There’s something really striking in a sci fi moment in which a scientist works very hard to create something that’s just slightly unnatural. Something that toys with the very laws of reality as we know it. Setting aside the moral consequences of these scenes (which is par for the course tbh), it is the music in these moments that seems to inspire creativity and fascination in me. This playlist aims to invoke similar feelings of that precipice where the natural laws of the world as we know it are about to change. Jeff Goldblum gif goes here. You know the one.
Category: Spotify
i can’t really get into twitch streams
sounds like: chill work vibes, a lightly chatty friend you can just put in the corner of your screen and not really pay attention to, a parasocial relationship
my romantic notion of a twitch stream may be more simply just a virtual approximation of a coffee shop (remember those? oh, covid), of working or reading while surrounded by the light conversation and arbitrary behavior of strangers. it doesn’t appear that this is what twitch actually is (since in practice lots of streamers do talk “with” you, reading and reacting to the chat), but this playlist is a musical adaptation of the atmosphere i was hoping for. one of the more literal playlists, the thesis here is slower/chiller work music characterized by the presence of human voices throughout. not vocals (with one or two exceptions), but exploring other ways that voices are used as instruments and woven into music.
pairs well with work that’s going to take a minute, watching someone not totally know where they’re going in dark souls, tuesdays
Area X
A playlist that’s been in the works for quite some time. One of the original “moods” that sort of inspired me to start working on the seeds of what would eventually become this site, Area X is a playlist for moments in which you feel slightly out of time and space. Area X is a playlist for exploring those weird woods on the edge of town that seem to go on forever. Area X is a playlist for when you a trapped in a liminal space in a unnamed Midwestern America town. It’s a playlist for when you’re exploring an environment that’s just slightly strange compared to our own.
I Hate Summer
finally, a trash garbage playlist with Tegan and Sara, Fucked Up, and ska in it and we insist it actually works.
now, sure, it’s a little different here in the year of our lord 2020, but summer is the worst season. this is a playlist of songs for joyously fuming about how it’s too fucking hot right now. this is a bunch of mostly party-pleasing mostly pop and rock that wouldn’t be out of place at a rooftop or backyard gathering that it’s too hot for and no one is paying particularly close attention to how you kind of fucked up the music. it’s kind of mellow, but it’s pretty fun about it. (aliens-mostly.gif) it’s about two hours, which is probably how long it’ll take for someone else to insist they take over the music.
Theoretical DJ Set
Matthew and I probably first seriously discussed music in the context of a series of extremely small house parties I DJed in high school. At the time I was full of adolescent rage and so mostly I played Drum and Bass, but it was an extremely cool experience that I think about recreating a lot.
I put together a fun theoretical little DJ set of the house type music from 100% Silk and Not Not Fun I’ve been listening to lately, as well as artists from the last couple of years like Anthony Naples and Octo Octa. Pretend you’re in a suburban basement rave attended in the single digits and enjoy.
it’s just rap and carly rae jepsen
i literally cannot explain this any more
The sky was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
This is Dark Alley Jazz, if Dark Alley Jazz were set 50 years in the future. This playlist is here to encapsulate the feelings going through the mind of some console cowboy as they wait at the light in a rainy megatropolis while out shopping for cigarettes.
Who is selling the cigarettes?
An older lady. She’ll tell you something about the way things used to be, and you’ll smile kind of sadly.
When did you first come to this hole in the wall selling cigarettes?
It doesn’t matter. They’re everywhere.
Are there any megacorporations?
Oh, there are several. But no more. Not enough room in the market for that.
hear me out now: linkin park holds up thank you for coming to my ted talk
Yes, of course it has the flute song in it.
An hour and a half of Linkin Park is perhaps too much Linkin Park, but hear me out (now): there is joy to be found here. Assuming that you are exactly like me (naive, but a pleasure not afforded to those teenage years where this stuff hit home), there’s stuff in here you remember from your teenage years that holds up pleasantly, stuff in here from after your teenage years that’s fun to discover, and yes I TOLD you the flute song is in here that shit SLAPS
This is objectively the best of Linkin Park unless you have an argument for replacing “Hands Held High”
Downloading GBA ROMs at 1AM on a Thursday
A playlist for when you’re in high school, it’s way after you should have already gone to sleep in the middle of the week, but you just got news that the Mother 3 fan translation patch is out. You know you don’t have time to start it, but you can make time to at least take off the shrink wrap, in a sense. You can boot it up for like thirty seconds after all this anticipation and rest in the warm welcome of its cute family sprites and reassuring, looping soundtrack.
This one is loop-heavy electronic music that gradually fades into ambient, suitable for relaxing work music or for gently nudging you to maybe just go to sleep already.
Dark Alley Jazz
For when you’ve spent a lot of time wishing you were a private eye in a 1940s spy movie. Not in a “ah, the good old days when men were men and women were probably trying to kill you” way, but more in a sneak around and solve mysteries and fight off your adversaries, the greatest of whom is yourself, way.
This playlist is for Jazz to listen to while chain smoking in a speakeasy somewhere. Smooth but unforgiving, like the scotch you’re drinking or the memories of a former love you try not to think about.