A Mix For July
sharing some favorite songs and thinking about swimming
Hello dear readers, what a time it has been here in Brooklyn! Sports stuff, heatwaves, generational political change, an explosive diarrhea epidemic.
Over here I'm balancing work on the new Mutual Benefit record (which we'll start recording next month!) with an insatiable desire to be enveloped in cold water as much as possible. Maybe this urge is just one more way I have started emulating my turtle spirit animal.
I read somewhere that proto-humans became self aware around the time they stood upright and the author hypothesized that maybe the difficulty of balance and the strain on the spine led our ancestors to more abstract and anxious types of thoughts that in turn led to the creation of art and philosophy.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that floating in the public pool or in the ocean makes me feel some sort of primordial peace.
Every season I like to collect my favorite songs and turn them into a mix which I decided to start uploading to mixcloud under the name BGM (short for Borrowed Garden Melody)
You can listen on mixcloud and buy any songs you like on bandcamp. I hope you find something you enjoy!
(0:00) Judee Sill - The Archetypal Man
(3:36) Flore Laurentienne - Fleurs
(6:44) Wendy Eisenberg - Take A Number
(8:26) mui zyu - パラレリズム (Parallelisme)
(12:36) gobbinjr - happened yet
(16:13) Touch Girl Apple Blossom - The Springtime Reminds Me Of...
(18:31) Styrofoam Winos - Somebody Wants to Send You a Message
(21:57) jeanines - You'll Figure It Out
(23:31) Ruth Garbus - Sunny Summer Guy
(27:06) Stan Getz (feat. João Gilberto) - Aguas de Marco
(31:44) dagmar zuniga - Why I Remember (Each Day of Summer)
(33:29) Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart - dawn - pulse
(39:28) The Vernon Spring - Under a Familiar Sun
I recently read the book Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai which I think about almost every day now. It follows the inhabitants of a small German town and a naive man named Florian who, upon learning how unstable the universe is, writes letters to the UN urging them to call an emergency meeting. I was deeply moved and slightly disturbed by how it all plays out. I wrote a short review here.
Later I tracked down an interview with the author who said that the problem with these modern times is that we are surrounded by incredible things on a daily basis but we've lost the ability to enjoy or even see them. I wonder how to remedy a condition like that?
As always, thanks for reading and listening and supporting, always feel free to drop a line // j+