by Tom Bosworth // April 4, 2020
It’s a weird time right now. I don’t mean “wow, things sure are whacky,” I mean things are changing so quickly in such strange and often bad ways that my already troubled brain cannot read the news without thinking “Huh!” As in “Huh!” I can’t seem to finish the NYT daily mini. “Huh!” the neighbors want to trade a bottle of wine for hand sanitizer. “Huh!’ it’s from Tuscany. “Huh!” the bottle is empty. “Huh!” the bath bubbles are gone and it’s just me, Joan Didion and yes, the pencil I bring to annotate with in the bath.
I’ve been talking to friends about what music they’re listening to. The answers are all over the place and looking at spotify’s “friend activity” is like looking at a dozen SOS fires burning on a beach. One friend is only listening to “sad Radiohead.” One is listening to a playlist called “aries…. Oh?” Another is listening to “90S RUNNING MUSIC.” I think when times are fucked up, we’re extra sensitive to art. I can’t listen to several artists that my ex introduced to me— Sylvan Esso, Sir Babygirl, Doja Cat. Three notes from “Funeral Singers” and I have to climb in bed and call it a day. If a song mentions kissing, I skip it. Calvin Harris, for some reason beyond the understanding of me or my therapist, is unavailable to me at this time.
Taking the airpods out (I know, I know) is just as bad. Most of my neighbors seem to be retired men holding leaf blowing contests. Sean Hannity is constantly screaming from the living room, I swear even when the TV is off. My ceiling fan is not balanced and clunks every few rotations. Small complaints, yes, but the mind needs a beautiful place to live and we get there with art.
My most listened to album of 2018 surprised me. (Yes 2018 was two years ago but as I was explaining, time is weird right now.) I was just getting into Bon Iver and 22, A Million was on anytime I was in the car. But Music for a French Elevator and Other Oddities still managed to take the top spot. Like many of the songs in it, the album is pretty much what it says on tin. It’s for going up or down in a whimsical, made-up fancy-land where things are weird in another direction. I don’t mean weird like when a straight guy takes two hits from the bong, says he’s going to put something “pretty weird” on the aux and then plays Modest Mouse.
The Books is (was?) a band consisting of just Nick Zammuto and Paul Je Dong who met in New York, recorded in an old Victorian house in Massachusetts, and then ended the project some time in 2009. The music is built around “found sound,” that is, existing audio, haunted and all about mood, tone, and atmosphere. “Meditation Outtakes” is a clip of someone saying “meditation” about 200 times. “Ghost Train Digest” sounds like out of order dialogue from an audio drama. But there are more traditional, listenable tracks too. “Mars, OK” is just two guitars in a familiar, comforting duet.
The album is full of puzzles. Some tracks seem like jokes, others feel earnest and true. Some tracks feel rural and homely, others feel like unwatched chemistry experiments. I’ve listened to it for so many hours because it’s strange but not unlistenable. It is not sad. It does not remind me of someone I love. It’s fine in the background, the foreground, anywhere in between. It’s not often on repeat, but it’s something I can comfortably, consistently reach for when I need something there.
I’m interested to hear what you’re listening to or unable to listen to. What albums got you through difficult times? What albums instantly conjure up memories?