WILT_2022-36

A playlist of songs that intrigued me from Sunday to Saturday. Week of 4 Sep 2022 to 10 Sep 2022.

1. FlimFlam – Michael Peter Olsen, I Am Robot And Proud
2. Dooms Dive – K.D.A.P., Kevin Drew
3. The Chase – Lightning Bug
4. Haar ove Hamnavoe (Bill Ryder-Jones Rework) – Erland Cooper, Bill Ryder-Jones
5. body – Gia Margaret
6. clarity – Rachika Nayar
7. INWIW – Gia Margaret
8. Calypso – Gigi Masin
9. Centered Shell – yes/and
10. Another – The Vernon Spring
11. Tandem – Felbm
12. Moon In Your Eye – Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Emile Mosseri

Hyperlink to Spotify playlist: WILT_2022-36

Notes

I’m not entirely sure how the listening week started. I think it had something to do with being recommended the album Influences (2021) by K.D.A.P. and Kevin Drew, and then sort of meandering into Spotify’s usual randomly generated playlist of Radio based on…

So with that I landed on FlimFlam, Dooms Dive, The Chase, Hear over Hamnavoe (Bill Ryder-Jones rework) and body.

By the time The Chase came on, I instinctively knew that this was a direction I would love to settle on for the week. A slightly cold setting, but with very warm musical arrangements and tones. When Haar over Hamnavoe (Bill Ryder-Jones Rework) followed, the melancholia followed suit, and life became a breeze. A fleeting wind that brushes us on the cheek, never taking us to where it goes.

Somewhere, suddenly, body by Gia Margaret comes on. The audio sample grips my ears:

How does your head look to your eyes?
Well, I’ll tell you
It looks like what you see out in front of you
Because all that you see out in front of you is how you feel inside your head

It is easy enough to stand still
The difficulty is to walk without touching the ground
Why do you feel so heavy?
It isn’t just a matter of gravitation and weight
It is that you feel that you are carrying your body around

Common speech expresses this all the time; “life is a drag”!
“I feel I am just dragging myself around.”
“My body is a burden to me.”
To whom? To whom, that’s the question. You see?
And when there is nobody left for whom the body can be a burden, the body isn’t a burden
But so long as you fight it, it is

It’s like saying…you know, “to feel the feelings”
It is a redundant expression

Excerpt from Alan Watt’s lecture “Overcome Social Anxiety”

I cannot help but feel slightly lighter after Watt’s words are given added context from Margaret’s quiet and victorious synthesiser arrangement. Arpeggios and angelic theremins dot the the soundscape and deliver a dose of hope into weary bodies. Perhaps it is no surprise that such themes are present in the album Mia Gargaret (2020), and Margaret herself spoke at length about it in her interview with NPR. [Hyperlink to “How Gia Margaret Lost Her Voice And Reassembled Her Songwriting Identity”]

From here, it was a whole listen into Mia Gagaret, and the songs that got recommended after. Clarity, INWIW, Calypso, Centered Shell, and Tandem, all of which are amazing ambient and instrumental music pieces.

I thought the week would end on Another by The Vernon Spring, as a sort of full-stop to the week’s musical journey.

But some times, weeks write a ps.

On a drive out on the Friday night, Tandem by Felbm came on, and I really am a sucker for piano arrangements of this sort. Rousing, and based on rather simplified techniques, but put to very effective songwriting to make you feel a certain way.

Finally, Moon In Your Eye takes me back to the bowed saw arrangements found on Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs (1998). I logged this earnest piece of music before I forgot about it.