The Living Music List #49: On Seizing the Day
The universe is big but so am I, for I contain multitudes
Currently listening to: Empty Cars by The Newton Brothers
Earlier this week, I saw an advanced screening of the new film THE LIFE OF CHUCK. It floored me. Based on a Stephen King novella of the same name, the film chronicles a man’s life in reverse chronological order. Centered around the theme of our human mortality and how we cope with our short time in this world, the film felt quite sentimental throughout, aided in no small part by The Newton Brothers’ sincere soundtrack. Music drives the film in many ways, like Chuck’s 75 bpm heartbeat being a recurring motif and a couple of wonderfully fun dance scenes pushing the disjointed plot along.
One moment that really stuck with me was when Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character Marty Anderson, a middle-school teacher, explained Carl Sagan’s cosmic calendar analogy that compresses the 13.8 billion-year-old history of the universe (as we currently understand it) into a calendar year. In the analogy: the big bang happened just after midnight on January 1; the Milky Way formed in May; our solar system doesn’t appear until August. It isn’t until 11:46 PM on December 31 that humans tamed fire. At 11:59:20, within the last minute of the last day of the year, we domesticated plants and animals for agriculture, developing permanent settlements.
Modern human history can be condensed into less than the last 40 seconds or so when considered on the cosmic scale. How does that make you feel, friend?
Reflection
Hello, friend.
Why do we make art? What’s the point, anyway, if we’re so small and meaningless?
When we know death is in our not-so-distant future, it’s easy to question the ways we spend such a limited time. Plus, I am one person in 8.2 billion people. One small mammal on a rock floating in space that’s already unfathomably large, and constantly getting larger.
I’m a small fish in a very, very large pond, and I’m only here for a blink—so who cares what I think?
Why do we dance? When we hear a good rhythm and an infectious melody, our bodies take over. We feel joy, freedom, exhilaration. We feel alive.
We feel alive. We are alive, depsite the odds.
We don’t know why we are, and we will never know (try as we might to believe one way or the other). We will never understand one true meaning of life. We will never know what comes next, if anything comes next.
We will never fully comprehend why we dance or write or paint. We don’t need to know why, because we only need to know how these expressive acts make us feel.
We are sensitive, emotional beings who feel love, empathy, compassion, curiosity, indignation, shock, horror, disgust, wonder, embarrassment, ennui (okay, I’ll leave it there to avoid this becoming an in INSIDE OUT cast list).
We make decisions so often based on intuition and feeling. We are constantly driven to action by love or hatred. We watch movies and listen to music because it helps us feel some new and unique way. We make movies and music because we want to express how we’ve felt and see if others have felt that same way.
Feelings connect us. Feelings divide us. Feelings are the only tools we have to unlock a sense of meaning in a universe that is so large and entropic that anyone in their right minds would realize there is no such thing as meaning.
We are not in our right minds—we are in our hearts and our souls.
That is why we make art. That is why we dance. That is why we get out of bed every morning and go on living. We feel we have to, because we know there is always something worthwile ahead of us. A new experience. A friendly face. A feeling.
***
Song of Myself, 51 by Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late? New Music Recommendations
Hello again, friend.
Thank you for reading today’s post. I hope you enjoyed the reflection—and I hope you rise up and seize the day today. And tomorrow, and every other day you get to spend in this life.
Meet a new artist and try their new album today—it might change your life. Or at least make you feel some type of way.
Happy listening.
The Living Music List—Ambient
Note: All of the below ambient projects are available on Bandcamp. Bold and ^ denote reader-submitted work. Also, see a couple of other recent ambient records in The Press Box section later in the letter.
The Life of Chuck (Official Soundtrack) by The Newton Brothers (album / film score, melodic) [Lakeshore Records / YouTube]
{note: mostly drone-y, melodic electronic score with piano, but also a couple of non-ambient tracks in Joy, a drum piece for one of the dance scenes, and Gregory Alan Isakov’s cover of The Parting Glass}
Intro / Outro by Hisshet (album / noise, field recordings) [Independent / Bandcamp]^
Lateral by Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe (album / minimalist, meditative {or “ambient-landscape-dream-music” as the artists describe it}) [Opal Limited / YouTube]
PITP x POST by Past Inside the Present X Post. Festival (compilation / post-rock, ambient guitar) [Past Inside the Present / Bandcamp]
Stasis Sounds For Long-Distance Space Travel III by 36 & zakè (album / drone, space) [Past Inside the Present / Bandcamp]
Interior Age by White Stains (album / drone, minimalist) [Language Instinct / Bandcamp]
The Book of Dreams by Henrik Meierkord, Marco Lucchi & Pawel Kobak (album / electroacoustic, drone) [whitelabrecs / Bandcamp]
Edge Angles by Aries Mond (album / ambient piano) [whitelabrecs / Bandcamp]
Quiet Corners by Crane (album / ambient piano, field recordings) [Driftworks / Bandcamp]
Arcadia by zakè | Spieth | Guentner (album / drone) [Affin / Bandcamp]
The Living Music List—All Genres
Note: All of the below projects are available on major streaming services.
