WILT_2023-02

A playlist of songs that intrigued me from Sunday to Saturday. Week of 8 Jan 2023 to 14 Jan 2023.

1. Promises – Bnny
2. Joyful Grass and Grape – Dorothy Ashby
3. What Is Love? (Live) – Howard Jones, Nick Beggs, Robin Boult
4. 君に夢中 (Kimi ni Muchū) – Hikaru Utada
5. One Last Kiss – Hikaru Utada
6. Ye Old Man – Mia Joy
7. Le Bracelet – Alain Goraguer
8. Dreamsickle – Wombo

Hyperlink to Spotify playlist: WILT_2023-02

Notes

I wasn’t doing a lot of active listening with music this past week. Typically commutes or walks are when I spend my time listening to music, but increasingly I find that I also enjoy listening to audiobooks and podcasts. Particularly if the subject matter and storyteller are interesting.

This past week, I find myself listening to Michelle Obama’s Becoming on audiobook. She’s a beautiful orator, and both her voice and words have a way of connecting with the reader or listener, and is also capable of lifting up and inspiring.

In between Dorothy Ashby’s Joyful Grass and Grape and Howard Jones’ What Is Love? (Live), this was when I was listening to Becoming the most.

The inclusion of Hikaru Utaka’s music was thanks to this podcast format called Liner Voice+ that Spotify produces and recommended to me. It seems to only be for Japanese music, but Utada speaks fluent English and so thankfully, there was an English version. I highly recommend listening to both the 2022 album, Badモード (Bad Mode), and the Liner Voice+ Hikaru Utada “Bad Mode” (English Version) playlist. It’s not everyday that you get such insight from artists, and musically, this is a very exciting record with a lot of electronic music flourishes.

I also added One Last Kiss again because it’s such a banger. Especially now that I have more context for the song, I appreciate both the song and the music video so much more now. 

Honestly, I thought the playlist would end here, but Spotify decided to throw a few more songs my way that were just enough of both oddity and nostalgia that I decided to add them and pad out the playlist with just a little bit more music gold. I dare you to tell me that the tape warble on Ye Old Man by Mia Joy does not immediately draw you in, or how a band name like Wombo does not immediately grab your interest.