Category: IDM

THIS JAZZ KILLS FASCISTS

what’s the long-ass german word for posting something knowing i’m never gonna be famous enough to get shit for not fully researching the political opinions or actions of every single artist featured in a free jazz, jazz fusion, & avant garde jazz playlist i jokingly titled this jazz kills fascists anyway acab

extremely cursed speedrun energy

hello friendos time for cozy strem! 😀

this is a loud, noisy, possibly too distracting to be a work music playlist work music playlist. like you need to have more focus today than you’d get from pulling up youtube, but you also don’t exactly need to tackle new problems for that matter. the nightmare youngest sibling of agdqlike and I Hide Down In My Corner Because I Like My Corner. the playlist that made me add hyperpop and drone to the categories list. the playlist version of a speedrun of metroid prime that you immediately had to hit pause on because you got too busy and then had three cups of coffee. a day where you feel like you’re drowning in email and the only way out is through and you need to be enveloped in music mirroring this frenzy and the frenzy may or may not be real. is the game cursed is the speedrun cursed are you cursed these are not the important questions just vibe for a bit.

junction system

a weirder, purposefully contrarian take on materia system that maybe overthought being “different” a little too hard. you have to read “junction system” in thorhighheels’s voice.

another work music playlist with the purpose of grounding you (it is gentle, and all songs prominently feature strings) while enabling dissociation (it weaves in songs from video game or movie soundtracks, indulging an escapist mood in a work playlist that knows you’d rather not think about work). except this time sometimes people are singing or it’s a godspeed you! black emperor song that’s approximately 4 days long.

i’ve only played some of final fantasy viii so sorry if i left out A Banger but i sure as shit scoured spotify for an appropriate cover of the triple triad music because i at least knew that much.

high dex low int build

some work music tunes for having no attention span, not checking twitter, daydreaming of starting a new drunk no pants 1 point to intellect playthrough, not checking twitter

i started writing a Thing here about the loss of the preservation as a possibility and the complications that poses for curation but sammie suggested that most people probably just accept ephemerality as the internet so nvm this is a playlist for getting back into your groove when you’ve been distracted by something unfixable

(title is based on a joke made by Kreal on twitter that I can’t find because it’s been like 3 years anyway you should watch Kreal Tube it’s good)

invoking the late-night creative golden hour

A playlist for anyone who gets their best work done around 10:30 pm, but has a day job.

Despite being wildly genre-agnostic, the vibe is pretty consistently mellow, warm, but a little melancholy throughout. All of these songs live in a world that’s mostly gone to bed for the day and has thus gotten pretty quiet. It’s not a late-night playlist that’s going to eventually lull you to sleep, but rather one that’s content to stay up with you for a little while. And if you put it on in the middle of the day, it’ll pretend it’s the nighttime with you.

i can’t find any way to relax

a short playlist of music of the most soothing, relaxing music I had encountered during a brief window of time, during the first summer of the pandemic, and while I could probably expand upon this or tweak it, it feels like in doing so, I would curse it. I fall asleep to this playlist a lot. it is too much to risk to alter that.

title comes from a jeff rosenstock song but obviously there are no jeff rosenstock songs on this sleep music playlist. playlist image is from a patch made by stay home club but you can’t buy it anymore sorry

agdqlike

seeking to fill the void left in the wake of another completed SGDQ? great news: trash garbage is here to provide! this one is a semi-high-energy background noise featuring words that don’t make much sense, just like GDQ speedruns.

this is the more chaotic sister playlist of our twitch streams playlist. a similar concept of work music characterized by the presence of human voices throughout (but not vocals, mostly), but rowdier and less polished. if i can’t really get into twitch streams is the analogue of half-watching a stranger play video games, agdqlike is the analogue of half-watching a crowd watch a stranger play video games. it’s not a video game music playlist, that shit’d be unlistenable.

the cave level from pokemon snap

Some twinkly vibes for taking pictures of bats and plants in a cave. That’s it. I just like this level from this game. Here, I made a one-hour loop of it! Put on the playlist, put this video on in the background, and just feel how cozy and charming this is!

I’m not interested in writing about the concept of nostalgia or its utilization in late-capitalism and/or the collective trauma of a pandemic or whatever vis a vis New Pokémon Snap. So instead here is every Pokémon featured in the cave level from the original N64 Pokémon Snap ranked by what they would sing at karaoke and how good it would be.

14. Zubat would croon “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5 off-key and get mad at people who happen to be leaving the bar during their performance.

13. Grimer would be a white guy doing Wiz Khalifa. He will butcher it. Everyone will be uncomfortable.

12. Weepinbell would do a Disney song and it will suck.

11. Jynx would dedicate her song to her boyfriend and then do a very warbly rendition of “Landslide” and it’ll make the crowd confused and uncomfortable for just a whole bunch of different reasons

10. Magikarp would do a very slow, 5-minute song that nobody’s ever heard of. It has a full minute of guitar solo played by a MIDI keyboard that Magikarp just stands on stage nodding along to. There is still a whole chorus to go.

9. Ditto would do a song that somebody else has already done earlier that night, obviously.

8. Jigglypuff would be hella shitfaced and do “Sugar, We’re Going Down” but would only actually scream the choruses and either doesn’t know or is too drunk to pay attention to the verses. Jigglypuff really worked up the crowd first, so it will be a huge disappointment when you realize what’s going on.

7. Articuno will do “Born in the USA” and some people will be extremely into it and some people will be extremely not into it.

6. Koffing will throw everyone for a loop and do a surprisingly touching rendition of a Phoebe Bridgers song, but it will bring the mood down.

5. The Bulbasaur that are actually Ditto would do “Piano Man”. Everyone will roll their eyes, but get really into it. The crowd is all singing along by the end of it.

4. Pikachu is reluctantly dragged on stage by their friend to do Lady Gaga’s parts of “Shallow” with them. It turns out they’re a breathtakingly good singer, but they don’t like to show off. A bunch of men try to buy them a drink at the bar afterward, but Pikachu doesn’t drink. Pikachu leaves the bar to go home at 10pm on the dot.

3. Victreebell would do a terrifyingly metal rendition of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”. It will work astoundingly well.

2. Muk would do Biggie Smalls’ “Big Poppa” and it will slap.

1. Pikachu Riding Articuno would be the equivalent of Carly Rae Jepsen showing up at your local bar for no reason, singing “Cut To The Feeling”, politely waving to the stunned crowd, and leaving. No one will ever believe you when you say this happened.

Animal Crackers and Bodega Coffee

Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation depicts a character who decides what she really needs, at the deepest levels in her soul of souls, is to just take a nap for a year. Her early attempts at the medication experiments required to do so leave her in intermittent and disorienting states of consciousness, begrudgingly awake, waiting for sleep to return in an emotional cocoon of old movies, animal crackers, and, paradoxically, shitty coffee from the bodega downstairs. It’s a hell of a mood. I truly can’t decide if I’ve had afternoons that felt more like this in the office before the pandemic or working from home during it. (It is not after the pandemic. It is still a pandemic.) (I sort of assume that sentence will always be accurate. It will never not be the pandemic now.)

A hazy playlist blend of work music, sometimes instrumental, sometimes incomprehensible. Ranges from the experimental free jazz of Harriet Tubman to the experimental noise pop of Sleigh Bells. Ranges from the soothing wisps of Grizzly Bear to soothing shoegaze of Broken Social Scene. There are two Grimes songs, and I’m sorry.

A playlist for this vibe: