#24: Unlimited supply

This week’s playlist: Spotify / Apple Music

I swear this isn’t becoming a CD fan account (previously and previously), but nevertheless this week’s fascination has been the “which one would you play first” posts at r/Cd_collectors, which, intentionally or not, perform a weirdly accurate rendition of pre-streaming life.

Here’s how they work: Someone posts a photo of their CD collection, either whole or in part, asks the community to choose which one they’d play, and then people respond with their picks from OP’s collection. Will you see anything you know you like? Sometimes! Do you see something you know you hate? Always! But then there’s everything in between.

It doesn’t matter the collection, you can—and in the context of the subreddit, you must—always choose. This was frequently the challenge when looking through someone’s music collection with the goal of what to put on next. What you see is all you get, so what’s it going to be? (Or maybe you could you download something? No, because that means you’ve switched from listening to music to watching a download progress bar.)

At best, this act becomes an unexpected way of discovering new music, via a collection you simultaneously vibe and do not vibe with. Setting aside judgment of the person in favor of objectively considering the options, you may realize that if you like this and this and this, maybe you should listen to this other thing you still haven’t formed an opinion on? Or could your opinion be changed about the stuff you’ve heard and thought you didn’t like? Gazing at a CD rack, you could have a real existential crisis.

And sometimes your tastes are so similar that you just have to know what it is they like about that one thing that you just don’t get.

None of this is nostalgia, at least not exactly, because no matter what I can’t vouch for having access to a limited amount of music as a means of reaching any sort of enlightenment—juicy as that writing prompt may be.

Listening notes

Starting this week, I’m going to do something new here. Rather than writing up each of the songs in the playlist, I’ll only talk about tracks where there’s more to say beyond: Go listen to this music. Sometimes that’s all there is to say! And saying anything else risks slop and say soaring one more time I dare you.

Anyway, now for this week’s playlists! (Spotify / Apple Music)

• What’s especially fascinating in “Neptune” (Bandcamp), an achingly beautiful track from Moon Diagrams (aka Deerhunter’s Moses Archuleta), are the details buried deep in the mix. Even as the overt melody keeps arching upward and forward, there’s a counterpoint happening as well—textures that keep trying to pull the song backwards to Earth, creating a real tension that’s felt more than heard. The whole album is turning into one of my favorites of the year.
• A couple of previously unreleased and/or rare songs this week by bands with predominantly ’90s heydays: “The Bells of St. Mary’s” (Bandcamp) by the now-defunct Gastr Del Sol and “Behold the Salt” (Bandcamp) by the no-longer-defunct Unwound. Both left me entranced.
• Peace De Résistance’s “Lullaby for the Debris” (Bandcamp) had me so conflicted, but what won me over was specifically the conflicting points of view within the track: the lovely orchestral arrangements, which in the wrong hands could quickly turn saccharine, but when accompanied by a goth-y lounge vocal line, could turn devious and sinister.
• Louis Carnell and Damsel Elysium’s “fifteen” (Bandcamp) is the culmination of Carnell’s monthslong drip campaign of collaborations, and where we say goodbye to this wonderful series.
• “Key103” (Bandcamp) is the third track to drop from the upcoming Floating Points album—Samuel Shepherd’s first since Promises (Bandcamp), his sublime 2021 collaboration with Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra—and further evidence the new record is going to be an absolute banger.