If Music Exists So Do We
What music means in quarantine, starring the cast of Tone Glow
It’s a fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the music industry for the foreseeable future. Concerts are a memory, album release dates are being pushed back, the list goes on. But music is so much more than the shifting fortunes of “the star-maker machinery behind the popular song.” For the music people of the world—those of us for whom a love of music is a defining factor of our lives—the pandemic has had a different and more unexpected effect.
It has for me, at least. During my dazed first week in West Virginia, as I waited for the contours of my new reality to come into focus, I found that the records I’d loved so dearly not days before began to take on a peculiar dated quality, like baby pictures starting to curl at the edges with age. It was as if the music that had soundtracked my life up to that point had transformed without warning into a broadcast from the past, a relic from another world—which is what all pre-pandemic LPs now are.
There was a sense of grief to this shift. The love remained, but the change was irrevocable. It felt like I’d lost something. And of course I had. We all have. This got me to wondering how other music people were feeling in the immediate post-pandemic moment. Were they also experiencing alienation from music that once felt as familiar as a hug from a friend? Were they finding comfort in old sounds? Was it both?
To get a sense of how the pandemic is affecting music people of the world, I asked the writers of experimental music newsletter Tone Glow to contribute some thoughts about what they’re listening to in quarantine—not prescriptively i.e. “This record is making me feel better, therefore it will make you feel better,” but in a way that examined how their current perception of a certain song or album is reflective of how their overall relationship to music is changing in a moment when our understanding of the entire world, let alone music, has been altered.
Conventional wisdom holds that people cling to the familiar in times of crisis, but what I found in reading these responses was that so many are not looking for succor so much as stillness—for music to demarcate space in days divorced from time and filled with chaos. There is comfort to be found in the knowledge that as long as music still exists then so do we. Because what is a record, after all, but a record of time? If music is a thread that tethers us to a lost past, perhaps it can tether us to the untenable present and the uncertain future, as well. Maybe, by reappraising our relationship to the very human art of music in a time when we must be separated from other humans, there is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of ourselves and each other as we collectively confront this strange new reality. Or, as Shy Thompson so movingly puts it in her write-up: “I’ve come to realize in this time of uncertainty and loneliness, my feelings are not only important to my appreciation of music, they are everything.”
With that, I give you the writers of Tone Glow. It was truly a privilege to be allowed a glimpse into the worlds of these true music people, who have so bravely excavated their most intimate feelings about the most intimate of arts. I hope you find something of meaning and solace here, as I did.
xo
MT
Fort Pet, West Virginia
PS. I’ve not written a blurb myself, but please read my work in Bandcamp Daily’s Best of Winter 2020 and our weekly Seven Essential Releases column if you’re interested in what I’ve been listening to lately.
PPS. Lovely horse photo at the bottom. :-)
James Ferraro, Skid Row (2015)
At 11pm on March 16, I brought my partner to the ER, where we would spend the next 12 hours, and where I would develop a 102.6 fever. My partner was hospitalized, and subsequently tested positive for COVID-19; I was sent home with Tylenol. They were discharged on March 18; we are still recovering. At the fucked up nexus of depression-anxiety-panic-sickness, 3am crises, and the horrifying knowledge that beyond our immediate survival there lay a world collapsing in on itself, music stopped working. My meticulously curated "To Listen" playlist felt fidgety, masturbatory. "Comfort music"—anything from Simple Plan to Jang Pil-Soon—felt painfully saccharine or abrasive. In a haze, I stumbled upon James Ferraro's Skid Row. I'd never heard it before. I'd written him off; I thought he was one of those "intersection of art and technology" shitheads. But seconds into "White Bronco," my preconceptions evaporated. In the middle of another feverish night, amidst constant sirens, in a city crumbling from decades of neoliberal assault, Skid Row was the only thing that stuck. It wasn't music as cure, distraction, tranquilizer, explanation, tool; at that moment, it just...existed. My body found what it needed to hear, beyond my control or consciousness.
