Listening Diary 18

Productivity Techno, Euphoric Drum'n'Bass, and more

Hello! Here are ten songs that I enjoyed listening to recently. These ten are from all over the map, literally and musically. Jazz, German techno, West Coast rap, and much more! However, only two of these selections are available to the public, the other eight are for paying subscribers exclusively. Subscribe now to receive twice-a-month emails with fresh recommendations, or continue your day tuneless.

“Words Fail” by Mindforce (New Lords, 2022)

My friends and I recently got into a heated conversation about whether innovation was a pre-requisite for good music. While great points were made around the whole table, I remain convinced that great tunes don’t need to be wholly original to be great. For example, this New York Hardcore track could have come out any time after 1989 and sounded exactly the same. And yet, it still slaps. Where words fail, riffs speak.

“Callaíta” by Bad Bunny (Un verano sin ti, 2022)

Technically this song came out in 2019, but Bad Bunny didn’t put it on album until he snuck it in as a bonus track at the end of last year’s Un verano sin ti. I put that album on the other day and thought I was experiencing full on deja vu when “Callaíta” started up. I remember listening to this song a bunch in the slim, pre-pandemic months of 2020. I even showed Lamniformes producer Jack Greenleaf the video, particularly the mirror shots on the beach in the second half, as a visual reference for The Lonely Atom. Then the pandemic happened and the song slipped my mind, only to return like a ghost three years later. The song’s the same as ever, but pretty much everything else in my life is different. Eerie.