Death grip on coffee, perched on the border of consciousness, perception dulled to the squeal of brakes that pierce the dawn, the commuters wordlessly perform their routine shuffle across the threshold into the train. In an orderly fashion they slide onto the stiff vinyl padding of the benches and proceed to distract themselves with email, books, social media, sleep. Conductors calmly move through the car checking that tickets and passes are in good standing. There is no conversation: the well practiced etiquette of the early morning commute mandates that the hour is far too early for such pleasantries.
The train thunders through a salty marsh. A heron glides in for a landing, briefly disrupted by the noise. On the ocean side, large apartment buildings — hotels? — hover along the shoreline, windows occasionally winking on as their residents — guests? — enter the conscious world. Inland, a garbage burning power plant dotted with blazing stars puffs vapor into the sky.
The engine slows as it nears the next town along the line. Another load of passengers makes their way into the half-filled car: a facilities manager swiping through all the junk mail in their inbox, a precocious teen in private school uniform, a bearded man with a calico cat on his shoulder, four men with the same face and suit. Everyone finds their seat, the doors close, the train rolls on its way.
The earliest hints of illumination creep into the sky. The railway passes through a winding jumble of highways and byways, a twined nexus of anywhere-bound roads packed with the delivery trucks and semi-automated sedans that form the other side of morning drive time. Away from the city, in the opposite direction of the train, traffic flies away unimpeded. Toward the city, all the invisible people wait for their chance to inch their impossible convoy forward, eyeing with no small amount of envy the cars that roll past on the rail. The thick knot of roadways is a half-functional heart: interrupted ingress but free.
The train decelerates into a tunnel and shrieks to a stop at an underground platform. A low mist precedes the next batch of commuters, a soft fog that gently touches the feet of the self-distracted passengers before curling into disappearance. The incoming riders remove their carnival masks and hang their cloaks by the door before gliding along the rows of benches and silently touching the shoulders of those seated to make room. Lightning flashes briefly outside as the engine roars to life again and sparks fly from the rail.
The next stretch of rail proceeds over a plain of bubbling tar. Rainbow vapors trace fingers through the emerging sunlight, providing a shimmery skyscape for the flocks of cormorants and squadrons of dragonflies to play in. A low gliding sky barge sails in parallel with the train, its deck crowded with multi-armed spider people flying silken kites as they wave to the ignoring commuters. Soon it is lost behind a towering forest of bald cypresses whose hollow trunks bend gently as the train careens through.
The aisles are now crowded with passengers. The train goes express, rocketing past a crowded platform of a former factory town that has been revitalized with multi-story condominiums. The faces of the waiting crowd are a blur of resignation, patience, resentment. They are behind the train in less than a second.
Billowing clouds of cerulean sand now trail behind as the engine carves through the blue dunes of a vast desert. Twin pink moons fade as the sun takes their place in the brightening sky. A vast metropolis stood here once, formed from aggregate and steel, a center of commerce and culture until the oceans rose up to claim it and then burned away. Now, firefly flowers dart as a flock, murmuring in unison as they follow some ineffable choreography in their post-dawn routine. The clamor of the speeding train covers the glassy harmony of their song, and then is gone.
Deep within the city, the passengers eagerly disembark. They shuffle along the station platform, heading dimly toward their concrete towers, their presentations, their spreadsheets and metrics. Their awareness is fixed firmly on the point in front of them, unwavering and unaware. They are conscious enough to form a functional society, but never enough to escape it.
Tasting Notes
I’ve been catching glimpses of a lot of tripe lately where people say insipid things like “music just isn’t what it used to be” based on spurious, banal arguments like “because anybody can make and release music, no good music is being made“ or “musicians today spend too much time on their phones and not enough time working on their craft.” Of course, this is nonsensical garbage rooted in the fallacy that there is some intrinsic superiority to the way your generation did things. If one subscribes to any sort of 80/20 rule, where 80% of everything is useless, increasing the volume of what is produced by definition increases the volume of the 20% that is worthwhile. Proceeding from that, it’s from within that worthwhile 20% that arises the musician / visual artist / writer / what-have-you who makes good use of easy access to equipment and free time and has the wherewithal to actually something. Statements such as this that bemoan the quality of art in a diverse world populated by extremely talented creatives with unique voices and innovative modes of expression say more about the speaker than the artist. How can one exist at such a time as we do and not feel overwhelmed by the feeling that there is so much more beauty to discover than you will ever realistically have time for?
Much of what is in this playlist is a celebration of that which resides under the radar: my very favorite genre of music, interdimensional radio. This list started as a mutation of a previous effort to put a cup to the walls of this universe and hear what was on the other side. There aren’t a lot of constraints or hard definitions here. Genres fail us, so we are travelling on a genre-less voyage. There may be a few things you’ve heard of — I certainly hope you’ve heard of Moondog and Panda Bear, perhaps you’re tuned in enough with the current pulse to be familiar with The Marías, River Tiber, Crumb, and L’Impératrice — but my hope is that almost everything here is more or less new and almost definitely interesting.
That said, there are a few distinct mood biomes through which you will weave in and out of here:
Retrofuture teen dream bedroom pop from beyond
Andalusian crime thriller (unsubtitled)
Open mic night at the Twin Peaks Roadhouse
Batman-perching on cyberpunk smokestack
Psychedelic soundwaves produced under the crushing gravity of Jupiter and amongst the tides of its many moons
Some highlights:
A few pairings I really enjoy:
the atmospheric Loopsel giving way to the lush, breathy soundscape of Julia Holter.
Quade’s sparse Technicolor leading into the melodic chaos of Manami Kakudo
The one-two punch of the wistful Ora Cogan and the playful Dutch Interior providing perhaps the whole spectrum of damnation acceptance
Ariel Kalma’s serene, droning Ten Hour Wave held up against the slow building singsong sludge of BIG|BRAVE
Some bloke used the topography of Glastonbury Tor as synthesizer input, which produces a delightful texture of meditative bleeps and bloops
Harumi’s self-titled record is a gem that deserves to occasionally fall out of time and into the lap of those who need it most
Califato ¾ won me over a few months ago with their absolute bonkers combination of flamenco and breakcore, but the entirety of their leap day released ÊCCLABÔ DE LIBERTÁ is worth multiple repeat listens
Panda Bear and Sonic Boom commissioned mariachi versions of a few songs off their landmark record Reset, as though a dub version wasn’t enough. I love that for them. And for me. I actually just love it.
I hope you enjoy this journey and that you find at least one thing intriguing that opens a door to a new world. If you like something in particular, or have any recommendations that will open a door for me, please drop a comment!