Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Berlin Music = forever be associated in my mind with the city of Berlin.

Teyl Eins. Cocteau Twins -- Twinlights ep. Discussed in detail last November. Berlin-music-cocteautwinlights are the first thing that come to mind in any word association game, easy.
Bardo Pond -- On the Ellipse. Spending hours in the lab around people most of the day only intensifies the craving for some alone time. I started sacrificing a bit of sleep for a dollop of serenity. I would stay up a bit longer when I returned home at night and would listen to music in the dark. It is a very effective sanity-preserving exercise. When things get busier then this is not possible because only an idiot would sacrifice any of the scant hours of sleep he has allocated. Fortunately, you can only work so much until a threshold is reached and you have to start with shift work in order to obtain both work and sleep for everyone involved in the project. Success! -- you start walking to and from work with only a discman for company, and you exceedingly rely on those few quiet, relaxing minutes to start and end your day (no matter what hour it is according to the sun).
For the early mornings and late nights alone, this album was the accompaniment.

Teyl Zwei. Cocteau Twins -- Twinlights ep. Yeah.
Plastikman -- Closer. Long train rides, silently gliding past tranquil run-down neighbourhoods, together with this album.

Teyl Drei. Galaxie 500 -- Today. The soundtrack for many sleepy days and nights, and there'd be times that I'd have it on repeat (or sometimes just one or two tracks from it) in a fruitless attempt to purge those tunes from my head.

Teyl Vier. Magnetic Fields -- 69 Love Songs (particularly vol. 1). Almost as good as actual love.
The Cure -- Disintegration. The anger and disappointment of missing their Toronto Curiosa stop were washed away (in small part) by hearing parts of this album nearly every day on the way to and from work (events which usually took place on different days of the week).

No comments: