Spotify Me Part 14: The Da Vinci Playlist

Spotify Me Part 14: The Da Vinci Playlist

Mark’s Discover Weekly Playlist for the week of 11/30/2015

This has been an interesting playlist. Many of the songs surprised me, not in that they were good, but in that there ended up being more to them than I had originally suspected. One song is from the soundtrack to a movie that is impossible to get a copy of. Another ended up being one degree away from Moon Hooch, a favorite band of mine. Yet another song described a mythical town that ended up being more real than I suspected. It was a fun adventure of puzzle solving and research for me. I was a kid in a candy shop.

But before I get to that, I also discovered a few other things that I really want to mention. One is a podcast by the name of The Black Tapes. The podcast is similar to Serial but with ghosts and stuff. I don’t want to say too much about it other than try not to research the podcast until you have finished listening to it. You don’t want to ruin anything until the end. Next is that if you have ever been in or are going to a town called South Bend, Indiana (which I hear has a fairly well known college?) then there are two places you need to see. One is a restrain called J.W. Chen’s. The service is amazing and the food was incredible. The owner takes every order herself and is very present in managing the store. The second is a book store called Erasmus Books. Trust me, it’s going to feel like you are walking into someone’s house at first, but it’s a must see if you are a fan of books in any way. I picked up a few nature guides that I’m ecstatic to put to use. But we have to remember, this is a music blog, so:

Sunset Blood
Starcadian, Rob O'Neill & Mike Frankel

He^Rt (Album Mix) – Starcadian 

The original motion picture soundtrack to an 80’s film called Sunset Blood was released on October 31, 2013. A few things might peak your interest from that statement. For example, why was the soundtrack released so long after the fact?  Why are copies of the enigmatic Sci Fi thriller so hard to find? These are the questions that were running through my head during a half hour research session that ended with me discovering the truth: the movie Sunset Blood was never released, nor did it ever truly exist in the first place. And that is really a shame, because now I can’t think of a movie I want to see more. Sunset Blood then becomes a different kind of experiment in music making. It is written to be in the style of an 80’s film soundtrack, but is in fact its own standalone album. However, the fact that the movie does not exist cast a mysterious light on the electronic tones that the album presents. Instead of recognizing the music from a classic film, we the listeners are forced to imagine the kind of film that the music was written for. To comment specifically on He^rt, the song suggested to me, it is slow and soothing. It has a romantic atmosphere, thought the lyrics preach uncertainty in the singer’s life. Just listening to the song, and from my first glance at the album cover, I had actually believed it was an 80’s era electronic pop song. If the song hadn’t been able to lure me into looking for an exact release date, this paragraph would likely be much different. And while no actual movie may exist, the music video for this song is recorded in the style of the 80’s, complete with all the advantages and disadvantages of the technology available at the time. The description of the video reads “I make ear movies,” a humorous yet meaningful comment on the idea behind the music. This song, not to mention the album as a whole, is a very interesting exploration into the culture of music, film, and science fiction culture.

The District
Atwork Music

Fool’s Gold (Feat. Too Many Zooz) – Manicanparty, Too Many Zooz

While the singers voices and styles remind me of more modern indie vocalists, the instrumentation takes inspiration from big band jazz groups of the past. I’m’ not sure if this was the first or second song I listened to this week, but it was the first song I knew I was going to be writing about. This song makes you want to move, get up and dance. The drums in the song are ever present, keeping the song at a fast driving pace. And although the vocal styles do feel more modern, they never feel out of place. The horns roar in creating that partly like big band atmosphere. The Horn section, or the featured Too Many Zooz, can really create a rugged and dirty brass band sound, having also done some work with another band I like called Moon Hooch. The vocals come from the group Manicanparty, who have more often worked with that modern and distant sounding indie music. If you were to listen to the independent work of either group, you would never have put them together. However, the groups have a powerful synergistic effect that you do not want to miss out on.

hyperstory
Pureland Records

A Happening – Hyperstory

Slow, calm, collected, and cool, A Happening contains the relaxing energy of someone who is just too cool to be bothered by the problems the rest of the world is experiencing. The song is characterized by a steady electric organ beat that runs through the song. However, other small instrumentations such as distorted child singing or light electronic bells make the song feel just a little dark. The beat is overly casual, as though it couldn’t be persuaded to move any faster. There is an aloof and uncaring atmosphere about the whole song. They lyrics hint at more, something is happening, but the singer of the song doesn’t really know what it is. He has better things to do than to find the answer. It’s funny that I like this son because it doesn’t really make me feel anything, at least not in the way that other songs I like usually do. Other songs make me happy, sad, or angry; this song makes you not care. IT makes you feel distant, as though you were floating not too far away from the earth, but far enough away to no care about it. It’s a new emotion in music I hadn’t really explored before, but certainly an interesting style of music to think about.

The Sunlandic Twins
Philter

Oslo in the Summertime – Of Montreal

In this song, similar to the above mentioned song, there is a vague sense of indifference. However, whereas the above song can be described as cool and casual, this song is more unnerving. The synthetic tones that lead the song off have an ominous nature that never leaves, and is actually the last thing you hear as the song fades away. The lyrics seem cryptic at first, with descriptions of a strange town that seems unreal. However, Oslo is very real, and is in fact the capital of a very real and well known country called Norway. Due to Oslo’s northern latitude, Oslo experiences 18 hours of sunlight during the mid-summer, hence the title of the song. Knowing this does change the nature of the song slightly. The mysterious tone of the song fades as you realize it’s more a description of the difficulties of living in a place with sunlight that that dissolves the night as early as 4 am. The song also references other aspects of Oslo life such as sun lamps, difficulty sleeping, and vacationing in other parts of the world until the town becomes more livable. The song even contains mention of the high immigrant flow into the country, causing the cities high growth rate. But because of those synthetic tones, the high and light voices, and the minor chords, the song paints a real town like Oslo in a very surreal light, turning reality into fantasy.