, the song that ambushed you on that Tuesday afternoon, the brief, perfect moment of understanding with a complete stranger at a bus stop.
Since leaving social media, Science & Magic has become the quiet, accidental replacement. Looking back, the growth of this small community has been the most significant part of 2025. Violette exists to share the things we believe in. That might be the vital new music from Professor Yaffle and Tigers & Flies, or it might be the work in these pages, where artists, writers and readers find common ground. For me, that connection was 2025.
However, it is with a heavy heart that we marked 2025 as the beginning of the end for La Violette Società. For a decade, these nights have been a testament to a different way of doing things - our little revolution built on the simple, radical ideas of treating and paying every artist equally and trusting the audience to be open to discovery. Knowing these next two will be our last makes each gathering, and the community of artists and listeners that has formed around them, feel all the more precious.
So for this final edition of the year, we’re turning the focus to the people who make up this community. We asked our regular contributors to answer questions about their 2025. It’s a collective stock-take before the festive fog descends.
These are the moments that mattered to us. Here's hoping 2025 has been good to you, and that 2026 is even better.
Matt
Jeff Young
How will you be celebrating Christmas and New Year this year?
I’m not a big fan of either Christmas or New Year but there’s usually an afternoon somewhere round about then that we go for a family walk, often along the canal, sometimes along the river, just as the light is dimming, stop off for cake and hot chocolate somewhere. That’s the simple pleasure, the celebration of us being together, quietly in the dimming of the day.
What was the single best thing - a record, a book, a film, a conversation - you discovered in 2025?
I went on a pilgrimage to Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Anna Ancher exhibition. I’d only ever seen her paintings on postcards or in art books and, although I really liked her work I wasn’t prepared to be so moved and bewitched by the experience of complete immersion in luminous beauty. In this Danish artist’s glorious images light is everything, shafts of sunlight illuminate rooms with shimmering, almost abstract brushstrokes. The paintings are breathtakingly beautiful. You can feel the sunlight on your skin. I’ve seen some great exhibitions this year, but Anna Ancher’s paintings were transforming. To have your view of the world altered by paint, by the visionary eye of the painter was exhilarating.
What was the biggest, or most interesting, mistake you made this year?
Using the wrong glue in my assemblages. For those of you out there who are in the glueing marbles into old tobacco tins game, make sure you check your glue.
What was a small, quiet, or overlooked moment from 2025 that has stayed with you?
It’s a sad moment but it also gives me an overwhelming feeling of love, and it’s the morning I woke up knowing that this was the day we were to take our cat Pepper to be put to sleep. That moment of looking into her sad and exhausted eyes, knowing that was the last quiet and gentle morning we would spend together was heartbreaking but beautiful, my best friend, what a great sixteen years we had together...
What was the best piece of advice you received this year, and did you take it?
Various people encouraged me to exhibit my artwork. It took me a while to take the plunge. My Haunted Paper exhibition at Dorothy on Jamaica Street turned out to be life changing, one of the best things I’ve ever been involved with. And so, in January 2026 my second exhibition – this time in collaboration with Mike Badger – opens at the Kirkby Gallery. As Mike says, walk into the dark, take the giant step, you never know what might happen.
What did you spend too much time worrying about in 2025?
My kidney stones!
What was a new skill, habit, or way of thinking you picked up this year?
I’ve been having physiotherapy treatment for chronic arthritis since April, and it has transformed my life. I’ve learned a lot about neural pathways and the broken connections between my mind and body, and, as a result, over the last six months my mobility and health in general have improved enormously. And then I started – reluctantly, nervously - going to Pilates classes. Even just agreeing to go was something I’d have laughed at a year ago. But I go. Every week. And I love it. Who knew!
What old belief or opinion did you let go of in 2025?