The Fear of Never Landing by Marconi Union (album / electronica)
Faith by Purelink (album / electronic)
More by Pulp (album / alt rock)
Lotus by Little Simz (album / hip-hop)
Magic, Alive! by McKinley Dixon (album / hip-hop/rap)
Happy Birthday by Finn Wolfhard (album / indie rock)
NEVER ENOUGH by Turnstile (album / hard rock)
Luminal by Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe (album / alternative vocal (or “electric-country-dream-music” as the artists described it)
Where You Found Me by Stateside (album / rock)
FATHER FIGURE by Jon Bellion (album / pop)
The Press Box
In this week’s edition of The Press Box, we have a trio of records to highlight from Wayside & Woodland Recordings, a small label out of the UK’s South Staffordshire & West Midlands regions.
Dreamland by The Balloonist (out now)
“A hazy, fragmented miasmic recollection of long drives in the country during British Summertime. Childhood memories and how they echo and ripple through adolescence, young adulthood and beyond.” - excerpt from the album description on Bandcamp
This album reminds me a bit of previous releases from artists like Washed Out and Tycho who made traveling electronic tracks that feel warbly and warm, colorful and expansive, nostalgic and cloudy. Indeed, the artist mentions varied influences like William Basinksi and Pet Shop Boys, and those influences are evident in the final foggy feeling of the record. It fits beautifully with the heat and sun of the imminent summer. But there is also a more poignant influence on the record according to the artist behind The Balloonist, Ben Holton:
“I realised, as I was working on the music, I was using it as a form of therapy and escape into the warmth of selected childhood memories. Safe, on the backseat of the car, the radio on low or encompassed in a headphone world of ‘80s pop and tape hiss.”
Haunted Woodland Volume Five by Karen Vogt (out now)
“People are haunted, just as buildings and landscapes can feel haunted. We leave our thoughts and feelings in certain places more than others. The emotions and memories we carry intermingle with the spaces we occupy and pass by daily. Sometimes, a place, or a landscape, evokes a certain feeling within us.” - excerpt from the album description on Bandcamp)
Karen is a great friend of this newsletter and a fervent supporter of many artists in her PR and communications work at Klang Signals. She is also a talented musician and vocalist, with a proper ear for earning gorgeous results from her effects pedals. In May, she released this haunting album of droning electronics, ambient guitar, ethereal vocals, and spoken word. Karen concluded her description of the album with this provoking thought:
“Isn’t it fascinating how thoughts that are more melancholic tend to linger? Things we don’t want to let go of will ultimately stay to haunt us. Maybe we need to re-live them in our heads and hearts? Moments in time. It gives me peace and closure to use these parts from the past—to realize that they were supposed to wait for this moment.”
Weight Away by Lukas Creswell-Rost (out July 4, 2025)
“After spending the best part of 15 years living and getting slightly lost in Berlin, Germany, Lukas Creswell-Rost decided it was time to come home. That being Yorkshire, England. Born in Leeds in the mid-’80s, he now spends his time driving up and down the A1, playing guitar with various projects, and trying to form his ideas into slightly over ambitious songs. His latest batch have been a while in the making, but the densely layered songs now emerge to form the album Weight Away.” - excerpt from the album description on Bandcamp
This new album from Lukas Creswell-Rost, a former member of post-rock group The Pattern Theory, is a journey through some darker moments for the artist. The songs sit primarily in the folk-rock realm, but the arrangements and stories are ever-shifting much like the life that inspired them. Whether he is grappling with a close friend’s loss or the uncertainty in his own mind, Creswell-Rost weaves a compelling story throughout. The album description concludes:
“Hopefully these downbeat topics don’t create too much of a heavy mood overall. Musically, it’s juxtaposed with playful, crammed arrangements and a pop sensibility of hooks and noises all smudged together into one journey.”
Join the Hum, Buzz, & Hiss Community
Music is best when we listen together. That’s why I’ve created the Hum, Buzz, & Hiss Discord Community, where music lovers, indepedent artists, and small label owners converge to hang out, share great music, and inspire each other.
If you enjoy my letters and want to connect directly with others in the ambient/DIY music space, then come join us on Discord. There, you’ll also find more music recommendations from me, custom playlists, and more.
Support the newsletter for just a few bucks a month to get access.
Enjoyed this post and want to leave a tip? You can buy me a coffee for an easy, one-time way to support my work.
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.
