Playlists
I was 12 when I got my first electric bass guitar. It was a knockoff black Fender Squier, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. After school, I would play the same two or 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 musically talented friends. I didn't have an amplifier, which may have contributed to 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 summon a (new) grounding force: rhythm.
With a few precise beats, it brought everything into a shared pattern.
And that was magic.
To this day, I enjoy sharing patterns with others. Now, I mostly make eclectic playlists. Enya, Blondie, Phil Collins, Rachmaninoff, and Kraftwerk were all part of my soundscape.
Instead of genre puritanism, what matters is that sounds and bodies can find forms together. I like to imagine my playlists as affective architectures that anchor bodies in motion.
Here are a few of my playlists. They tend to be long (3-5 hours) and lack an 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 synths and 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. Architecturally precise, intensely direct.
Low Sun
West-coast rock, low-key Americana, Peruvian psych, surf guitars. Everything stays unadorned, close to the ground.
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, and go elsewhere. Neither acoustic nor synthetic.
Abstract space
This one is for late evenings or when you need to zero in on a task without interruptions. A white box in the middle of nowhere, an abstract space that lets you focus.
Refrains & intensities
When you need to spin in circles until your core becomes your horizon. Rhythmic patterns, territories through repetition and variations. Expect unexpected textures—sonic, affective, and otherwise.
Brain food
For focus and deep attention. Pulses, tones, and 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 werewolves of London and 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.