I’ve always been drawn to difficult people. Sometimes I didn’t know they were difficult people to begin with. Sometimes I knew they were difficult but was drawn to them by their talent, or charisma, or the way they spun a story at the bar. I would defend them to anyone. I’d always say yes to that coffee. It was rarely worth the effort. I don’t do that anymore. Life’s too short. Be with people who bring you joy.
What do you hope for in 2026?
To write the next book. And for the lunatics who run this asylum we all live in to give us a fucking break.
What are you tired of?
Medication.
John Canning Yates
How will you be celebrating Christmas and New Year this year?
Relaxing with family. Liverpool, then Coventry, my two places. Watching It’s a Wonderful Life and trying (again) to convince my mother in law that it’s about more than a whinging child and a bell ringing. We’ll dust off the dartboard and add to the holes in the wall from last year. By midnight, we’ll say, “Thanks, Noddy, that’s quite enough.”
What was the single best thing, a record, a book, a film, a conversation, you discovered in 2025?
Cass McCombs’ Interior Live Oak. He’s been one of my favourite songwriters for a couple of decades. Back in the Ella Guru days we covered a song from his first album in 2004. Twenty one years later, he’s quietly releasing a wonderful double album like it’s no big deal. Cass is a cool cat, a deep well of listening if you’ve never gone down that road. I saw him play in Manchester in August and when he played Missionary Bell, the guy next to me turned and said, “That was like getting to see the Opportunity Knocks for McCartney moment.” And I thought, yes!
What was the biggest, or most interesting, mistake you made this year?
Thinking we have all the time in the world.
What was a small, quiet, or overlooked moment from 2025 that has stayed with you?
I recently visited Damian John Kelly House in Wavertree, a live in recovery centre, and sat in on one of their end of week reflections. It will stay with me for a long while. I was blown away by the place and the people, the belonging, the support they give each other, the vulnerability, the sense of new purpose. PJ and his mum do an incredible job there, and I left totally inspired by both the people and the place.
What was the best piece of advice you received this year, and did you take it?
Be your best self. I’m trying.
What did you spend too much time worrying about in 2025?
Finishing things. Procrastination.
What was a new skill, habit, or way of thinking you picked up this year?
For years I shut myself away. I liked being the only one to ever hear my music, a bit weird, I know. These days I’m far more open to collaboration, and I’m enjoying that realisation.
What old belief or opinion did you let go of in 2025?
That work has to be perfect before I share it. A friend once said, “Don’t let perfect get in the way of good.” I wasn’t ready to hear it then. I am now.
What do you hope for in 2026?
For the world to make more sense. For the people I love to be ok. For Coventry City to finally be back in the Premier League. To continue losing myself in music and in collaboration.
What are you tired of?
Idiots rising to the top. Algorithms. Opinions I don’t need to hear. Noise. Content. Ignorance. Politics. Greed. Wars. A cluttered mind. All of it. Knobheads.
Eimear Kavanagh
What was the best piece of advice you received this year, and did you take it?
‘Slow is smooth and smooth is fast’ One of many phrases I have been trying to adhere to over the past 5 years. Some stick and some don’t, but this one has made the top 5 of mum and I’s most commonly exchanged phrases in 2025. I take it, yes and need it pointing out to me as my default is to try to be Mary Poppins. Character traits run so deep within family cycles and pacing is more difficult than it sounds.
What was a new skill, habit, or way of thinking you picked up this year?
Knitting! I tried many times over the years and didn’t have time or patience for it. I have discovered that it is the most therapeutic thing to do especially when you get in the flow and rhythm of it. It soothes me and makes me feel as though I live in the olden days. I love how it kills a bus journey and you can do it whilst listening or talking to people and you don’t even get accused of being anti-social, it’s far more acceptable than phubbing. I am still only a few months in, at the wonky scarf and dropped stitches and 'wtf is that' stage.
What do you hope for in 2026?
I want to be less of a hermit and make new friends. As in real life friends - you know the kind you can pop round their house for a cuppa and eat all their biscuits. It is important isn’t it. I haven’t established this yet since moving to the beautiful countryside but it’s early days. I do stroke everyone's dogs and people are so lovely, so I hope that the small conversations may lead to opening my world up a bit more in 2026.
