The Living Music List #20: On Being Vulnerable in the Dark

A few poems born in the nighttime and new music to carry you to the morning light.

Currently listening to: One Less Question by Madi Diaz & Lennon Stella

My fiancée Christine is a huge Lennon Stella fan. She turned me onto this recent collaboration from Stella and singer/songwriter Madi Diaz, re-released today as part of the deluxe version of Diaz’s 2024 album Weird Faith. The track features some beautiful harmonies between Diaz and Stella, set over their simple, overlapping guitar strums. The vulnerable lyrics, many of which are presented in rhetorical questions to mirror the theme and title of the song, are the primary draw here. Diaz ponders the meaning of our human existence: “Are we flesh and bone, are we just a dream?” She goes on to acknowledge that, although we all live with constant questions about the meaning of our lives and know so little about the universe, the love we find in our relationships becomes all the meaning we need. “Nothing could stop me from wondering why, but you’re one less question.” Stella adds that knowing all the answers is probably overrated: “Even if I could see behind the curtain, maybe the knowledge would just be a burden.” Hold your loved ones close and don’t be afraid to let them in deep, friends. Most of the time, their care for us is the only thing about which we can be certain.

Reflection (Seeds)

Hello, friend.

I’m finding it hard to believe this is already Issue #20 of the newsletter. Twenty weeks of sharing reflections on life, art, and creativity with you. Twenty weeks of sharing new music recommendations (I’ve found so many amazing new records thanks to this task). Twenty weeks of making connections with hundreds of new people, from independent artists to label owners, from music writers to dedicated fans.

If you’re reading this, thank you for being a part of my journey. I hope you’re enjoying the ride with me.

I’d like to do something different for this issue. In lieu of a longer reflection, I’ll be sharing a few unpublished poems with you from my notes. These resonated with me as I was scrambling today to finish putting this issue together—I’ve been super busy this week with both work and taking care of my 12-year old sister while my parents are away (stay tuned for next week’s issue on the latter experience, it’s been illuminating).

Anyways, maybe these seeds will resonate with you too. They all touch on themes of nighttime, sleep, dreams, and the vulnerability we experience in the darkeness.

Happy Friday, my dear friend.

***

Channel Surfing

Just before the darkness and the dreams

While the world is more quiet than it seems

Thoughts wander to the edge of a distant wood

And my eyes flutter

Like a slow camera shutter 

I can feel their textures

Beneath wavering lids 

A grainy film coating their bloodshot whites

A coarse heaviness draped across dilated pupils

Black holes consuming any last figments of light 

Stored before the closing

Then inventoried and allocated 

Assigned to the illumination of glimpses in the absence of sight

For the purpose of seeing in the night

The goings on of off-world places

In other lives

Of characters and faces familiarized 

All for symbolic circumstances

Circumventing certain reality

Prompting struggles of reflective reminiscence

As morning’s murmurs make singular my vision 

And my eyes again lose their textures

While they glisten with the dew drops

Of a day now renewed

***

Nyctophobia

In triumph’s age are nights anewing

Skies shrouded in trepidations nigh

Clouds rolling o’er the horizon pursuing

Descending to where spirits lie

Cast off this foul feeling come morning

Shrug it off like a soaking cloak

Shake the shawl from one’s shoulders 

Take the talk from once-tolders

And stuff it all in a cluttered sty

Stack the boxes of thoughts once forgotten 

Until it topples and shatters to bits

Lose it all once again

Let it fly by the wind

Lest your mind make a mess out of it 

Then walk straight toward the shine of the day 

Following beams from this system’s own star

When it sinks beneath ground

Do not chase it around

Just lie down and recall where you are

***

Below the Fire Water (or, a less certain time)

As the fire water washes over the

Curling stalks of grass growing from

My mandible and the space below

My flaring nose

The grass atop me grows and

Part of my mind knows it

Shouldn’t linger longer than a

Few more moments below this

Bottle’s neck 

Beneath this shower’s head pouring down

The fire water that cleanses

My face and stings the space around

My eyes while inside

There is a growing sour, bitter, ugly, nasty,

Burning sensation

The undesired condensation of

My problems swallowed like pills

Washed down with swigs of

Fire water so that they might be killed

But standing here too long

The drain is clogging and

My feet are islands being lost to

Rising sea levels them submerging

And when I notice their disappearance

Dread creeps in to wreck my system making

My disposition the ultimate victim of 

The fire water 

Yes, it’s no more than that

Just one wrong decision

One too long moment spent sitting below

The fire water

But the night will quiet soon 

And the hangover won’t last beyond

The departing of the moon whose 

Soft light refracts its way through

The fire water 

Shining on the million things I cannot 

Burn, drown, acknowledge 

Just another night at college

Just another aimless party when 

My hurt can’t be abolished 

When the morning light wakes 

My eyes heavy from the night’s stakes

I’ll slip into the tub and let

More fire water fall over me

And the grass upon

My face will grow another 

Millimeter while that burning sensation will

Be cooled for just a moment before

I’ll dress my aching body and 

Walk to class where I’ll see her

And then I’ll beg to no one for

The burning of fire water

***

Dawn’s Dusk

Let me come tell you something

It’s getting old

Let me come tell you something

I know you’re tired

Let me come tell you something

I’ve had a night

I’m alright

I’m alive

And so it’s all just fine

The sun is farther 

I see it’s light fading fast

And getting darker 

It’s getting harder to ask

But let me come tell you something 

***

constellations (for Christine)

