#72: Choose the Latter

My mantra for 2026: choose the more fulfilling path, even when it is more challenging (especially when it is more challenging?)

Currently listening to: Choose the latter by Finn Wolfhard

Hello, friend.

Happy new year! How are you feeling?

The changing of the guard on my calendar wall has invigorated me. It’s a wondrous nature, we humans have—one that allows us to shed bounded portions of time, like evolving snakes, before we gallop ahead, like steadfast horses, into a fresh iteration of life.

As that great glittering ball dropped to its inevitable resting place, I turned from the TV to kiss my wife—it was no longer the year we became married(!?) we realized in unison, acknowledged silently by a lingering, loving look.

2025 seemed to me, in many ways, like the end of beginning, as Djo might say.

It’s no accident that I’ve now referenced both Finn Wolfhard and Joe Keery. I’ve just seen the STRANGER THINGS finale episode at our local movie theater—another emotional ending of quite a long and relatively meaningful era. It certainly had an impact on millions of people, including my younger sister, who just turned 14(!!!!!!) on New Year’s Day.

Without dipping into the main plot or any spoilers, I want to mention how wholesome it has felt to witness kids grow up on screen the way the cast of this show did, and to know in my heart how they’re probably feeling (the cast and their characters) about this whole coming of age business.

I turned 28 in 2025, which meant it had been 10 years since I turned 18, 10 years since I graduated high school, 10 years of navigating the complex emotional journey of coming to terms with adult life. Part of this journey is the constant forward motion of life and time—always getting older, always growing in awareness, always changing. But another part is the occasional remembering—occasionally reminiscing with fond old friends, occasionally measuring the distance our lives have traveled, occasionally being struck by the separation of our current selves from our former ones.

Entering a new year, this fictional fragment of time (which is a dimension that already feels too inconsistent for my liking, by the way), I am usually faced with the rush of all of these thoughts, memories, and emotions in one short moment. The invisible zero-dimensional point in the middle of a one-dimensional line.

This year, however, I am not overwhelmed by any of it.

Instead, I feel a peaceful burning in my gut, a relieving clarity in my vision. I feel, now more than ever, like I am ready to accept control where I have been granted it. I feel so goddamn aware that free will is an unfathomable gift I must not squander.

I am lucky. I am inspired and motivated by life, despite all of the problems we have yet to solve. In contrast, I had been feeling rather prone to temporary bouts of despair and immobility over the past year.

I now sense a new energy taking hold, expanding, spreading through our interconnected communities like a cleansing wildfire.

You, my friend, are a big part of the reason why. Our meeting has reminded me that connection, intention, passion, hope, and decency are still our central modes of being.

In 2025, I started to take steps toward a life where I didn’t always simply opt for the simple path. I continued to write this newsletter to you, even when letting the words out felt hard, or taking the time felt inconvenient. I finished and released my first full album in spite of spending almost half a decade wading through a bog of doubts. I ran a half marathon, a feat my mind never dreamed of my body accomplishing.

And so, in 2026, my mantra is this:

When faced with the choice between easy and hard, between mediocre and meaningful, between staying the same and changing for good…

I will choose the latter.

I will keep dreaming. I will pursue. I will put time and effort toward the right things, remembering that I may decide what is right for me. And I will remember that the right path may be the more challenging one.

Because what is life without hills to climb, chains to break, and chances to take?

If I don't move and I can't see
I choose the latter, choose the latter
If I can fall and I can't breathe
I chute the latter, chute the latter
If I can move and I can't speak
I choose the latter, choose the latter
Why can't I afford my dream?
I choose the latter, choose the latter

When it all points at me
I choose the latter, choose the latter
Why spend the night alone when we can lose tomorrow?

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The Living Music List

Hello again, friend. I hope you enjoyed today’s reflection—and I hope you feel inspired by the fresh start of a new year to go and choose the life you want.

Overcoming our inertia often starts with being inspired by our fellows, so now, let’s take a listen to some new music and be reminded that others have dared to chase their dreams… you can too!