Jasmine Nahal
What was the single best thing you discovered in 2025?
I took a few short solo trips this year, just dipping my toe into the boundless space of travel. On a short-notice visit to Liverpool in July, I was privy to The Shipbuilders This Blue Earth album launch. With full eyes and a thumping heart, I was transfixed at one song in particular, ‘La Dolce Vita’. Jesus, it took me to a space I hadn’t yet dared allow myself to enter. The mellow ode struck a chord with me and I knew I was changed for the better. If I hadn’t even permitted myself to hypothesise about resonating with the song, you can imagine my disbelief when I serendipitously met a dear someone who brought it to life, only several months later. Call off the search, indeed.
What was a small, quiet or overlooked moment from 2025 that has stayed from you?
‘He’s not heavy, he’s my brother.’
What did you spend too much time worrying about in 2025?
Finding myself. I naively, but perhaps as one would reasonably expect, imagined an abscondence from abuse to result in a sudden revelation of self, a neat bullet-pointed list of how to find one’s true character now that there were no obstacles in place. Instead, I learnt that you don’t find yourself, but build it. And what CPTSD means.
What are you tired of?
I’ve often reflected that my levels of lethargy for insincerity and plagues of pretence are only increasing as generations are under trending topics’ scrutiny and short-term focus. However, my attention has since shifted to simply placing less regard to the modern noise and instead to what drives people to continue DESPITE IT ALL. Dance if you feel called to, sing and exclaim if you are moved. Bear your truth to those you deem anchored to handle it and just take the risk of being yourself. I am tired of pretending anything else matters.
Pete Paphides
How will you be celebrating Christmas and New Year this year?
It’ll start with my signature scrambled egg, This Isn’t veggie sausages (the caramelised onion ones) and ketchup breakfast wraps – all eaten with mugs of tea while we watch our daughters (now 22 and 24) reading their annual letters from Santa and removing their presents from their stockings. We’ll do that while listening to The Ventures’ and The Roches’ Christmas albums.
What was the single best thing - a record, a book, a film, a conversation - you discovered in 2025?
Record: It’s a four-way tie between Te Whare Tiwekaweka by Marlon Willians, Home by The Ting Tings, 3, 10, Why When by Jamie Woon and Una Lunghissima Ombra by Andrea Laszlo de Simone
Book: It’s three-way tie between Monsters by Claire Dederer, Night People by Mark Ronson and Men Of A Certain Age by Kate Mossman
Film: Friendship and A Real Pain.
What was the biggest, or most interesting, mistake you made this year?
Realising that people are, for some reason reluctant to pay £7 for a hi-res download of the concert we had filmed to launch the Sensitive album. I mean, some people did, but not enough for recoup the £4,000 I paid a director and his film crew to immortalise it. And yet I’d do it all again like a shot. It would have been a crime not to have captured the moment James from The Sea Urchins appeared on stage for the first time this century and performed a stunning version of ‘Pristine Christine’.
What was a small, quiet, or overlooked moment from 2025 that has stayed with you?
In a remote, almost deserted field at Glastonbury on Friday night, happening upon the Little Big Sound System and getting quietly, blissfully trolleyed to three hours of the greatest rocksteady and reggae set I’ve ever heard.
What was the best piece of advice you received this year, and did you take it?
Although it seems counterintuitive, do more of what you feel you’re already doing too much of and your processing speed will increase to accommodate it. Yes.
What did you spend too much time worrying about in 2025?
Forgetting to reply to emails and worrying that the people who sent them must think I’m a terrible person.
What was a new skill, habit, or way of thinking you picked up this year?
I made sure I wrote something every day in order to try and increase my processing speed and, by and large, I think it worked.
What old belief or opinion did you let go of in 2025?
