The Baltimore hardcore band’s vocalist takes us through his week in listening, which included everything from a 2000s Björk gem to ‘the ultimate R&B anthem’
18 September
7.15pm Listened to Björk’s Medulla on a walk. My friend sent me the song Show Me Forgiveness, and I realised that I had never dived into that record. The album is so interesting – it’s really beautiful, a lot of it is just her voice, these beautiful hymn-like songs.
I usually like to go on a walk in the evenings and either listen to music or collect my thoughts. It was sunset so I was open to Medulla for cruising around the neighbourhood, taking it in, winding down at the end of the day.
19 September
10.30am Riding my bike to the park, listened to Faye Webster’s I Know I’m Funny Haha. I really love her music. I just had a morning bike ride and threw this album on. I think she’s a great songwriter, and has an amazing voice – I just jammed the whole album while I was cruising around.
Keeping these journals, I realised that a lot of the time, I’m listening to music while riding my bike. My decision to listen to music is always very sporadic and random – it doesn’t necessarily always match the mood of exactly what I’m doing. That morning, I just had the melody from In a Good Way in my head. It does soundtrack a morning very nicely.
12.45pm Riding bike back from the park I put on Drukqs by Aphex Twin. This is definitely one of my favourite Aphex Twin albums.
I used to go into Tower Records when I was young, and my mum would let me buy a CD. One day I picked a CD by this jazz duo called the Bad Plus, and they did a cover of Flim. I just thought their cover of it was so good – I didn’t know what it was, and I actually didn’t even know it was a cover at first, I just thought it was their song. Later, I looked into it and I found out it was Aphex Twin, and I found the original and then got really excited about how insane that music is, how dynamic and beautiful. Drukqs is a really dynamic record because half of it is beautiful piano ballads and half is fast chaotic electric production.
6.35pm On a run – Poison Idea’s Pick Your King EP. What music I listen to is very random. Even going for a run, I don’t always need super high energy, aggressive music – I’ll run to Enya or something like that. I hadn’t listened to this Poison Idea EP in a while, and it was a good soundtrack for exerting myself and getting the energy levels up. This is probably my favourite Poison Idea release. It’s just so raw, the songs and the guitar and his voice, everything. The recording of it just feels aggressive. It’s the hardest Poison Idea, to me. It’s kind of like a classic.
Discovering new hardcore can be a little different to discovering new pop music. With new hardcore, a lot of times I’ll find out about stuff through a more intimate way, whether it’s someone posting about it on social media or a flyer for a show. Pop music is a little further away sometimes. I’ll hear a song in a grocery store and be like, that sounds cool.
I can hear something sometimes and it won’t really click because my mind is unfocused or not really open, but if I hear it in the right setting, it’s my favourite thing in the world and I just wanna soak it in. If I’m half-asleep in the back of the van and there’s a song playing on the radio that I’ve heard 20 times before, but it’s playing while I’m half-asleep and I’m hearing it in the dream state, I might wake up and be like, this is my favourite song ever.
11.30pm I listened to Blood Orange’s Four Songs EP on a FaceTime Shareplay session with a friend. This was the first time I’ve ever done Shareplay and I was figuring it out as I was doing it. That Blood Orange EP had just dropped, and I was FaceTiming a friend and I wanted to do a full listen through, so I started playing it on my phone. The option popped up for them to join in, and then once it linked we just listened to the whole thing straight through, which was a really cool experience – you can still talk over it if you want, and the volume cuts down a little bit, but it’s still playing cohesively for both people at the same time. I was really psyched when I figured that out because you can soundtrack any phone call if you want now.
