Yea I feel like when I’m down hearing an artist that’s going through the same pain I’m going through makes me feel less alone. I guess that might be a bit weird but it’s just nice to know you not the only one going through it ye know?
Listening to the S/T on ecstasy was one of the best recorded music moments of my entire LIFE! every time I’ve listened to it since has brought back those memories.
“I was wondering when you felt really depressed, did you have trouble singing?”
“No, but I couldn’t really listen to music,” Case says. “And that’s one of the ways I knew something was really wrong with me. I just found lyrics just grating and so I started listening to ragtime and I found that that was really very comforting. It was like a little bubbling engine. It was like a little teapot — the old style like my grandma had. Like the percolator, which was always like the good coffee smell in the morning. Like, ‘All right, we’re getting going. Everything’s going to be great.’ So that’s kind of how it felt.”
A few days back I created a Spotify playlist for songs that chill me the hell out when I’m feeling anxious. So far I have:
Debussy - Clair de Lune
Wild Beasts - The Fun Powder Plot
Goldfrapp - Paper Bag, Pilots
Blonde Redhead - Silently, Spain
Marconi Union - Weightless
Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent)
Gabriel Garzon-Montano - 6 8
Yaw - Where Would You Be
Kate Bush - King of the Mountain
All have a nice calming effect on me for whatever reason.
Low are always good at providing aural support when feeling down
When I feel particularly disparate with mankind, The Holy Bible by MSP is perfect in allowing aggression to come out (and to remind me there are far worse things in the world in the past and present than my occasional self pity, and as consequence make me aim to try and make things better)
This though always puts me in a state of calm ever since I heard it 15 years ago and makes me feel the entire world apart from this song doesn’t exist - imo one of the greatest recorded and performed pieces of music I’ve ever heard
I had a bit of a thing where I’d weirdly stopped enjoying almost any music (like I would enjoy it, but I’d get anxious about it for some reason and that’d ruin it), and that kind of Dilla-ish stuff (generally warm, rhythmic stuff) is stuff I remember relaxing me a bit. Ekstasis by Julia Holter was another album that broke through and that I have a lot of affection for
Great. Poppy Ackroyds Resolve I really like, I’ll be be following her. She is scratching a neo classical itch which seems to perfectly suit by head’s pace at the minute. Also moving through Tim Hecker now.
Rem listening club are just doing murmur which makes me realise how well this album fits the topic of this thread - it’s gorgeous enough to be endlessly cheering, although without the annoying positivity of properly cheerful songs I can’t listen to when I’m down. Plus it manages to be pretty peaceful and yet simultaneously it’s full of energy, exactly what I need when I’m not in a good place.