That Ange Postecoglou is a football genius. I realised that the reason I was so invested in him was that if he could lead a team to Premiership success by making them play so fearlessly and do so on a point of principle, then I was really cheering myself on – or at least the part of me that was deluded enough to think that in a parallel world, I could have succeeded at that job. Sadly, I don’t believe that any more.
What do you hope for in 2026?
That more people pay for music and for good writing.
What are you tired of?
Populism
Amy Collins
What was the single best thing - a record, a book, a film, a conversation - you discovered in 2025?
I very nearly picked Ana Frango Elétrico’s - Mormaço Queima as my album of 2025 until I did a bit of digging and realised it was first released in Brazil in 2018. Insecure Men - A Man for All Seasons now reigns supreme in the album chart, but Ana is my most special discovery of this year.
I’ve had three stunning albums to wrap my ears around since my tip-off from Mr Bongo, but Mormaço Queima (Burning Humid Heat) is the most exciting. It arrives like a Tropicália storm - a Brazilian pop tornado pulling in bits of Pavement, Deerhoof, Captain Beefheart, The Raincoats, and The Beatles, to name a few.
The songs twist, pull and jerk listeners with unexpected tempo changes and a multitude of instruments, switching between schmoozy jazz, spasmodic punk, and psychedelic bossa nova. All seven tracks keep you on your toes.
In Portuguese, we hear about a dog walker who looks like Lenny Kravitz and removing pickles from hamburgers, only really wanting the toy from the Happy Meal, but Ana makes it jazz. If push came to shove and we were only allowed to keep the music from one country in the world, I’d pick Brazil every time. Ana Frango Elétrico (Electric Chicken) simply cements this idea in my mind with their perfectly un-pigeonhole-able compositions.
What old belief or opinion did you let go of in 2025?
I’ve always been a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to Halloween and Christmas. For years, I’ve had my reasons for thinking the season is not for me (hating cinnamon is the least of them). Generally, I’ve found the whole thing excessive: all that tat and plastic waste, the expectation to spend feels obscene. Usually, I just bow out quietly and try not to roll my eyes while everyone fetishises pumpkin-spiced lattes and mulled wine.
But this year, I realised I was cutting off my nose to spite my face. These holidays are a perfect excuse to be resourceful and creative. So, I spent three weeks in October making a spider costume for a Halloween party, complete with a papier-mâché mask and four legs made from stuffed tights (my actual arms and legs made it eight). It went down a storm at the do, and I proper enjoyed myself. For the past few weeks, I’ve been crafting bespoke angel garlands with my niece and nephew after school; cutting out our family’s faces for the angels and letting the kids add sparkles and flourishes to bodies and wings made from scrap patterned paper normally reserved for collaging. Instead of dismissing it all, I’m moulding it into something that suits me and spreading a little cheer in the process. I’m feeling a lot less Scrooge McDuck this year!
What was a new skill, habit, or way of thinking you picked up this year?
I’ve said yes to every possible opportunity to dance. Morning raves led by community theatre groups, daytime discos held in big venues that feel like a wedding reception on steroids. I rocked to The Doors, Talking Heads, Madness, Specials, Steely Dan… tribute acts. What a relief to hang up my music snobbery and just get stuck in! Other great bops were had at Camera Obscura, Beta Band, Cate Le Bon, The Scientist, Panda Bear and Ezra Furman gigs (Bill Callahan was more of a sweaty sway). And of course, I shimmied in my kitchen to 50’s rock ’n’ roll between chores. More of this in ’26 please!
What was a small, quiet, or overlooked moment from 2025 that has stayed with you?
I bought my first house in 2024, over the water. Before that, in 22 years of living in Liverpool, I lived at 20 different rental properties across the city and squeezed in a stint travelling the world (new hostel every couple of days for a year). That’s a lot of moving, a lot of hopes pinned and dashed. Broken boilers, landlords in Tenerife, standing orders, friendships and deposits lost. Nesting and dismantling, packing and unpacking, mildew, flat dynamics. Trips to the tip, charity shop donations, defrosting freezers, Allen keys. Carting 700 CDs and 500 DVDs in drawers pulled out, pay-per-kilo clothes, boyfriends-turned-exes. Paint over marks on walls, Gumtree, Command Strips, cat confinement periods. Constant chaos and heartbreak.
