Let’s Get Instrumental

Circle 29 – Foam and Sand

So – Let’s Get Instrumental – hell yes – let’s do this. I’m going to start with an artist that Matt and the team over at viva have been working with for a while – an LA-based composer who is getting deeper into the neuropsychology of music and whose work is just beautiful. Starting off slow and introspective – let’s see where we go!

Time – Hans Zimmer

“Truly profound” is an appropriate phrase. I found the track had no problems getting me to question my existence and place in the world during my lunch break! 

I felt like a proud dad seeing their young take their first steps! Or even like a farmer seeing the much-needed rainfall banish the dry spell that’s been terrorizing their crops. Simply put, I was just really happy listening to this song!

I then went for a song that gives me a similar feeling. For me, ‘Time’ is an absolutely amazing score from one of my favorite movies. Listening to this song makes things feel so important; when I hear this, each step I take is moving mountains in a distant land! By the end, I’m reminded of this emoji – “🥺” – and I’m reminded of how fragile and vulnerable one can also be. But it’s a good sense of vulnerability, I guess it’s safe to be that vulnerable. Full speed ahead, Andrew! I’m digging this playlist already 🙂

Starwood Choker – Bing & Ruth

Yep – Interstellar – top movie – add Hans Zimmer with his amazing score and – it’s just all rather good isn’t it. I love the growth of the track – from its quiet and unprepossessing start to this huge enveloping hug of musical goodness – it feels so epic and yet still accessible – kinda like – well – kinda like Time really 😛

There’s so much space at the end of Time (heh!) – I didn’t want to be too abrupt with what followed – I’m echoing the sparse piano but upping the energy. This track feels really ripe to me – like a Chrysalis – you can sense the increase in urgency but it never really breaks free – it’s still contained but promises so much for the future.

Un sospiro – Franz Liszt

Have you ever seen the classic Tom and Jerry episodes? I’m picturing a mix between the episode “Cat Fishin’” and the episode “Mice Follies”.

Imagine after a long winter (- maybe in the regions with 6-month-long winters) the sun finally shines through! This time the once beautiful frozen lake in the intro of “Cat Fishin’” is slowly starting to melt but at a very slow pace. Like holding an ice cube in a warm water bath – it’ll melt but not instantly!

I almost couldn’t stand the suspense of “Starwood Choker”! Like, fucking melt already! Yet, the sun is still shining and rising higher and higher. By the end of the track, the ice starts melting at a noticeable rate; everything has become illuminated.

‘Un Sospiro’ is now the water flowing everywhere like the first few seconds of “Mice Follies”. Life has finally emerged in its beauty. The butterfly is embracing spring and more importantly, the water is flowing!

This is why I love playlists without words! There’s so much space for your own perspective to fit the music.

V. Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm. Allegretto – Ludwig van Beethoven

So I just watched Cat Fishin’ and Mice Follies – I almost remember Cat Fishin’ – Mice Follies I don’t remember the ice scene – and Jerry looks different – but yes – I’m old enough to have grown up on Tom and Jerry cartoons. The idea that just because you’re smaller and have less privilege than the house cat – doesn’t mean that your smarts can’t win out – has had a huge impact on how I see the world. Genius cartoons for their time and I’m stoked to have grown up with them. Thank you 🙂

So the water is flowing – Lizst is gracing the keyboard – nature is doing its thing – Disney’s Fantasia could pop in here and be apropos but – for a full rendition of nature’s majesty – it has to be Beethoven’s 6th. Jerry froze the world – for obvious purposes – but now it’s time to flow – to create – the storm has passed – potential reigns supreme and the rainbow expressed at 8 mins – well – it’s everything that makes me happy about being alive.

Boléro (Ravel) – London Symphony Orchestra

Yes, the rainbow at the 8th minute is really beautiful! So much so that upon the hill you see an unending flow of ducks emerge from the hill. Each one marching to the drums as the next appears. Nature is in full swing!

Maybe elsewhere, a beloved royal has decided to make this beautiful spring day the day for their ceremony. Around the 9th minute, the royal is now marching through the town and being celebrated. They finally embrace everyone at the 11th minute from the balcony. While back at the lake, there’s more than just ducks. Birds, otters, beavers, frogs, and all animals have woken up and are having their first meals of spring.

