The Living Music List #46: On Restlessness
If I made a million-dollar business, would it satisfy me? Depends what I'm selling, I suppose...
Currently listening to: essential mix, bbc radio 1 by berlioz
There’s something so intuitive about jazz house. When I want music that will bring good vibes to a dinner party, a productive morning, or a lazy afternoon, I put on music like that of berlioz. On his Substack, berlioz describes his art with a cheeky comparison: “if Matisse made house music.” And indeed, his unique and infectious jazz house beats are colorful and fluid, equally danceable and relaxing. Here, berlioz gives us a 2-hour-long glimpse into his pantheon of musical inspiration through his curated “essential mix” for BBC Radio 1—a new entry in one of the longest-running segments on the station.
To introduce the mix, berlioz wrote this in the YouTube description:
“Every weekend for the last 30 years, Pete [Tong] has invited so many of my favourite artists to take listeners on a 2-hour journey through their favourite music. 17 year old me would spend Friday nights driving home from work as a kitchen porter, blasting the essential mixes of Leon Vynhall, Julio Bashmore & Mura Masa to name a few, dreaming of the day I would get a chance to record my own. I put everything I could into this mix, going through many iterations until I felt I’d created a flow that represented my style and the energy of my ‘deep in it’ event series! Enjoy (hopefully in the sun) with friends/family/neighbours!”
Reflection
Hello, friend.
I’ve been feeling a bit restless lately. How about you?
I think it’s a combination of things. A desire to succeed. A drive to create. An uncertain hesitation. Like infinite paths to promising futures extend from my feet, if only I decide to start walking.
One recent afternoon, I lay down on the couch perpendicular to the TV, feeling a dull pain in my neck as I looked sideways at some YouTube video about a man who makes $900,000 a year running a vending machine business. It didn’t look too hard, honestly. I could probably do it, if I felt like it.
At some point, I paused the video and turned my head upward to the ceiling. The pale, off-white space empty like a new canvas became the screen for my mind’s projections. What might become my legacy? A vending empire? An essential app? A SaaS platform?
One good idea. That’s all I need.
I imagined what it might be like, making my rounds restocking my roster of machines. I’d only do that in the beginning, just until I could easily offset the cost of paying someone else to do that for me. This was about building passive income, baby. I’d prioritize growing the business, expanding the model. You might see me walking into a luxury residential building, wearing a snakelike smile, ready to ask the property manager if they’d ever considered adding a vending machine amenity for their residents.
I would emerge victorious, of course—another property added to the portfolio. I’d walk past you and say with a wink, “That’s how the sausage gets made, baby.” I was off to another location, on my way to 10xing my net worth in a matter of hours. This was the only day of the week I would have to work. The rest of my week would be spent flying down to Tulum, bathing in a cenote, and writing my magnum opus on a white sand beach.
I looked away from the ceiling and sat up. I turned the TV off. I could have gotten to work right then, but I didn’t. I sat there. Minutes passed as I continued to imagine what steps I would have to take to make a million-dollar business a reality. It didn’t feel all that out of reach. But I sat there and did nothing but dream.
Then I thought about how I might feel a million dollars richer off the backs of a hundred humble Snickers bars and 20 oz Cokes. Would I feel accomplished? Would I be satisfied? Or would my vending machine empire just be a means to an end—the angel investment into another new venture?
Would I use the money to fund the stuff that makes me feel alive—the writing, the music, the traveling—or would I simply become another businessman who spends most of his time barricading the bottom line?
I’ve found myself considering a similar line of questioning in my day job lately. It is necessity that requires me to work most hours of the week, but if money were no matter (nickel for every time I’ve started daydreaming with that prompt), how would I choose to spend my time?
Infinite paths lie before me, yet my feet remain stuck in place. Waiting for the right idea. Waiting within the walls of a stable life. Do I keep waiting, keep leveling up, keep myself comfortable until I make enough to go all in on my art? Is there a point where enough will feel like enough?
Will there come a time when not taking a chance becomes more frightening than pushing all my chips into the pot?
New Music Recommendations
Hello again, friend.
Thank you for reading today’s post. I hope you enjoyed the reflection—and I hope you take a chance today if you’re feeling restless too.
Maybe take a chance on one of these new music releases. You never know what ideas they might inspire.
Happy listening.
The Living Music List—Ambient
Note: All of the below ambient projects are available on Bandcamp. Bold and ^ denote reader-submitted work.
Provincial Park by Buildings and Food (album / melodic, downtempo) [Independent / Bandcamp]^
form.radio by offthesky (album / variety of ambient subgenres including but not limited to: melodic, electroacoustic, drone, ambient jazz, musique concrete, and field recordings) [Independent / Bandcamp]
Land’s End Eternal by Cole Pulice (album / ambient jazz, electroacoustic) [LEAVING RECORDS / Bandcamp]
A Quiet Awakening II by Purl (album / meditative, drone) [Stereoscenic Records / Bandcamp]
Hesperides by Martin Iddon (album / lowercase, drone) [NMC Recordings / Bandcamp]
A Night Without Wind by Motionfield (album / dark ambient, electronica) [Independent / Bandcamp]
The Living Music List—All Genres
Note: All of the below projects are available on major streaming services. Reminder: Bandcamp links only provided for reader-submitted work in the all genres list.
Tall Tales by Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke (album / electronic)
7 piano sketches by André 3000 (EP / experimental solo piano)
Night by Nils Frahm (album / contemporary classical solo piano)
Pink Elephant by Arcade Fire (album / electronic rock) {note: the opener is a 3-minute cinematic drone track}
Equus Caballus by Men I Trust (album / indie pop)
Lifetime by Erika de Casier (album / electronic)
Aperture by The Head and the Heart (album / alt folk)
Instrumental Conversations #2 Coming Soon!
Keep an eye on your inbox over the next few days, because I’ll be sharing a new interview with electronic artist Buildings and Food (Jen K. Wilson) about her newly released album Provinicial Park. That album is out today and included in The Living Music List above. Give it a listen and look forward to hearing some more insight into the album from Jen soon!
Reminder: Instrumental Conversations is a new interview series with artists making instrumental works in the ambient/electronic realm. You can go back and read the first issue here, in which I spoke to Joachim Spieth & Andrew Thomas about their ambient album Nocturna.
One More Thing: Mobygratis
The inimitable electronic artist Moby (who’s now on Substack, by the way) recently re-launched his service mobygratis, which provides 500 tracks of (mostly) royalty-free instrumental music that you can use in almost any way you’d like! The library allows you to search through hours of previously unreleased music by mood, genre, and bpm. Most tracks can be downloaded in wav, mp3, and multitrack formats.
I said mostly royalty-free because there are some tracks with restrictions and none of the tracks may be used for commerical purposes without permission. Additionally, Moby expressly forbids use of any of his music for works that “advertise right-wing politics [or] causes, or promote meat, dairy, or other animal products.” Beyond that, though…
Here’s Moby to explain further:
Join the Hum, Buzz, & Hiss Community
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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:
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.
I love this Martin Iddon album. Thanks for the reccos!
I'm hooked on the off the sky album !
You made my son's day with mobygratis: he spent the week watching videos about J Dilla & trying his techniques and was looking for legal sample material... and then came your newsletter.. Thanks !