as my gaze shifts in and out of focus

in the darkness i notice

my thoughts swiftly drifting into poetics

twisting concepts of time and space around my finger

like a strand of your soft, straight hair 

tracing the shapes on your face 

then copying and pasting them everywhere between the folds of my brain

so that on some day not yet passed

i may build towers from them

amassing your building blocks and

building them up beside mine

until our villages of energy and geometry intertwine

in this divine darkness

i harken to your deepening breath

sinking beneath the surface of the night sky emanating from your head

so safely nestled by my shoulder 

in older years, emboldened, 

i prophesy this position permanent

indelible may we lay 

indefinitely

interdependently 

in for a penny and a pound

and free of all worry because ive found you

my night sky

my growing village

my deepening breath

***

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Music Recommendations

Hello again, friend.

Thank you for reading today’s post. I hope you enjoyed the seeds—do you have a favorite poem about nighttime? I would love to read your poetry if you would like to share any in the comments.

Now, let’s get to the new music. Some great stuff capping off this penultimate week of October.

Happy listening.

The Living Music List—Ambient

Note: Most of the below ambient projects are available on Bandcamp, except #11.

1. From The Void by Hammock (album / post-rock, drone) [Hammock Music Label / Bandcamp]

2. forge by KMRU (album / drone, electronic) [Seil Records / Bandcamp]

3. discerned in the fugue of streams by r beny (album / drone) [quiet details / Bandcamp]

4. Distant Objects in Soft Focus by theadelaidean (album / drone, field recordings) [Projekt Records / Bandcamp]

5. Enough For Me To Remain by DANIAILYAS (album / ambient guitar, drone {note: Does contain vocals, but they are ethereal and dream pop-esque}) [Geographic North / Bandcamp]

6. Route 77 by Mirror System (album / chill-out, ambient guitar) [A-Wave / Bandcamp]

7. Live At The Athens Conservatoire by Abul Mogard (album / dark ambient, drone) [Independent / Bandcamp]

8. ER049 Empty Files - A Beginning To An End by Empty Files (album / experimental, drone) [Eclectic Reactions Records / Bandcamp]

9. three refrains by sea + i (EP / ambient guitar, field recordings) [Home Normal / Bandcamp]

10. A Sequence of New Tones by Dalot (album / experimental, field recordings {note: this one is more experimental than ambient, but has many ambient moments}) [n5MD / Bandcamp]

11. SMILE 2 (Music From The Motion Picture) by Cristobal Tapia De Veer (album / film score, horror {note: I thought the movie was actually really enjoyable and the score was a big part of why, haunting and engrossing}) [Lakeshore Records / YouTube]

The Living Music List—All Genres

Note: All of the below projects are available on major streaming services.

1. Patterns in Repeat by Laura Marling (album / singer/songwriter)

2. threads to knot by TRAINING with Ruth Goller (album / free-jazz)

3. Superkilen by Svaneborg Kardyb (album / jazz)

4. The Garden by POSY (album / nu jazz)

5. Heaven On Urf by BLACKSTARKIDS (album / alt electronic)

6. The Great Impersonator by Halsey (album / alternative)

7. Magpie by Peach Pit (album / alternative)

8. The Night the Zombies Came by Pixies (album / alternative)

9. Evergreen by Soccer Mommy (album / alternative)

10. Weird Faith (Deluxe) by Madi Diaz (album / alternative)

11. Anyway I Can by Elmiene (album / R&B/soul)

12. intimate yell by Courtesy (album / electronic)

13. Pearl by Anna Lunoe (album / dance)

14. Cravings / Concourse by Wallace (EP / dance)

15. Chicken Garaage by Objekt (single / electronic)

16. Strawberry Hotel by Underworld (album / electronic)

17. The Airplane Album by Eli Escobar (album / electronic)

18. Two Shell by Two Shell (album / electronic)

19. Nutrition by Carmen Villain (EP / electronic)

20. Jigsaw by Spencer Barnett (album / alternative)

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

Your friend,

Melted Form

Remember to listen to the hum, buzz, & hiss of the world around you—there is music to be heard there.

Read the previous issue of The Living Music List:

The Living Music List #19: On Mindfulness

Afterword—Let’s Get In Touch

Are you an artist, a label owner, or a member of the press? Want to share an in-depth feature of your upcoming release, an advertisement, or a guest post for a future Hum, Buzz, & Hiss issue? Get in touch with me at meltedform@gmail.com. As always, I would love to hear and recommend your music, especially if it’s new and ambient/electronic/experimental.

Also, you can keep up with me and hear more of the music I’m listening to by following me on Substack Notes. Join our community of music-loving writers and readers discussing the latest releases, old gems, and everything in between.