You Wish – Nightmares On Wax

Aaaaah man – Boléro ;-p

As a musician – and a student of music – the piece is sooooooooo fucking epic – I mean – if we’re tone painting out of the 6th – then – yep – I’m grinning as I listen and write.

I am of an age where I experienced this cracking the public’s consciousness – Torvill and Dean – Torvill and fucking Dean – four and half minutes of perfectly executed synchronicity – this is a good one to watch – but this is not the Boléro of the playlist – the full-length version – 15 minutes of building anticipation – expertly calibrated to bring us to the peak of perfection…

…

and so –

I think we’re ready…

time to bring it forward

time to meet the new world…

You’re up ;-p

The Appliance Of Science – (Little Big Planet Dub) – The Daniel Pemberton TV Orchestra

I found the track you added really cool and chill. It reminded me of the ‘Metropolis Zone’ in Little Big Planet (my favorite game tbh). I would’ve added that song but I cannot find it on spotify.

So I added another track I enjoyed from the game. It gives me a similar modern feel.

&On a side note – I’ve just had a long walk today and I’m now waiting for my food. Thank you for giving me the link to watch Torvil & Dean while I wait 🙂

Small Little Green Cubes – 2014 Remaster – Solar Fields

I love how this process works – totally bonkers at times but so refreshing! ;-p The opening bars to The Appliance of Science are brilliant – I haven’t played many games in the last decade – I think I was just on the wrong side of them when growing up – I did play plenty of PC stuff – Diablo II etc years back but I never owned a Playstation or X-Box – which is a shame ‘cos I love playing games ;-pp. I tell myself when musicto is built and I’m publishing on music2work2 again – I’ll take time out to play games again.

I’m not actually sure that Small Little Green Cubes is from a game – but it made an immediate association on listening to The Appliance – I’d totally forgotten it and I used to love to write to it – almost 10 minutes of beautifully constructed music to maintain flow.

We’re now cooking!

Cool Edge – Night – SEGA SOUND TEAM

I think it’s a great idea to go back and experience some of the things you didn’t get to do earlier on. I’ve got an idea similar to yours when it comes to the Nintendo devices.

Your track gave a few avenues to explore for a song to choose. I’ve got a few stashed away in my pocket for as and when. But, in the end, I stuck with the game sub-theme and went for a game I really sat with and enjoyed in terms of sound selection.

It’s a very jazzy feel so I hope it livens things up a bit. I know it gives me the energy to keep going from my time completing lab write-ups in university.

Sigila Violeta – Vranko Magas

Part of me wishes I was born a little bit later – where I would have been more immersed in video games and hopefully involved in creating music for them – though to be fair – part of me wishes I was born a little earlier and had been around for the Beatles and Woodstock and the grooviness of the 60s.

Yet we get the life we have and – to be fair – I absolutely love mine ;-p Cool Edge doesn’t feel like a game track – sure there’s the underlying repeating construct but – there’s so much going on that it feels totally natural and a discrete piece of music – I’m here for it.

Michael’s write-up has my mind firmly in game tracks and I can’t help but go to Vranko’s Sigila Violeta – and it’s not just ‘cos we’re breaking the rules a little bit here – the voice track from the game certainly startles a purely instrumental list but – I find it charming and encouraging and just – kinda cool.

When you find out that the bells were played by a plant – well – that’s when shit gets interesting ;-p

“In August 2016, I began an investigation project into how plants feel and react with music. I used an Italian prototype of a device to translate the electric pulses of the plants to MIDI. The experience was so revealing that I began to record the experiences in the studio. “Sigila Violeta” was the first release of this project in which a “plant” composed part of the melody and “plays” the bells and I think is perfect for this kind of playlist.” — Vranko Magas

Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, B. 178 “From the New World”: II. Largo – Antonín Dvořák

It was a slight jumpscare for me to hear a voice talk within the playlist. For a moment I thought there had to be something wrong 😉 but nah, it was a voice within the theme of the game that let me warm up to it.

Not every day that you hear plants playing the bells as part of a band. I think I remember a scientist doing something similar with water molecules and freezing them to make snowflakes? Depending on the genre, different snowflakes occurred, and classical had the most uniform and aesthetically pleasing snowflakes.

The talk of plants in a band got me thinking of a song I heavily associate with spring and/or growth. I picture the very start being the germination of a seed and its burst out from the soil to begin its many years of bearing delicious fruit.

