If I think back on my travels, whether these have taken place on a skateboard, on a bus, on a train or on many occasions through books that took me to distant places or simply my own memories which allowed me passage back through spaces and times past, there has always been one thing that came with me on these journeys. You may have guessed what I’m talking about already. If not, the topic in question is audio.
Music and audiobooks predominantly factor as my primary method of company when I’m working in and out of studio. I have no idea to this day how I got away with this, but once while on a particularly tight deadline I staked out a bench in an airport where I sat as inconspicuously as I could manage, cutting artwork while waiting for an early morning flight (not something I’d readily do again). In the early days when I didn’t have a studio I worked at such locations as libraries, my friend’s bedrooms, cafes and share houses to name but a few.
The one thing that I have taken with me to all these places has been music. Music, audiobooks, podcasts when I could access the internet. Music has held me through so many points in my life that would have been a lot harder to push through had I been without.
I thought in this blog I’d give you a run down of some of the albums that have seen me through long days and nights in my studio, as well as audiobooks (embarrassing or not) that have kept me from going completely crazy with cabin fever when I’ve had large commissions I had to get through without too much social interaction. There are also a couple of podcasts I’ll throw in there for inspiration too.
2009 Jesus & Mary Chain Psychocandy, Mazzy Star She Hangs Brightly, Bat For Lashes Two Suns, múm Finally We Are No One, The Stone Roses The Stone Roses, M.I.A Kala, The Brian Jonestown Massacre Take it from the Man, Elliot Smith Either/Or, Okkerville River Unless It’s Kicks Garden State Soundtrack Compilation, Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Sufjan Stevens Illinois.
2010 The Innocence Mission Glow, Bat For Lashes Fur & Gold, Interpol Antics, Yeah Yeah Yeahs Fever To Tell, Florence & the Machine Lungs, The Clean Mr. Pop, The Kills Midnight Boom, Kate Nash House Made of Bricks Santigold Santigold, Jessca Hoop Kismet Sessions, Renee-Louise Carafice Tells You To Fight, Panther and the Zoo More Fun
2011 Cut Off Your Hands You & I, Unknown Mortal Orchestra Unknown Mortal Orchestra, The Decemberists Crane Wife, Bear Cat Xiong Mao, Kate Rusby Little Lights, The Shins Wincing the Night Away, The Clean Mister Pop, Cat Power You Are Free, Neutral Milk Hotel On Avery Island, Aimee Mann @#%&*! Smilers, Kurt Vile Smoke Ring For My Halo, Warpaint The Fool.
2012 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club B.R.M.C., The O.C. Mix 2 Compilation, The Pixies Surfer Rosa, Die Die Die, The Horrors The Skying, Deerhunter Halcyon Digest Regina Spektor Far.
2013 Alt-J An Awesome Wave, Agnes Obel Philharmonics, Die Die Die Harmony, Hole Celebrity Skin, Fever Ray Fever Ray, Where the Wild Things Are (Soundtrack) Karen O and the Kids, My Bloody Valentine E.P’s 1988-1991, Broken Social Scene You Forgot it in People, Santigold Master of My Make Believe.
2014 Arvo Pärt Spiegel im Spiegel, The National The Boxer, HBO Girls Soundtrack Season 1&2, Tycho Dive, Kurt Vile Walking in a Pretty Daze, Blair Die Young, Sharon Van Etten Epic, Deerhunter Microcastle, The Raveonettes Lust Lust Lust.
2015 Gold Panda Companion, The Sound Defects The Iron Horse, Little Dragon Machine Dreams, Sigur Rós: Takk, Wild Nothing Gemini, Joy Division Unknown Pleasures, Mulatu Astatke New York–Addis–London: The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965–1975, Bonobo Migration, Dum Dum Girls He Gets Me High.
2016 Underground Youth Mademoiselle, M.I.A Matangi, The Smiths, múm Finally We Are No-one, The Pheonix Foundation , Mogwai Les Revenants, Low Lullaby, Renee-Louise Carafice Power Animals.
2017 Feist Metals, Gold Panda Good Luck and Do Your Best Dumbo Feather Podcast https://www.dumbofeather.com/podcast-2/, Phantogram, Charles Bradley No Time For Dreaming, Regina Spektor Remember Us To Life, HBO Girls Season 4 soundtrack, Bjork , Phantogram Eyelid Movies, 95BFM Auckland-Based Radio Station (via Simple Radio) Audiobooks: Ransom Riggs Ms Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children Books 1-3.
2018 http://www.thejealouscurator.com/blog/art-for-your-ear-podcast/ Dum Dum Girls, Lowtide Lowtide LP, Kate Winslet voiced audiobooks The B.F.G/ Matilda Santigold 99c, Panda Bear Person Pitch.