excerpts from my may playlist
I do a monthly playlist cataloguing all of the songs that I discover (or rediscover) each month, and in honour of May being (almost) over, I figure I'd highlight some of the ones I really enjoyed this month and what they mean to me. This one is, I believe, the longest one I've had since I started in May of 2020. 60 playlists! I have a feeling it's because I started working full time this month, with plenty of time to just pop an earbud in while I work. Anyway!
Hey Tiger (Late 2003) - Dear Nora
- This song, and album, have been on my rotation probably since 2019 or 2020. I think out of every artist's discography, Dear Nora's could be described as the most representative of my life. Gorgeous, gorgeous music! I find simple music like this the most wonderful as it really feels like it's just you and her in a room, guitar in tow. I played this for a friend (the one I wrote about yesterday!) in her car as she's another rare Dear Nora fan.
Kalimankou Denkou (The Evening Gathering) - Bulgarian State Television Female Choir
- I'm going to be so real, I have no idea how I discovered this one. I have a feeling it must've been on my Discover Weekly playlist way back, and it just scratched some itch deep in my brain. This one is just straight up Bulgarian choral music, but it is BEAUTIFUL. It's been a favourite for late night walks, and times where I need to really feel like the world is so much grander than one can fathom.
Can't Get Enough (Of Your Love) - Take Three
This one may have been another Discover Weekly find, and it sent me down a reggae-disco rabbit hole. Just so funky and awesome! I was listening to this the first week or two I started work a lot, especially as I was walking from the subway in the morning. It really made me feel like I was John Travolta prancing around town in the Saturday Night Fever opening scene, but way groovier.
- Honourable mention to Ain't No Stopping Us Now - Risco Connection for being another banger walking and dancing tune!
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times - The Beach Boys
- I spent all of April obsessed with Busy Doin' Nothing and am simply in love with the Beach Boys instrumentation and harmonies. Oboe oboe oboe! Flute flute flute!!! And I believe that solo in the middle on the former is theremin? Super cool!
- I spent the first half of the month processing a lot of very confusing emotions, and Bill Withers always seems to be the one to trail back to. Such a soothing, wonderful voice. Picture quiet afternoons in the office library where all there is to do is sort fabric samples and daydream.
- Another early morning walking tune! This one felt like a sign of rebirth, of spring and fresh air and breeze rather than winter chill. Although I do usually find the Cocteau Twins to be a very wintery style of music, cool and synthesized and mysterious, this one feels especially bright to me.
- Such a dreamy, wistful yet steady sound. I was walking home from the zine library, or rather walking to the subway, and it was around 8 pm. That's right around sunset time, and I was watching the evening crowd slip in travelling against me while the afternoon crowd travelled with me towards the subway. I would've sat around and had a coffee at the cafe at the end of the block to watch the different circles move with and against each other, but I had a train to catch and work in the morning. Another time.
There's a Rugged Road - Judee Sill
Oooh man, am I obsessed with folk. Judee Sill has the voice of an angel and then some to boot. This one I was listening to while I finished up a zine of all of my to-do lists of the year, and I felt it had a very reminiscent sound.
- Honorable mention to Lady-O which I apparently listened to 50 times (?!) last week alone. That was mostly during the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep and needed mourning background music.
This one was sent to me in a letter, the sole message in the vast white of a little card. It's lyrics and sound were eerily reminiscent of a period of my life that was beyond comprehension in so many ways (in the vast amount of writing and making that I do, I still have yet to capture it well enough which has been very difficult for me). There's such a magical thing about media that reflects yourself back to you so clearly, like a hand reaching out from the dark to tell you that no matter how absurd, there will always be someone else in the world who knows what you've gone through in some way or another.
- Knew You Well - Art Lown for the exact same reasons with a country flair (and this one I found by myself).