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<h1>FIDELITY.III.65: LONGING & ACCEPTANCE MUSIC</h1>
<p>I'm excited to be featured on Fidelity this week. Genevieve and I met and became friends on Tumblr more than a decade ago, mostly through the sharing of tracks and playlists. Along with a small community of music friends, we communicated through poetry, symbolism, unknown images, obscure hashtags, and cryptic lyrics. We were blogging but we were also exploring hidden realms. If you were on Tumblr at this time, you understand.</p>
<p>In the spirit of how we first connected, I figured I'd make a playlist about two topics that are very #tumblrcore, Longing, and Acceptance. Music has always been tied to my emotional and visceral connection to the seasons, loss, grief, etc. Genevieve’s blogging style helped shape the way I view lyrics as a form of spirituality, and how music is a powerful tool that can unlock the past and write the future. Thanks for listening and reading along!</p>
<h2>-- guest curator <a href="https://www.instagram.com/gunnarkauth/">Gunnar Kauth</a></h2>
<a href="https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/new-fidelity-gunnar/pl.u-mJy87oBFpm1KN" class="button">On Apple Music</a>
<a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1dyCDxlfk3ktzuhrPGqD5V" class="button">On Spotify</a>
<a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLhOuTXiAdgm7wry1p8SwGpmTF5T1_sqd" class="button">On Youtube</a>
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<u>LONGING MUSIC:</u>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/peel.jpeg" alt="cover art of KMRU's album Peel.">
<p>1. KMRU, "Why Are You Here" from Peel, 2020</p>
<p>A fifteen minute field recording that makes me feel like bathing is a nice way to start a playlist that seeks to cultivate a balance between longing and acceptance.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/a_walk_across.jpeg" alt="cover art of The Blue Nile's album A Walk Across the Rooftops.">
<p>2. The Blue Nile, "Tinseltown in the Rain" from A Walk Across the Rooftops, 1984</p>
<p>Not much to say that this song can’t communicate for itself. Pure, brilliant cinematic music and very transparent lyrics. I am grateful to The Blue Nile for allowing me to realize that all of the Captured Tracks atmospheric pop I was listening to in my late teens could be distilled down into a single, powerful song like “Tinseltown.” Don’t even get me started on “Hats.”</p>
<p>“Here we are, caught up in this big rhythm”.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/cafe_bleu.jpeg" alt="cover art of Style Council's album Cafe Bleu.">
<p>3. Style Council, "The Paris Match" from Cafe Bleu, 1984</p>
<p>I work on dealing with my resentment and striving for acceptance pretty frequently these days. I resent the person who stressed the importance of Tracey Thorn’s music to me, but I also feel really grateful that he did.</p>
<p>The lyrics should paint a fairly obvious picture of the type of longing this track brings on for me, but in a way, it also allows the listener to do a bit of “future tripping”. Maybe you could be in that smoky Parisian cafe someday, and encounter that sort of exciting person!</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/a_life_of.jpeg" alt="cover art of Prefab Sprout's 1992 single">
<p>4. Prefab Sprout, "The Sound Of Crying," 1992 single</p>
<p>Prayer, the unknowing, acceptance, miserably sad lyrics through an uplifting and joyous lens. Paddy Mcaloon remains a singularly important musical inspiration and hero to me. Prefab taught me to let go of what I thought I didn’t like about 80s pop music, and embrace the vulnerability found in his timeless songwriting across this catalog of songs. I could just as easily pick any song off of Steve McQueen, or From Langley Park To Memphis (see: “I Remember That”) but this single stands out as a great example of how Paddy can write a depressing anthem and make it feel like pure joy. Plus the little gated snare that drops in during the last verse of the song always grabs me.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/gathering_swans.jpeg" alt="cover art of Choir Boy's album Gathering Swans">
<p>5. Choir Boy, "Sweet Candy" from Gathering Swans, 2020</p>
<p>My friend Owen showed me this band and this record, 2020’s Gathering Swans, and it came into my life at a necessary time. While the title track, which serves as the album’s closer, is like the most beautiful ballad I’ve heard in ages, filled with a production quality and stage-like presence that gives nods to the atmosphere captured in a good Kate Bush single, there’s something that kept me coming back to this mid-album track. I think it was probably because one of the first times I jammed the album I was biking around in springtime, smelling fragrant flowering trees, and feeling this whipping wistful energy that fueled a nice, speedy ride.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/dynamite.jpeg" alt="cover art of Stina Nordenstam's album Dynamite">
<p>6. Stina Nordenstam, "Under Your Command" from Dynamite, 1996</p>
<p>Her voice can silence a room very quickly. And the fact that she’s so mysterious, even still in the present day, is an amazing creative accomplishment in itself. <a href="http://desireavenue.free.fr/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1886">This 2004 interview</a> I found from her on a fan forum is amazing.</p>
<p>“Under your command, Did I leave any trace, Was I not great telling lies?”</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/echo.jpeg" alt="cover art of Nils Bech's album Echo">
<p>7. Nils Bech, "a sudden sickness" from Echo, 2016</p>
<p>A really special gay love song by a criminally underrated Nordic artist. "Now it’s up to me to figure out my insecurities, to mend this duality."</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/choir_of_king.jpeg" alt="cover art of the Choir of King's College Cambridge">
<p>8. Stephen Paulus, "The Road Home," performed by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, 2019</p>
<p>Lyrically it really does sound timeless. And if you have a soulful bone in your body, you’ll definitely flip out at the youthful soloist’s refrain of “rise up, follow me, I will lead you home”. File this one under the category of “longing for a spiritual home and eternal salvation”, it’s truly an epic.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/october_sounds.jpeg" alt="cover art of Laura Cannell's album October Sounds">
<p>9. Laura Cannell, Kate Ellis, Adrian Crowley, "Blue Is The Color" from October Sounds, 2021</p>
<p>“Cheap sheets, and sticky new york summer nights, that’s my diagnosis.”</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/after_silence.jpeg" alt="cover art of after silence">
<p>10. Arvo Part, "The Deer's Cry," 2019 single</p>
<p>Voces8 was the first real live music event I wanted to see after the world opened back up. I guess I’d been to a few night clubs and seen some live shows but this was the first seated, ticketed event that I got to indulge in. We sat about four rows back from the stage and when I watched the chorus sing this song I could not figure out who was singing which part.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/two_dancers.jpeg" alt="cover art of Wild Beasts' album Two Dancers">
<p>11. Wild Beasts, "Hooting and Howling" from Two Dancers, 2009</p>
<p>This playlist would be radically different without my chance encounter with Wild Beasts at a gig in 2009. An absolutely great way to sum up my late teenage years, and the gateway for me to 80s pop, art rock, classical and choral music. The longing here is intense - you can tell Hayden and Tom are living vicariously through this song about a pack of brutish boys drunkenly ransacking an English town and getting their hands bloody, but then again, so was I. Probably for a bit too long into my mid-20s. There’s something really special about a canon of English musicians, Wild Beasts are (possibly?) at the tail end of this tradition, but they write music that feels like it’s meant for the stage or the cinema. There’s a theme running throughout these songs that feels indebted to that tradition.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/klappen.jpeg" alt="cover art of Golden Ivy's album Klappen">
<p>12. Golden Ivy, "Natt & dag" from Klappen, 2019</p>
<p>These instrumental audio scapes from Nordic composer Ivar Lantz really helped set a good mood for deep reading. They were my reading soundtrack for a good 6 months while I tore through the Knausgaard Struggle series in 2019 and 2020. They offered a good way to grab onto, and maintain a headspace that encouraged me to dig up and exert powerful memories from the past. I really rate Karl as an author not because he's a revolutionary or a deeply original thinker, but rather, because by digging up his own, hyper-specific memories, he allows his readers to dig up their own. The longing experienced here is for formative and intimate memories of a time when I felt safe to simply exist.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/jack_rose.jpeg" alt="cover art of Jack Rose's album Jack Rose">
<p>13. Jack Rose, "Spirits In The House" from Jack Rose, 2006</p>
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<p>A really good piece of solo instrumental music can tell you a story, create a visual and emotional landscape, and give you a sense of the cinematic magic of the every day. That sort of true longing for me is rarely found in a specific lyric or statement. Jack Rose does something entrancing across the whole of his 2006 S/T LP, but I can take a walk through an expansive forest in my mind when I put this specific track on. I also used this to soundtrack a string of writing I was doing in rural Wisconsin during the first wave of the pandemic.</p>
<p>I like to imagine the spirits in the house come out during the daytime, and don’t really wish the listener any harm. Jack may be in heaven, but his spirit walks when this track spins.</p>
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<u>ACCEPTANCE MUSIC</u>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/spirit_of_eden.jpeg" alt="cover art of Talk Talk's album Spirit of Eden">
<p>14. Talk Talk, "I Believe In You" from Spirit of Eden, 1988</p>