During a pastel sunset evening in September 2025 when I took an after-work stroll on New Brighton Promenade, I first heard and then saw some playful starlings using the prom as a racetrack. They whooshed about my head in murmuration, and I suddenly remembered they were there the same time last year; I was equally thrilled by the spectacle back then. It dawned on me that, having finally found a place to stay, I can allow myself to anticipate and truly look forward to my surroundings - my home. I can begin to depend on the seasonal changes unique to this base and anchor myself in a way I never have before. Not because everything is suddenly settled, but because I’m able to build a routine, leaning into familiarity as a comfort while life continues to ebb and flow. I hadn’t even realised how exhausted I was by the constant upheaval until it stopped. In the moment I felt steeped in gratitude. My toes wriggled in my boots like excited little roots.
Angie Woolf
What was the single best thing - a record, a book, a film, a conversation - you discovered in 2025?
Perfect Days by Wim Wenders.
What was a small, quiet, or overlooked moment from 2025 that has stayed with you?
The invisible transformation from holding on to letting go.
What was the best piece of advice you received this year, and did you take it?
To not think of all the potential futures whilst in the present moment.
And yes, (although it's still a work in progress).
What old belief or opinion did you let go of in 2025?
The importance that I'd placed upon alcohol.
What do you hope for in 2026?
Quite literally good health and peace for all human and animal kind.
Rob Schofield
How will you be celebrating Christmas and New Year this year?
Quietly. Gone, but not forgotten, are the days of Boxing Night and NYE at Cream. With a fair wind, however, we shall have music and kitchen dancing. I will be writing one A4 page longhand for each of the twelve days of Christmas, to keep my hand in while all around me the world goes glitter mad. I also like to pick a slim volume to read over the break, and this year it will be Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico or Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix.
What was the single best thing - a record, a book, a film, a conversation - you discovered in 2025?
Too hard. There have been so many books, but Claire Messud's This Strange Eventful History comes to mind as I write. Special mention to the very special Persephone Press. If you don't know them, look them up.
What was the biggest, or most interesting, mistake you made this year?
Ah come on, I'm human. I make mistakes before I put the kettle on first thing. One thing I never learn is to stay one night less than planned in Scarborough. My friends up there like a good time.
What was a small, quiet, or overlooked moment from 2025 that has stayed with you?
During a warm spell at the start of October, I found unexpected peace in the dunes in the nature reserve at Ainsdale. It was me, the birds, and four newly-arrived long horn cattle.
What was the best piece of advice you received this year, and did you take it?
Blindboy talks a lot about the importance of failure in the artistic process. Beckett said something about it too. So yes, I try to embrace failure.
What was a new skill, habit, or way of thinking you picked up this year?
I grew spectacularly successful Tondo courgettes on my (new) allotment. Previous attempts had been smaller than an infant's pinkie finger. More seriously, I have worked hard to practice positivity and optimism. They say the brain can change, and that's what I'm working on.
What old belief or opinion did you let go of in 2025?
That the Labour party might have had at least a memory of why it was founded. On a personal note, I've stopped caring what other people think.
What do you hope for in 2026?
Peace, unity, love and having fun.
What are you tired of?
I would never be so indiscreet as to name names, but I am tired of bullies, bigots and fascists, personal, corporate and political. I'm tired of misdirected anger and hatred, and I'm tired of the grifters who profit from it. I'm also sick to my back teeth of cliches.
Joe Mckechnie
How will you be celebrating Christmas and New Year this year?
In the queue for the DFS Sale.
What was the single best thing - a record, a book, a film, a conversation - you discovered in 2025?
