WILT_2024-45

A playlist of songs that intrigued me from Sunday to Saturday. Week of 3 Nov 2024 to 9 Nov 2024.

1. Breakout – N.E.R.D
2. Wonderful Place – N.E.R.D
3. Thrasher – N.E.R.D, Lenny Kravitz
4. Maybe – N.E.R.D
5. Obituaries – Free Nationals, Shafiq Husayn
6. Golden Boys – Res
7. You Know What – N.E.R.D
8. It’s Your Anniversary – Freddie Gibbs
9. They-Say Vision – Res
10. only thing on my mind – Zach Fox
11. 700 Mile Situation – Res
12. Ten Dreams – Sam Gendel, Benny Brock, Hans P. Kjorstad
13. Ribog – Venice Sex
14. Speaking My Language – Sam Gendel
15. GBTC – Sam Gendel, Sam Wilkes
16. 1J – Fumitake Tamura, Jason Kòlar
17. pure heart – ABUNAI
18. Sleep / Reptiles – Gianni Brezzo
19. Rebel Soul – Michael Kiwanuka
20. Under My Skin – NewDad
21. Rain – Wunderhorse
22. And Nothing Is Forever – The Cure

Hyperlink to Spotify playlist: WILT_2024-45

Notes

What a joy it is to be typing without the stress of looming deadlines above you. 

I wasn’t particularly inspired to write this post as I’ve just been enjoying some of my downtime a bit too much, but I suppose that’s why some of us have to set routines to participate in wider society if not we end up being recluses. 

It’s been a somewhat eventful week in things other than work. Donald Trump got voted in as the 47th President of the United States, and I met some friends for dinner and conversation the past week too. I’m being a bit more social this week, more so than I’ve been in recent week, and boy is it both rewarding as it is tiring. Nonetheless, I should be thankful that I still have friends to hang out with and I’m learning through life that we should not take these sorts of relationships for granted. 

Music-wise, something got me re-visiting N.E.R.D at the start of the week. Was it the nostalgia from the previous week rubbing off? Nonetheless, it was a good journey and the music was still unique enough for me to take notice. I also managed to discover Res through this expedition, and that is another brand of alt-rock hip-hop or r&b that still seems like an outlier.

I also checked out another new effort (Dream Trio 2024) by Sam Gendel which opened doors into the areas of jazz, electronica and ambient. This leg of the playlist is a lot more atmospheric and abstract that also features a lot of music and sounds that soothe the distractions constantly in my mind. (e.g. 1J by Fumitake Tamura and Jason Kòlar)

Finally, I gave the new Cure album, Songs Of A Lost World (2024) a listen. It’s a phenomenal effort that harkens back to the days if Disintegration (1989) and also some Bloodflowers (2000). Lyrically, it touches on the themes one would expect of a person in their late seventies, but performance-wise, that is a sort of frenetic desperation that strives for the the most accurate articulation of emotion, yet also with the reserved confidence that it might not really matter in the end. What erupts is a layered, complex, and nuanced version of songwriting that perhaps only visits those that are able to sit and commune with the muse, and also depict some version of its ephemeral glory.