I was looking through my journal and notes the other day, stacked and compiled in moleskine notebooks and envelopes, and something kept coming up, something nestled comfortably with my thoughts, recorded triumphs, reminders, to do’s, and other various musings. Written in almost every entry is a comment on what music I was listening to, how nice to was to listen to this album or that artist, listing favorite songs on a new album, ideas for mixes to make, songs to buy, artists to check out. It’s nice to reread my little music comments, and it is true, music has been a rock for me here, no pun intended. I can always depend on a good album or a favorite artist to be there for me at the end of a long, frustrating day.
There is something inside me that likes to believe that now I really understand music in a way I have never experienced; even down to the way in which I go about listening is differently. I focus on the song as a whole, taking into account the lyrics, the production, the instrumentation and form. I also have began the wonderful habit of listening to an album as a whole, listening as folk musician M. Ward suggests, “as if you were reading a full book, or watching a movie.”
Each of the following albums holds a distinct place in my memory. Listening to this music for me is like Proust’s madeleine cake, instantly taking me back to different points in the last five months which clearly manifest in my mind and heart, from a gripping, uncertain feeling, to complete relaxation and ease. The list is as follows:
10. “Ambient” by Moby, released 1993
I bought this album at the suggestion of my mother, who was in the search of music that would be good for my video work, a creative form that I had never really experimented with. I ended up using this album for a different purpose, as a sleep inducer. The songs build into dreamy, trance-like electronic, which usually would not interest me. This album, however, was perfect for me to relax to. No lyrics, generally simplistic form, and really solid production; it sounded great on my Bose headphones. “Ambient,” not to be mistaken with Ambien takes me to my bed, and to sleep.
9. “Welcome to Mali” by Amadou & Mariam, released 2008
I first heard “Sabali,” the opening track of this album, on an episode of NPR’s All Songs Considered. Already a big fan of “the blind couple from Mali’s” music, especially their work with another one of my favorite bands, Manu Chao, I was blown away by the distance from that work that they took with this track. I was on a bus, surrounded by my Sicilian classmates, but feeling very isolated and homesick despite the social interaction around me, a feeling I experienced frequently throughout my time here. I was so excited and lifted by the song, and later by the entire album. “Welcome to Mali” holds a great place in my heart, and is a perfect example of how music got me through some sad or difficult times.
8. “The Shepherd’s Dog” by Iron & Wine, released 2007
This is an album I had been quite familiar with before Sicily, and one of the few pieces of music that I was listening to here that I had heard and examined before coming here. Sam Beam, who is Iron & Wine, makes beautiful, warmly layered music that sounds unbelievable on good headphones. The songwriting paints bizarre scenes, often consisting of random, beautiful images that come together to form a crazily colorful picture. As a whole the music glows and bathes the listener in a warmth that reminded me of summer, and as the experience abroad came to a close it matched perfectly my feelings and thoughts as summer and home approached steadily on the horizon. It was a Sunday album for me, an album I listened to multiple times from the first song to the last on almost every Sunday. I picture myself listening to this album on summer nights upstate while cooking a good meal of food from the farmer’s market.
7. “Hold Time” by M. Ward, released 2009
I was introduced to M. Ward also from NPR’s All Songs Considered, where I heard a great acoustic performance and interview with artist. Summer was beginning, and I was sitting on the balcony drawing as the sun sank over the mess of wires and concrete that is Favara, my town here in Sicily. I instantly fell in love with the music. “Hold Time” is Matt Ward’s most recent album, and receives help from Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, Lucinda Williams, and one of my favorite girls, the beautiful and talented Zooey Deschanel. The early rock and roll inspired guitar work on the album is wonderful, and M. Ward’s gently rugged voice sings well crafted and carefully conceived lyrics. This album takes me to the balcony, where I spent so much time late in the day alone and content.
6. “Merriweather Post Pavilion” by Animal Collective, released 2009
Animal Collective redefined the way both the way I listen to music, and my idea of music itself. They are a truly unclassifiable band, and their most recent album, “Merriweather Post Pavillion,” instantly hit me as being something mysteriously beautiful and strange. The album bases itself on a controlled cacophony, the vocals echoed and chanted to resemble at times traditional African music, and the electronic background music pulses and booms in layers, inducing the listener into a trance which often breaks into beautiful harmonic choruses. I remember the first time I heard the album I was beginning to see the end of the five months grow nearer. “Merriweather Post Pavilion is a truly amazing piece of music, and, maybe like this experience, something I am only beginning to understand.
