PLAYLIST: Schrödinger’s SOULstice
Here’s a conceptual theme exploring paradox and duality around the symbolic solstice experience.
Here’s a conceptual theme exploring paradox and duality around the symbolic solstice experience.
Like the Austrian physicist’s thought experiment, we won’t know how we feel until we experience it. Embrace the range of emotions you feel within every minute, every hour, every month, every season, and especially now as the growing and harvest seasons come to a close and we begin our winter.
Light, fire, and energy may be at a premium, but we shall keep that which propels us alight with renewed vigor and conviction.
I received these songs over my experiences through the quarter of the year through conversations and communal sharing with friends and colleagues. I’m grateful for all who indirectly participated. Even though there is a wide mix of genres and origins, the sequence aligns sonically. Perhaps I’ll work on mixing this as thorough song cycle? But that’s for a later time.
THOUGHT MORSEL: Everything you express does not have an immediate return. Some effects take days, weeks, or years. I hope you see that in some of the track notes in this playlist, as well as your own endeavors - be them professional or personal.
OVERTURE
Flea - A Plea (California)
The multi-instrumentalist and multi-passionate fella has a new release which sets the tone of future applications or known sources.
Also, he’s a founder of the Silverlake Conservatory of Music was founded in 2001 by longtime friends after severe cutbacks to arts education programming throughout Los Angeles public schools, to fill that void and bring music education to the community.
I - THE WARM-UP
PinkPantheress - Stateside (England)
“I’m freezing outside, I feel my skin tight
My coat is inside, but I look up at you
I tracked your plane ride for when you’re in tonight
Tell me, when is the next time I’ll run into you?”
This track features my princess of pop, Kylie Minogue.
Ata Kak - Kae (Ghana)
What started from a cassette-based release of Twi-language left-field electronic and hip-hop in 1994, has now grown to international live festivals, re-release and a new album in 30 years! A testament to plant the seed now.
Dames Brown - You’re the One for Me (Detroit)
My bright spot of joy and timing of my journey with Jeff, their official full length album comes down in January!!
Zazie’s Uh Flower - Dosa My Honey (NYC)
Explanation here: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTrXs9vtU/
Robyn - Dopamine (Jamie xx remix) (Sweden)
From The Guardian: “It’s a song ostensibly about the first rush of falling in love, but tempers its giddy enthusiasm with a weird hint of desperation (“I just need to know that I’m not alone”) a further dash of fatalism (“it’s going to be whatever and that’s cool”). There’s also a curious tension between trying to explain attraction away as something scientific – an excess of the titular chemical – and something more spiritual and intangible: “Something here’s opening deep inside of me / And I can finally feel it.” The lyric never quite declares its hand: you could read it as emotion triumphing over rationality, or you could equally read it as tempering a standard pop cliche with a stark realism. It’s complicated and messy: it’s also an unequivocal pop banger.”
II - MORE THAN CHESTNUTS ROASTING
While it may be colder in the Northern Hemisphere, we need to keep the fire burning of activism and the inherent expression that #artispolitical
Cain Culto & Xiuhtezcatl - ¡BASTA YA! (Kentucky, Colorado)
Queer Latin hip hop burns the open fire of colonialism… Cain Culto and Xiuhtezcatl Aren’t Filtering Themselves on New Anti-Colonial Single “¡BASTA YA!” - Grimy Goods - A Los Angeles music lifestyle blog since 2008
Kneecap and Sub Focus - No Comment (Ireland/England)
“‘No Comment’ is all about getting harassed by the British state,” Kneecap said in a statement. “Simple as. Us Irish are well used to it, been happening for centuries. Was a pleasure to work with Sub Focus on this, the man is a legend.”
Peaches - Not In Your Mouth None of Your Business (Toronto/Berlin)
Constant advocate for autonomy, Peaches’ latest album arrives next year.
III - NOSTALGIA THROUGH A NEW LENS
Kylie Minogue - Office Party (Melbourne)
A revamp of Kylie’s phenomenal 2015 holiday album, my favorite Tinkerbell comes back with a few new songs (and some curiously missing) on this. True to form, Kylie’s effervescence is the key to any party.
Rosalía - Reliquia (Catalonia)
The greatest album of 2025 brings together some of the best composers today in mixed genres and poetry - what do you leave your mark?
Edward Elgar - The Dream of Gerontius (England)
The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man’s soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory.
A new recording featuring my Scottish earthly diva, Karen Cargill is coming soon…
Chilly Gonzales & Jarvis Cocker - Xmas Kiss (Montreal/Sheffield)
A fave modern pianist collabs with Pulp frontman for a collab similar to Bowie and Bing.
The Pipes & Drums of Leinasch - Auld Lang Syne (Scotland)
Time to bid farewell to the old year…
IV - FUTURE VIBES
Hercules and Love Affair - Someone Else is Calling (NYC)
Turbotito & Ragz featuring Piya Malik - Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya (LA/NYC)
From Naya Beat’s reissue of an astonishing lost “holy grail” – the first British Asian electronic dance music album ever recorded – Mohinder Kaur Bhamra’s 1982 masterpiece ‘Punjabi Disco’. Piya Malik, of awesome Say She She band, teams up with Naya Beat co-founders Turbotito & Ragz on a groove-laden psychedelic-tinged cover.
Flight Facilities - Forever in My Room (Sydney)
The business of modern recording and music rears its head. A long white label finally gets its sample cleared and now available officially for the public!
Post Animal - Setting Sun (Chicago)
Solstice arrives shortly, but from here on out, the days can only get brighter (even if the heat is delayed for a few months).