I’ve noticed that several songs on somafm’s Fluid channel/station that I especially like are by Macroblank, and that Macroblank has SIXTY releases at Bandcamp (the site that gives musicians a bigger piece of the profits than most others), so I am signed up for an account, and purchased the entire Macroblank discography.
i take no credit. everything is plundered. マクロブランク
I’m wandering through the albums nearly at random, but have come back to the satisfying song Wrath of God on the Proxima Centauri release a few times (link below).
This is a pleasantly chill soundtrack for this rainy weekend.
I love electronic music, and many types of it, but fall behind in understanding the labels/names of the subgenres.
Future Soul I grasped. Liquid Trap I still suspect is a nickname to a nickname to a niche subgenre. But am I really into the microgenres Vaporwave, Mallsoft, and Barber Beats? Um… Maybe? Or is this all just invented so that other people can’t tell whether we’re cool or not?
Vaporwave – Wikipedia
A vaporwave-style image with Wikipedia as the main theme
My mood of the moment is Inner Lights from Macroblank’s collection Occult. This song sounds best with bass-heavy speakers .
One of the doctors I followed on Twitter frequently posted his satisfaction with his Dua Lipa family car sing alongs, and he was fun, so as part of my minimal effort to be aware of US pop culture, I looked her up. And now, this song is in my spinning (exercise bike) mix of the moment.
…to you baby when I’m out of words you haven’t heard
This is (also) from Teddy Swim’s album, “I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy Part 1,” appearing just before The Door. I like the speed/density of some of the lyrics, such as:
please don’t go got my heart rate up (real high) vocabulary (running low) out of breath I keep (going and going) oh no
I listen to a lot of web radio. The music of my niche downtempo stations washes over me, provides a soundtrack to my life, and tips me off to artists I might want to hear more of.
I am not always aware of how recently music was issued: there’s a mix of retro and current music blended seamlessly by talented DJs, so I haven’t actively pursued ‘keeping up’ with new releases or distinguishing new-to-me music from actually-new-music. But it turns out that I am keeping up a bit, thanks to web radio. (A new colleague recently recommended a station playing 1980s-1990s music, and I told him I’m trying to focus on music released after 2010 now, which just made him laugh.)
I went into my phone’s music app to look at what they deem new & popular (selling well). I was shocked that I recognize and enjoy some of the songs.
Here are three that I was surprised to recognize (and have purchased).
Hozier: Too Sweet (from the 2024 album, “Unheard”)
There is something about the simplicity of the guitar lines that hooks me. It’s a very satisfying song. (Also: do not date the protagonist of this song: he will always be hung over, will criticize your delicious green juice, and you’ll have to drive him to too many medical appointments later in life.)
Teddy Swims: the Door (from the 2023 album, “I’ve Tried Everything by Therapy, Pt. 1”)
Gospel-ly, danceable, singable in the shower. I could not have guessed his appearance (friendly neighborhood bear with even more tattoos). Lose Control from last year is also familiar to me.
Myles Smith: Stargazing (Take My Heart Don’t Break It) (2024)
Upbeat and cheerful.
It is so encouraging to listen to music that is enjoyable to me and succeeding – despite the fact that I like it!
While trying to choose other theme music for myself, while pondering whether Amon Tobin‘s Slowly describes me specifically enough or merely described the way the bay looked on this particular morning, I listened to Four Ton Mantis (on the album Supermodified (2000, Ninja Tune)).
Oh my gosh.
I once wrote a screenplay for a wordless film for this song. About Godzilla. Waking up, and then destroying a city. And settling in for a nap, after having a butterfly land on his nose. There were timestamps for various scenes, aligned with the music. (I posted this work to the writing group section of a dating site (!!), and my posts there somehow led to a fun, four-year relationship with another writer, though this is not an obvious outcome to such writing. [muffled question] What? [muffled question off camera] No, he wasn’t scared away by this. [muffled sound off camera] Well, “normal” people can be a bit dull…)
Anyway, it’s a great song. If I were to put on a robot suit and stage a fight with another woman (who is also in a robot suit) in a scale model of NeoTokyo, this could be the soundtrack to that fight. Or we could wear giant robot suits and fight in actual NeoTokyo, if that would be easier to film, but I don’t think we could get insurance. (Yes, I am thinking of Iczer One, and no, you can’t stop me.)
(I would link to media of Four Ton Mantis, but it isn’t visible on the iTunes version of the album currently available (even though it is on my phone), and the album version isn’t available on YouTube. The remixes give the song a different character entirely, though they are also fun – they just have less of a giant-robot-suit-fight-music character.)
I assigned theme music to a stranger a few months back*. This was a first for me, and I realized I should choose my own theme music before assigning songs to others.
Theme music isn’t a new idea. I worked at a company with a professional events team, and if you walked on stage, you were allowed to choose the music that would play during your walk-on. So, making this kind of choice has occurred to me before. (For people without events teams: It’s like the walk-on music for evening shows, but chosen by you rather than, say, Questlove, who has made some fantastic, context-based choices (only some of which he has regretted), making the song apply on a few levels).
I listen to a surprising amount of instrumental music. La cittá nuda by The Dining Rooms stands out for me as a gliding energetically through a lively city evening, so I’ll put it on my theme list:
*You had to be there, it was a “vibe” – the weather was fantastic, I finished work , SF bay was serene, this person was relaxing in front of me, Massive Attack was in my headphones – it was just a perfect moment.
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.
This weekend through September 22nd, there are pianos with talented pianists playing music in the SF Botanical Garden at the Flower Piano celebration. The pianos are out in the elements, but several of them have a canopy to protect them from above this year – hopefully they’ll stay in shape!
I visited yesterday and heard everything from Beatles covers to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue from pianists of a wide range of ages.