5. “Furr” by Blitzen Trapper, released 2009
Portland sextet Blitzen Trapper makes music reminiscent of 1970’s country rock, and their newest album, “Furr,” tells beautiful, although sometimes dark stories. The electric guitar originally attracted me to the music, but there is also something wonderfully subtle in the album as well. The album hit me in an uncertain time in the experience, where I wasn’t sure quite where to turn to for guidance. The tastefully “country” sound of the album reminded me of the United States, but also the poetic songwriting was great to listen to attentively, making out the stories. See if you can figure out the story in the title track, “Furr.”
4. “March of the Zapotec & Realpeople – Holland” by Beirut, released 2009
This album came out days before I departed from New York to Italy. I saved it for the plane and for my good headphones, prepared to feel the utter joy and freedom of leaving for a long trip. However, initially a different feeling is associated with the album, homesickness, but an association that has changed as much as I like to think I have. The first few days in Sicily were the most difficult by far, and Beirut always reminds me of my father, a big fan of Zachary Condon’s Eastern European-inspired music. But, as I grew immune to the homesickness, venturing into the culture of Sicily, I was in a better place to enjoy and love the album. “March of the Zapotec & Realpople – Holland” shows two sides of Condon’s musical eclecticism, his love for traditional horns, this time enlisting the help of a brass band from Oaxaca, Mexico, and on the other hand an ear for muted, maybe unintentionally melancholy electronica. I have grown to love the album despite the initial associations, but still feel like I need to spend some more time with it.
3. “Hazards of Love” by The Decemberists, released 2009
Your normal rock album doesn’t provide you with tales of shape shifting fawns, rakes, maidens, and woodland queens. Sounds more like a Brothers Grimm story than rock and roll, right? Ultra-literate Portland band The Decemberists managed to pull off with intensely positive results a 17-song masterpiece, a folk rock opera of sorts. I am a big fan of this band, who always provide interesting music chock full of historical references and archaic language. This project, undeniably their most ambitious, was a joy and great adventure to listen to. The sometimes soft and beautiful, sometimes dark, frightening imagery is backed by great musicianship, which on this album ranges into hard rock at times, a genre never before associated with the Decemberists. So much of the day was usually spent reading at school, when I had nothing else to do, and my creative and imaginative drive was determined and spinning constantly. This album fulfilled something I was looking for in music, and is associated with a feeling of great satisfaction and pleasure.
2. “For Emma, Forever Ago” by Bon Iver, released 2008
This album, maybe more than any of the others, represents my feeling of isolation and solitude with beautiful, and often melancholy clarity. Bon Iver is Justin Vernon, and the new album was recorded under strange and perceptibly isolated circumstances, three months in a remote cabin in Wisconsin with basic recording equipment, a guitar and an old drum set. The bare bones aspect of the album hits me in a way that Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” does, as the focus is on the most simple and stripped down aspects of music. The characteristic of solitude on the album struck a chord in me. In the last five months I found myself content being by myself so much of the time; on long walks exploring the city alone with my camera, reading at a café, writing or drawing on the balcony, listening to this album on my bed after school. The effort it took not to go crazy or descend into depression without my family and friends all hopefully was channeled in a just direction somehow, building me as a person and in this case as a music listener.
1. “Noble Beast” by Andrew Bird, released 2009
Like the new Beirut album, “Noble Beast” came out days prior to my departure, and I saved it for the plane ride to Italy. The work on “Noble Beast” was not the first of Andrew Bird’s music to stop me in my tracks and give me the chills for minutes at a time, but I surely have never listened to an album as much as I have listened to this. I consistently explored this album, and continue to, each time discovering some new song that had never jumped out at me before, lyrics that I had never understood before, or musical subtleties that make me wonder how such perfection is reached. Musically, Indie-rock critics to Classical music buffs alike recognize Andrew Bird for his compositions, which build and wind gracefully, utilizing the voice as an instrument just as much as the guitars, violins, mandolins and glockenspiels, not to mention Bird’s incredible whistling. The songwriting is nothing less than genius, the subjects ranging from musings on astronomy and life insurance to the awkwardness of “the words of a man who has spent just a little too much time alone.” This album takes me dreamily through a memory of the previous five months, from the depths of frustration and loneliness to the highest triumphs and joys, because it is all part of the equation, all part of the equilibrium of reality that I hope to have come to partially understand during my time here.
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