<p>I read a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/feb/26/musicians-on-mark-hollis-he-found-hooks-in-places-im-still-trying-to-fathom">memorial to Mark Hollis</a> in the Guardian that featured some of my favorite musicians paying their respects. Wendy from Prefab Sprout shared a memory of listening to this song on repeat while on a train somewhere in the English countryside, and I wanted to experience the whole album from that immersive perspective. Shortly before the pandemic, I took a solo trip up to The Met museum and had a walk around while listening to Spirit Of Eden, repeating the album several times while I took in some <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437854">JMW Turner paintings</a>. This particular track, “I Believe In You," grabbed me the most, and seemed to cast a spell over my mood for most of January 2020. I didn't realize until a few weeks, and several dozen repeated listens later that the song is actually a plea to a loved one trying to beat addiction, and that definitely added a ton of personal weight to the song. It felt like it sort of found me when I needed it.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/big_room.jpeg" alt="cover art of Ulla Straus's album Big Room">
<p>15. Ulla Straus, "Sister" from Big Room, 2019</p>
<p>Winter 2019 was a really depressing and long winter in New York, lots of snow that didn’t quite freeze so it was actually icy rain that soaked through your jacket. So many train delays, so many depressing days at work. Waiting under a bus shelter like 5 days a week. Never any really satisfyingly crisp cold days, and it seemed like the sun would just sink rapidly without any beauty. We’d get one somewhat-springy day and then it would drop back into a windy and cold week. Constant teasing of warmer things that never materialized. NYC likes to deal with snow by dumping heaps of salt on it, not actually shoveling it away.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/voices_of_hunk.jpeg" alt="cover art of The Lounge Lizards's album Voices of Chunk">
<p>16. The Lounge Lizards, "Bob The Bob" from Voices of Chunk, 1988</p>
<p>My second year in NYC, when things started to feel comfortable, a soundtrack for individual triumphs, great walks across the bridge at sunset, and the wind in your hair. This song encapsulates my transition out of youth and into adulthood pretty directly.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/crosstown.jpeg" alt="cover art of Split Fountain's album Crosstown">
<p>17. Split Fountain, "Prism" from Crosstown, 2020</p>
<p>My early 20s were marked by some tough losses of friends my own age, and I definitely think that those silent periods of suffering shaped nearly every aspect of my emotional process. One gift that came out of the darkness of my 21st year was the opportunity to play drums in the project of the writer behind this song, Jordan Bleau. The band was called <a href="https://youtu.be/VifUzOrTP-U">Frankie Teardrop</a> and it consumed my early 20s. We burned bright and fast, like lots of good things, and people, in this life.</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/rosebuds.jpeg" alt="cover art of Teenage Moods's album rosebuds">
<p>18. Teenage Moods, "Fools Wonder" from Rosebuds, 2014</p>
<p>The upper midwest produces a sort of songwriter that is hard to pin down. I think many of the best ones know how to make a simple, effective rock song that might pass you by on the radio if you didn’t pay attention to what the lyrics are trying to convey. Gordon Byrd from Teenage Moods has quietly commanded the landscape of Minneapolis guitar pop for more than a decade at this point, and when I was in my early 20s, he taught me a whole lot about what it really means to accept an artist’s path. “Fools Wonder” is a perfect song to me. A timeless riff reminiscent of a good Felt or George Harrison tune, with the sort of lyrics that serve as a reminder to form a practice, stick to it, and follow through. I used this song as a creative mantra for quite some time.</p>
<p>“You wonder why the time flies, and while you think, life passes by”
&&&&
"You keep thinking, Somewhere in your future, real life begins.
It's already happening. It's happening.”</p>
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<img class="single_cover" src="./assets/playlist_65/dont_tell_a.jpeg" alt="cover art of Replacements' album Don't Tell a Soul">
<p>19. Replacements, "I'll Be You" from Don't Tell a Soul, 1989</p>
<p>By now you can see a clear pattern if you've been paying attention to the geographic similarities between the last several songwriters. The Replacements are the single most important band in my life. Let It Be defined my 20s, Tim came into play time after time when I was longing for a feeling that only driving around at night in the Midwest can really satisfy. Paul is really the undisputed master of balancing the longing that runs throughout this mix with a level of acceptance that was something that I fought throughout my entire existence as a young person. I wouldn’t settle for my surroundings, wouldn’t settle for less than my ego desired, and certainly didn't want those fabled “Swingin' Party” lyrics to come true:</p>
<p>“Pound the prairie pavement, losing proposition. Quitting school and going to work and never going fishing.”</p>
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<p>Copyright @Genevieve Oliver 2021.</p>
<p>If you liked this playlist, please check out the <a href="https://www.unionofmusicians.org/">Union of Musicians and Allied Workers</a> (UMAW) and their <a href="https://www.unionofmusicians.org/justice-at-spotify">Justice at Spotify campaign</a>. They are fighting for one cent per stream!</p>
<p>If you really liked this playlist, really hated it, want more recommendations in the line of something you heard here, want to air grievances of any kind, or just want to shoot the shit, please feel free to <a href="emailto: [email protected]">email me</a>.</p>
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