Sleep – Robot Koch

And yes – I knew putting in the voice track was jarring – but – I’ve had it on one of my writing lists for a while and for some reason – it doesn’t throw me out of flow – it somehow helps it – – I don’t know if it is the subliminal input of finding a key to unlock something – a thing that I often need in my reasoning but – yeah – I appreciate how you experienced it ;-p

And so you come back with Dvořák’s No. 9 ;-p I don’t know if you know but back in the day this was the music they tied to a bread commercial – Hovis – all beautiful scenes of the Yorkshire dales and hearty working-class people eating Hovis bread – that opening theme is baked into the British psyche. But yes – the New World – what a stunning piece – what a stunning place – it no doubt played its part in helping me to move over here.

So I’m coming out of the ending of the track – and feeling all kinds of peaceful – those ascending strings fading into the distance – fading into – well – I couldn’t help but reach for another Robot Koch track – Sleep. Not only is the track a beautiful execution on letting go and allowing one’s mind to wander – it’s also from the New World (Robert is based in LA as well) – it’s using “New World” instruments that I suspect Dvořák would definitely approve of!

5 23 – Global Communication

Wow! I’m so happy you remembered that Hovis advert! I don’t think that’s where I first heard the song but I love adverts with good songs. John Lewis Christmas adverts and one specific – this one – Specsavers advert reign supreme for me.

The song you added gave me the feeling of napping on a spaceship, far away from any disturbances but heading towards your destination. I added a song that I think continues that spaceship theme of intergalactic travel.

Binary Warriors – Humn_Error

Oh man – that John Lewis ad where he’s learning to skateboard with the cover of Blink’s “All the Small Things” – that was just freakin’ genius! ;-p. 

I love the Global Communication track – went straight on my Essay Writing V3 list. Exactly the kind of track I can fall into flow with. And while yes – I had your write-up in mind and was thinking of going down a space route, I was pulled back to the Humn_Error track as I felt they shared an underlying groove – almost as if the spacecraft has landed on a new planet and the team are now on the ground and setting out to explore a new world ;-pppp

Pruit Igoe – Philip Glass

The spacecraft is miles away and we’ve finally come across signs that this new world had life. As the track starts it sets the tone of the explorers discovering ancient ruins. “Where did everybody go?” “Surely there must’ve been people living in these… whatever.”

At 2:37 we reached for the “oh shit” handles as we got flung into a rabbit hole. Now we’ve uncovered the dirty secret of why things are like this. Only this is… it just keeps getting worse! The tempo at 4 minutes can be like our heart rate because we’re actually panicking at this point 😱😂

I liked adding this one with an element of a bedtime story.

Husky Train – Niklas Paschburg

Philip Glass is such a trip – so much inaccessible music and yet so much freakingly amazingly accessible stuff at the same time – it’s like he purposefully makes things opaque to deter the casual listener only to reward the curious – which – well – clearly we are ;-p

As for the story – oh hell yeah – it’s just so dramatic and in your face and threatening – and yet – what happened – we’ve had the shit scared out of ourselves and yet – we’re still here – still standing – still observing the action but perhaps – just a little too close for comfort.

What we need is a little help. A little “quiet” help. A small thing – small things – small enough not to be noticed – light – gentle – capable of cutting bonds and creating sanctity.

When the immediate situation seems untenable – it’s the supernatural that can save us. Smart enough not to be noticed by the threat until it’s too late – and before you know it – we’re free – we’re out of there – when the Radiohead bass line comes in at 3 minutes – you know we’re on a different journey – a different planet – a different vibe – one that’s just as intense but perhaps not as terrifying – and – for me – that’s my favorite space – experience without terror. Fear I can live with – trepidation and nervousness – yes – I’ll take all of those – but terror – nah man – life’s too short for that.

I’m taking the Husky Train to the good times…

1.6_2-a-way-out.wav – Mac Quayle

Husky Train was such a beautiful listen! It’s like the rays of light finally penetrating through the dense clouds of perpetual rain. Finally, that “quiet help” has done its job. We’re being liberated from whatever held us captive!

The next song is the unfortunate reality that can happen even after the escape, the memory and long-lasting impacts still remain. Even on the spaceship home, we’ll still find ourselves spacing out and remembering how horrible things were back then.