I'm pretty sure there wasn't any new music released this year, let me check...
OK, seems there were a couple of releases, here's one.
BRRDS - ‘Everything Is Going To Be Alright’ (7" Heaven's Lathe/bandcamp)
I do like BRRDS (Dave & Kerrie Hughes), got a couple of singles, must give the LPs three a listen.
’Everything Is Going To Be Alright’ finds BRRDS somewhere East of Pescadero. Here they'll sing of the restorative power of the great outdoors, the contentment that comes from being indoors. It's a song about doors Sure, they sound forlorn, but they know it's not a permanent state, so they raise the spirits with an ooh la la la, all the way home.
What was the best piece of advice you received this year, and did you take it?
Forget showbiz. It's advice I gave myself, so I guess I should at least give it a go.
What do you hope for in 2026?
Scientists are saying that if we reduce the world population by just 1% we can start to reverse Climate Change, pretty much immediately. 1% of the world population, where have I heard that statistic before?
Tom Roberts
How will you be celebrating Christmas and New Year this year?
With family. A couple of visits, making Christmas dinner, traditional type stuff. We usually take the kids to the cinema on Christmas Eve and squeeze in any last-minute shopping.
New Year… I’m not really a fan. I try to ignore it if I can. I’ve done the parties, the trips away, the dinner parties. Not this year though. It still might happen. I noticed Insecure Men are playing Future Yard… I might try that. I might not. It would be interesting to do a New Year’s show, I’ve never done that before.
What was the single best thing you discovered in 2025?
The Cure comeback. It’s been great to see Robert Smith back in the spotlight and the LP is genuinely brilliant. I’ve had it on a lot. I missed out on tickets for the Manchester show though so if anyone can help me out… give us a shout. Ha.
What was the biggest or most interesting mistake you made this year?
Too many to mention. It’s becoming embarrassing. I’m not sure I can even call them mistakes anymore. They feel more like an inevitable habit I fall into. Reset… and the process starts again. Will I ever learn?
What was a small, quiet, or overlooked moment from 2025 that stayed with you?
Small in some ways but huge for me. Taking my son to Bramley-Moore for the first time. Seeing the look of excitement, wonder and pure happiness on his face as we walked up the steps and the ground opened up in front of him. Amazing.
What was the best piece of advice you received this year, and did you take it?
You’ve heard it a million times but it’s so true. Focus on what you can control and ignore the rest. Sounds obvious but it’s incredibly easy to let that slip.
What did you spend too much time worrying about in 2025?
See above. Everything. And the worries contradict each other.
I know worrying is a pointless exercise but it’s a process I can’t seem to shake. From the social etiquette of going out for dinner with friends, getting my hair cut or commenting in a WhatsApp group right through to the bigger existential stuff we’re all aware of. I spend far too much time worrying.
What was a new skill, habit, or way of thinking you picked up this year?
Writing for the Science and Magic newsletter has been a big thing for me. It’s not something I’ve ever done before.
Anyone who knows me knows I can talk for hours about the things I’m interested in face to face but letting go of the vulnerability, the fear of being judged, of sticking your head above the parapet and sharing with a wider audience has been surprisingly liberating.
It’s different to songwriting but I recognise the same creative elements. It’s easier to hide in a song. This has been a shift in how I think. A skill maybe. Definitely a new habit.
What old belief or opinion did you let go of in 2025?
I like what PJ says. Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?
Sometimes you have to accept that what you believe to be right isn’t what’s right for someone else even if you’re coming at it with experience and knowledge they don’t yet have.
I try to take a people-first approach. You have to let people find their own way, make their own mistakes and support them as best you can. And I’m trying to let go of overthinking. Just do things. Get on with it. Perfection is overrated. The 80/20 principle… yeah, right.
What do you hope for in 2026?
Redistribution of wealth. Peace. And that my friends and family stay fit, healthy and happy. Ya know the usual things.
What are you tired of?
I’m just tired.