When I started writing this year-end list in the beginning of December, I felt a bit like I was straying from my moral compass. I’ve long argued against the year-end list, even though I found the magic of Big Thief on NPR Music’s 2016 list (and that’s just one example). I decided to begin the lengthy process of amalgamation by writing down big questions instead … Continue reading Revisiting the Experimental Music of 2019
“Solo guitar figures flow and fray through echo and empty space, evoking loss, long roads, and low-lit landscapes.” That’s what the little blurb about Scenes from the South Island tells me as I scroll through its Bandcamp page. “It would be nice to take a road trip,” I think to myself as I hit play. “Through the American southwest. Zion’s kind of unreal.” The album … Continue reading On Sounding Daydreams
The unmistakable tinge of a major second was palpable. Harsh, crunching artificial noise emanated from a loosely tuned guitar. Heads bobbed and banged. The sound was note-against-note, a harmonic layout that offers more tension than it does release. Yet the audience didn’t seem to mind at all, screaming along in human articulation to the scream of amplified metal strings. The catharsis of a punk show … Continue reading Perception and Dissonance: The Challenge of Overcoming Genre
Music often helps us understand our own emotions and commiserate with each other about feelings we’ve all felt before, both good and bad. Much music exerts energy on describing close interpersonal relationships, and that has always been popular subject matter. To that end, we see secular music of hundreds of years ago exploring the pains and joys of love, just like much of our current … Continue reading Love, Attachment, and Music: From the 16th Century to the 21st
A silent room. The only sounds are my pounding heart and the hum of cicadas. The air hangs still and thick in a cabin crowded with a gaggle of teenage girls. I fumble for my headphones and put them on. I was listening to Bon Iver. That’s when it began. They say your night routine is your most important routine. Putting yourself to sleep is … Continue reading Amnesiac for the Insomniac
My sparkling red portable CD player arrived in the mail, bought with an Amazon gift card that my uncle mailed me for a birthday. I was thrilled. I slid the AA batteries in the little opening on the bottom, shut the clasp, and popped Michelle Branch’s Hotel Paper onto its wheel. I was listening with those headphones that fit over your head but are way … Continue reading Music, Technology, and Discovery
Oh, it could be such heaven If you believed it was real The gas engine on the decade-old Subaru outback I borrowed from my parents revs as the sun sets on a long day’s journey. It’s the only sound besides the loud hum of the forest, the buzzing cicadas and chirping crickets. Everything smells crisp like pine, but the air feels sticky like maple. It’s … Continue reading Psychopomp at Midnight