We’re no longer in the moment at that point, but we’ve got people – good people around us to help us slowly make that transition back to the here and now! Like in the final 20 seconds, we’ve ‘snapped out of it’ thanks to that good person around.

La femme d’argent – Air

I really like the idea that even when you think you’re on the other side – the experience has changed you and the memories can feel visceral. As you say – the return journey is happening – safety is secured and yet – what damage is done to the mind? What do we leave of ourselves and what do we bring with us? This is the perfect track to assess that – on your own.

But – this is life, no? Good times, bad times, up times, dark times – it’s how we’re made and shaped – a collection of experiences that somehow – hopefully – fit together coherently to create a competent human being. Because – while there is so much dark stuff in the world – the galaxy – the universe even – damn if there isn’t so much good. Even if you have to go through a little rain to get there – it’s totally worth it. My penultimate track brings the space groove back in – we’re coming home baby – and it sure feels good.

A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut – Have A Nice Life

Back on our spaceship: Oh hey look! It’s a black hole. Look at the star being drained of all its essence. It’s poetic how life continuously ends and begins much like the good moments and opportunities in life.

I remember your post about the size of the unobservable universe and that still blows my mind! There’s something magical about us recognizing how our struggles are part of many other collective struggles. Much like how our success is part of a sweet pot of successes and achievements.

Looking out that spaceship window, one can only see how magical life is and how important it is to make the most of the chance we have!

Hope – Wordless Flight

There’s a brilliant trilogy by a Chinese author Liu Cixin – The Three-Body Problem – epic space opera of – in places – hard science fiction – but the world he creates and his ability to convey the size of the universe is amazing – and of course at times, terrifying ;-p

And so now we’re at the end of this absolutely brilliant journey – it’s been fantastic and I’m looking forward to seeing it up on the website with context and stories and all 😉

I’m feeling the power of “A Quick One..” – there’s something about recognizing how small we are in comparison to the universe – and yet – even though we’re microscopic in the greater scheme – we’re still alive – we can feel it – it’s a very “Liminal” experience ;-p. Almost ASMR – the sensation of watching something outside of oneself.

So I’m keeping myself in the same place – I too am back on the spaceship – alone – in the viewing gallery – looking outside at the great universe expanding infinitely out before me and I have this playing in the background. The sparseness of the piece – the emptiness – the silence that doesn’t need to be filled. The melancholic feel of the track that somehow – just barely – crosses the threshold from despair to hope.

‘Cos – when it comes down to it – if I can choose – I’m always going to choose hope over despair – optimism over pessimism. 🙂

Last one’s yours!

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story: II. Somewhere – Leonard Bernstein

As I listen to the last song in our playlist I can imagine a narrator quoting you: “And so now we’re at the end of this absolutely brilliant journey…” It definitely has been fun, magical, and cathartic to express emotions through these sounds and context.

I chose this last song to represent that sense of wonder we have when looking at the world and the stars. There’s so much out there, there’s hope things will get better and progress – even if it’s just a little bit – we’re now closer to the goal than ever before, and each passing day makes that statement more true! Then finally, around 3:40, we cross that threshold and we realize that goal! Like seeing a shooting star or a sudden flash of light from our spaceship, life is truly magical!

Track Listing

• Circle 29 – Foam and Sand
• Time – Hans Zimmer
• Starwood Choker – Bing & Ruth
• Un sospiro – Franz Liszt
• V. Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm. Allegretto – Ludwig van Beethoven
• Boléro (Ravel) – London Symphony Orchestra
• You Wish – Nightmares On Wax
• The Appliance Of Science – (Little Big Planet Dub) – The Daniel Pemberton TV Orchestra
• Small Little Green Cubes – 2014 Remaster – Solar Fields
• Cool Edge – Night – SEGA SOUND TEAM
• Sigila Violeta – Vranko Magas
• Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, B. 178 “From the New World”: II. Largo – Antonín Dvořák
• Sleep – Robot Koch
• 5 23 – Global Communication
• Binary Warriors – Humn_Error
• Pruit Igoe – Philip Glass
• Husky Train – Niklas Paschburg
• 1.6_2-a-way-out.wav – Mac Quayle
• La femme d’argent – Air
• A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut – Have A Nice Life
• Hope – Wordless Flight
• Symphonic Dances from West Side Story: II. Somewhere – Leonard Bernstein

Playlist Image AI Prompt