Playlists
I was 12 when I got my first electric bass guitar. It was a Fender Squier dupe, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing ever. After school, I would play the same three Iron Maiden songs over and over again—as much as a teenager could afford. But I wasn’t good at it, or at least not as good as some of my friends. I didn't have an amplifier, which may have been an important factor in not even knowing what I was doing. But I wasn't pretending to be the best, either. The bass, to me, was a way to create a gravitational pull: rhythm.
With a few plucks, it brought everything into common patterns.
And that was magical.
To this day, I enjoy sharing patterns with others. Now, I mostly make eclectic playlists. Enya, Blondie, Phil Collins, Rachmaninoff, and Kraftwerk were part of my soundscape.
I like to think of playlists as affective architectures setting bodies in motion. Instead of genre puritanism, what matters to me is that they get us moving, together.
Here are a few of my playlists. They tend to be long (3-5 hours… in this [attention] economy?) and lack any internal order, so I suggest listening to them on Shuffle.
PS: Have you read about the history and political economy of the Shuffle feature?
Fellini on the Dancefloor
A dreamlike disco spirale of pan-linguistic seduction. Velvet nights and shimmering bodies. Best played with a concoction in hand and your feet slightly out of sync.
Symmetries and Lines
A selection of twentieth- and twenty-first-century composers who work through limits via motivic economy and structural minimalism. Precise, intensely direct.
Low Sun
West-coast rock, low-key Americana, Peruvian psych, surf guitars. Everything else stays unadorned.
Sabroso
It's Saturday on a summer (2023) weekend, and you're driving back from Black Sands Beach, CA.
Voyage 3,000
Step away for a minute. Neither acoustic nor synthetic.
Abstract space
For late evenings or when you need to zero in on something, without interruptions. A white box in the middle of nowhere.
Refrains & intensities
When you need to spin in circles. Rhythmic patterns, repetition, and variations. Expect the unexpected—sonic, affective, and otherwise.
Brain food
For focus and deep attention. Textures to quiet the noise and carry you inward. Best with headphones, steady breath, and no destination.
Trick or Beat
I'll be dancing with the werewolves of London (or whoever shows up after dark).
Writing
A playlist for when you need to sit down and get into the zone. Piano pieces with no recognizable melodies, no voices—just pure focus for your writing.
Soundscape architects
With Colombian artist Dayana Camacho, I co-authored a fanzine/game that invites players to imagine playlists as sonic territories. Players take on the role of sonic architects (these are their characters). Each turn, they interact with the soundscape based on narrative events and the traits of their characters. The turn ends after the player-as-character writes a short composition in this booklet, accounting for their experiences and the current state of the soundscape. To read more, click here.