Happy listening.

1. Thoughts on the Future by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith (EP / electronic, meditative) [Nettwerk]^

   Very pleasant modular electronics with a neoclassical lean. KAS brings in elements of chamber music with bowed strings and minimalist piano and pairs them with the bubbling sounds of her synths. This listen can be quite meditative despite how playful and somewhat upbeat the first 2 tracks can be. According to the artist, this album was inspired by grief’s effect on one’s body and mind: “…the necessary disembodiment & cocooning—how it suspends us, how it empties us, and how it quietly begins to rebuild us in its own time.”

2. Growth Ring by Leafblighter (album / electronic, experimental) [Independent]^

   Leafblighter’s fourth LP release coincided with his “personal Growth Ring day” (happy belated birthday, LB!) and remarks on the cyclical nature of the passage of time—man, is time just the greatest common denominator of our lives or what? LB’s sound here moves into an electronic territory greatly inspired by tracks of the 1990s, like Autechre’s Overand and Underworld’s Blueski. Like many of my favorite ambient electronic records, Growth Ring never stays in one place for too long. The variety of vibes kept me engaged as I wondered at the sources of different sounds and seesawed from sci-fi spaces to earthbound atmospheres. Throughout, there’s a somewhat metallic taste, lending to that classic ambient electronic flavor LB has found here. It all feels as new and interesting as each new ring added to our tree of life.

3. Season Cycle: Winter by Ed Herbers (EP / drone, minimalist) [Passed Recordings]

   The seasons have long been sources of deep inspiration for artists, who interpret their temperature ranges, the moods they convey, the amount of light or dark they contain, and the manmade occurrences falling within them. On the Winter Solstice just a couple of weeks ago, Ed Herbers began a year-long journey of engaging with all that our 4 seasons represent. He has pledged to release an EP on each solstice and equinox, and here on Season Cycle: Winter, he has beautifully intimated the feeling of our coldest, darkest quarter of the cycle. These cool drones and wintry soundscapes don’t dip too low, though—there are subtle warm harmonies that remind me of the little fires we keep alive through the cold, those which keep us alive. There’s as much appreciation for the coziness as there is wonder for the cold desolation.

   I’d also like to take the time to mention that Ed Herbers is part of the Passed Recordings label. This lovely group recently released a couple of great compilations also worth your time: The Ghost of Christmas Passed (3 hours of ambient and experimental electronic music that felt like a much needed injection of new sound into the alternative holiday music conversation) and The Passed Year 2025 (selected works from the label’s 2025 catalogue, which included 13 albums, 5 compilations, 4 EPs and 2 singles).

1. Marty Supreme (Original Soundtrack) by Daniel Lopatin (album / film score, electronic) [A24 Music]

   The ambient electronic composer sheds his Oneohtrix Point Never name for another Safdie brother film score.

2. Siamo by King Owusu, Pachakuti, & young.vishnu (EP / jazz, afro soul) [Besser-Samstag]

   Afro soul jazz from the German underground that seems to hold the sound of the whole world within every track.

3. Frequency Colors by Aderacid (album / experimental electronic) [EC Underground]

   A sprawling 22-track debut that bumps, beeps, and bounces its way around one’s brain—while still leaving some room to clear your head once in a while.

Music List Reminders: Bold and ^ denote reader-submitted work. Bandcamp links provided first when available—if an album is not on Bandcamp, then YouTube or other streaming links are provided. List format: Title by Artist (release type / approximate genre or subgenres) [Label].

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That’s all for this week’s issue. Thank you for reading. Until next time.

Your friend,

Melted Form

Read the previous issue of The Living Music List:

#71: What a Piece of Work is a Man

Check out my 2025 EOY list of favorite albums:

10 Albums That Will Endure (EOY 2025)

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As always, I would love to hear and recommend your music, especially if it’s new and ambient/electronic/experimental. However, please note that I may not be able to respond to every inquiry I receive.