Lab Rotations: 5 Way Too Moody Fall 2024 Records Before Election Day.
Let me set you a scene.
It's the night before THE election.
On the way back from a quick spin to a downtown pharmacy with Nikki, I felt this hanging, looming, ominous energy in the air. The American flags that were thumbtacked to shitty balconies and decayed wooden front decks in the worst part of town were more striking visually that one would normally assume.
That energy was heavy, man.
Heavy.
This was not the same shit you feel as a kid on Mischief Night. It's more like that feeling on Day 3 of a bender or desolate festival, when you've done so many goddamn drugs that you tore the portal to the spiritual world right off the hinges, allowing whatever is out there to slowly but surely arch it's legs over the power lines and sky reaching projects, and there's nothing you can do to escape it.
It first appears to be the shadow of a prehistoric spider, massive with gnarled 90-degree angle limbs, purposefully yet just as awkwardly as, say, Slenderman in its gracefulness.
Some things aren't here for grace. They skip that part.
They're just here to eat.
We both felt it in the air, too.
In the north east, that feeling comes as it pleases, blame it on the history I suppose. That should be fairly easy to grasp if you've ever picked up a book. We're the oldest part of the nation and here is where shadows come to crack open beers on the couch.
With the ominous anything but a commodity lately, you've gotta work to reset the energy and vibe check.
(If I sound like a Gen Z bumper sticker author, I apologize. I've been doing ALOT of apologizing lately, so add this one to the list. Note to self: You never need to apologize if you never need to apologize...think about it.)
I digress. ADHD is a super power, promise.
Like I said- vibe check and reset the energy.
See, Nik and I have a playlist we started in 2020, at the height of the Plandemic, where we'd go on long drives to hella obscure places in quaint or Stephen King-esque New England towns that only Pre-Civil War maps swear exist.
With that came the need to live in the movie you're the main character of, or at least share top billing. Edibles and clonozepam can wait in the wings, but not for so long they don't end up at least making a guest appearance on the run of show.
We'd end up in some strange pocket of Eastern Connecticut, a world away from the Connecticut "outside Manhattan" that I grew up in, where the trains hammering the tracks tracks are so frequently amplified they're a running metronome for anyone to play Saul Williams or lay a weeping Alto Sax over it.
I won't even bother to try and rationalize the difference in air quality.
Weeping willows slowly kiss the pavement below as they sway in late afternoon breezes. I know exactly what should be on at this moment, but I am equally open to seeing what the universe provides.
I'd Spotify some obscure ass cut from an artist I felt befit the moment then best, and told God to DJ. He's an epic DJ as it were.
See, he won't play Coachella or any of the Freak Offs sponsored by last season's Sean John in piles on all the locked bedroom carpets. God is strict about his work, and spins invite only immersive XP's.
With the darkness feeling like it just bare-hugged an entire section of the Elm City, the need for that same most high DJ became clear as the day it no longer was at 5:30 PM.
I just did the same thing that started "Sunday Drive"- hit the artist I felt could best be the soundtrack to the season, and, more specifically, the soundtrack to the moment, and have not turned off this cycle from loop play.
Fall 2024- don't descend into chaos because two Jim Henson characters in suits couldn't hide their marionette strings in this level of backlight.
Here's the season's soundtrack staples most reflective of that same vibe in the air.
Ethel Cain : "House In Nebraska" (live version)
Where the world was empty, save you and I
Where you came and I laughed, and you left and I cried
Where you told me even if we died tonight, that I'd die yours
-Mother Cain
This is what the worst heartbreak of your life plays at a wake.
Mother's voice is a level ten tragedy on its own, but set to this swirling, yet minimalist collage of pressed roses neatly duct taped to the inside of the love of your life's coffin - it just might ruin you.
The second outcome is that it just may make you realize that life is so short that every moment matters.
Hold the people you love close. Hold those that love you even closer.
Placebo : Every You & Every Me
A fall classic off one of the best 90's OSTs ever in the legendary "Cruel Intentions." "Intentions" was one part iconic arial view of a speeding Jaguar on the Hutch, one part smart ass, relentless playboy trope in a box cut Prada sportcoat and one part Sarah Michelle Geller right as the internet turned old enough to fake celeb nudes.
That cocktail is killer.
It was also a perfect score, and relied on music the way shadow relies on light. I guess the perfect way to describe the experience it is, in fact, is not far off that meter.
Shadow and light in equal measures, wrapped in the quiet luxury of the Lower East Side, Upper West Side, SoHo, the Village and the even wealthier outskirts, where rich kids had no limits and family estates had no cameras (apparently).
This record from Placebo opened the film, and as the leaves fall on the New England Thru Way, it's always been engrained in my head.
This is lane changing with a smirk as the orange 4:45 PM dusk sets in, and the driving gloves are just as tight as the wheel and the exchange students on the field hockey side.
Daft Punk : M0therboard (Instrumental Edt)
There are no words. Press play.
If I was the creative director of every company on earth, I'd use this record in
ALL
THE
COMMERCIALS.
Note: Find a roof top and a pre roll and keep this cinematic opus of woodwinds, strings, and deep, brassy synths that scale heaven and hell looping.
If you feel nothing, you're a bot.
Black Coffee x Da Africa Deep: Feel The Love
Not everything has to be the OST to your mental health crumbling like the Parthenon, but every record needs to be as well crafted and timeless as the Parthenon.
AfroHouse has been slowly making its ascension onto the world stage, with major elements now being distinguishable for its tribal drums, use of minor chord melody vocals, and its almost spirtitual ability to make grown ass move in ways that look like if Savion Glover was a New Zealand rugby lad and spruced his Hakka the fuck up.
Never has there been, in my opinion, a more complete, heartbreaking yet powerfully crafted ballad. Italian legend Lucio Dalla's voice is sandpaper and expensive Nero D'Avola. You'll get what I mean as sooon as you hear it. Even of you don't speak Italian, you can still feel the melancholy as that particular emotion seems to be universal.
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