What music is good for your mental health?

Which songs sooth your mind?

Due to falling into the blissful abyss of the new Low and Marissa Nadler albums (and often reaching for ambient and post-rock records at times of high anxiety and stress), for this month’s Drowned in Sound show we’re creating a 2 hour mental health palace, ahead of World Mental Health Day on Oct 10th.

:radio: :calling: Tune in Monday 4-6pm on Soho Radio. sohoradiolondon.com

1 Like

I put on Alva Noto’s Xerrox vol 2 when I need to block out all thoughts. Static-drenched ambience.

Everything Everything

Not quite sure why they can do it so well, but there’s something really massively cathartic about songs which admit fear/weakness, like Can’t Do, White Whale, No Reptiles

2 Likes

The Beatles

often reach for Boards of Canada or similar stuff if i want to listen to something but i’m a bit too down to enjoy most of my usual things. relaxing and unobtrusive.

if i fancy listening to something relatable in one of those moods i’ll listen to lots of Malcolm Middleton

4 Likes

Malcolm Middleton is a good shout. Wild light by 65days is my go to a lot. Twilight sad too.

1 Like

Always go for If You’re Feeling Sinister during low times. Not so much for the themes, but I find something infinitely calming about his voice on that record especially, and the arrangements are particularly kind of playfully soothing if that makes sense.

1 Like

FANG ISLAND

6 Likes

Mew’s “Half The World Is Watching Me”

Haven’t heard anyone mention them in ages…still have a lot of love for their s/t

5 Likes

Agree that I also go for post rock too, This Will Destroy You a favourite. Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust by Sigur Ros also has a blissfully immersive quality and i think perhaps the most uplifting album of theirs (may not be their best) and has an overall positive vibe

saturday and sunday particularly

1 Like

Remember listening to aphex twin selected ambient works, particularly xtal when I was coming out of the other side of a depressed period. Was on a train to Brighton to visit pals and it was the start of spring and it was incredibly warm and sunny and that is one of the best moments I can think of

8 Likes

Kero Kero Bonito!

2 Likes

Faith by the cure is good for me ATM.

About a year ago I reached to this song which is quite beautiful and heart wrenching, just heard it at the right time

Also used this song from the same dude to calm myself

Sometimes really dense doom/drone/noise, walls of noise to drown everything out, sometimes delicate ambient stuff. I’m gonna do something irredeemably wanky and quote myself from the ambient listening thread on the latter:

…for someone like me (and I’d wager a fair few people here) who spends a lot of time with an immovable sadness filter on the best melancholy ambient/drone stuff doesn’t help to make anything feel less sad but instead helps you focus on the beauty held within that sadness, which is often a bigger help to me. It feels more honest, sort of like, “well, s’all fucked but it sure is lovely, isn’t it?”

11 Likes

Basinskiiiii

A lot of beats oriented stuff (Flying Lotus, trip hop sorta stuff) I find a good way to relax the brain a bit when stressed out or anxious about the future and that

1 Like

Stars of the Lid. Always.

Also the answer to the question no-one is asking: “what music is good for your hangover”?

3 Likes

Been a lot of Talk Talk chat on here lately, which I fully endorse, and there’s something about their later music that just puts me in a good place mentally and emotionally. It’s vulnerable and sad, but there’s something hopeful and somehow celebratory underlying it all. Just like @colossalhorse says:

Also Mark Hollis’ solo record.

4 Likes

That’s a really tough question. For me when I’m feeling awful I need music that matches or even exacerbates the feeling in order to get out of it. But maybe the best answer would be “P.S. You Rock My World” at the end of Electro-Shock Blues by the Eels. The album takes you to some brutal lows (“3 Speed” and “Dead of Winter” especially) but then that last song is probably the most cathartic and hopeful-despite-everything song ever written.

2 Likes