Sunik Kim is an artist quarantined in New York City
“A Common Wealth”, Early Day Miners, Let Us Garlands Bring (2002)
I’ve been thinking about the apostles and how they believed Christ would return in their lifetime. I’ll hopefully be done quarantining before I die, but this purgatorial interim is proving sluggish. Not just because days feel like weeks, but because I truly feel how exhausted I am. I’ve tried avoiding music that sends me spiraling, but some of the depressive songs I love have proved soothing, their insularity an unexpected salve. I keep returning to “A Common Wealth,” a song I’ve cherished since high school. At 18 minutes, its length and glacial pace mirror the blurring of time, the groggy haze of my current life. As it transforms from slowcore downer to lethargic post-rock, I’m allotted the space to just be, grateful to not have to think about anything. I don’t see us coming out the other end of this pandemic with much hope for the future, but the way this song ends with icy ambience grants serenity in the now. With time perceptibly frozen, the devolution of my every desire to fleeting velleity feels OK. I’m not as assured of these end times as St. Paul, but I’ll cling to every bit of optimism I can as I await a new, better world.
Joshua Minsoo Kim is a self-described “quarantine cutie” quarantined in the Chicago suburbs with his family including his dogs, Charlie and Rocketship
“What We Loved Was Not Enough”, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything (2014)
It’s one thing to know what a song is about intellectually and another to know what it means to you personally. Thee Silver Mt. Zion’s “What We Loved Was Not Enough” came to me at a point in my life when teenage melancholy, mental illness, and alcohol abuse were at the forefront of my day-to-day existence, and it became an especially vital piece for me in the Spring of 2015 for reasons that don’t need to be expanded upon here.
I always knew “What We Loved Was Not Enough” was about the failings of western capitalism and its inevitable and necessary collapse, but the final line, “Kiss it quick and rise again,” represented something more personal—a mantra of sorts that helped me see light at the end of the tunnel. Since the outbreak, I’ve indulged, perhaps foolishly, in music that is nostalgic. Maybe it’s because the song’s subject matter feels especially on-the-nose right now, but in all of my return listens, I have really begun to feel its original intention. For me, “What We Loved Was Not Enough” has become the definitive soundtrack for apocalypses both intimate and universal.
Evan Welsh is a music writer quarantined in New York City
“As We Go Along”, The Monkees, Head (1968)
My girlfriend and I are self-isolating in a few small rooms in her house, so I’ve grown accustomed to a simultaneous soundtrack bleeding into my own listening. Things I can typically expect to hear each day include her true crime podcasts, the singing lessons she teaches over the internet, and the ambient electronic album she’s composing for her cat, Kevin. New music is still exciting for me, but in my downtime I find myself reaching for entertainment from my formative listening years, as well as anything that might help wake me up from this lingering haze. Last Saturday I drank mushroom tea and watched The Monkees’ movie, Head, a mind-expanding activity better suited to a teenager than a 36-year-old. One song stood out.In our new chill-inducing world, “As We Go Along”, written by Carole King and her songwriting partner Toni Stern, and sung beautifully by Mickey Dolenz, feels like wrapping myself up in a warm blanket. Its lyrics about brushing off overthinking anxieties feel like a beacon of hope: “Why think all about / Who's gonna win out / We'll make up our story as we go along.” When the song reaches its final minute, with a looping guitar, keyboard, and flute melody, it opens up a space I can live inside, at least for right now.
Jesse Locke is a music writer, podcaster, and drummer quarantined in Toronto
“The River”, Bruce Springsteen, The River (1980)
I’ve generally attributed my inability to really love Bruce Springsteen to the fact that he’s perhaps the most American of any major rock artist, and as a Canadian, I’ve had a hard time identifying with the music. But as I hear of more and more people losing their jobs due to the pandemic, I find myself returning to “The River,” the title track from Springsteen’s 1980 double album. Released at the peak of his career, The River features a lot of—some might say too many—prototypical Springsteen bar-rockers with anthemic rock chord progressions over big, booming drums. But the album is also notable for featuring a few stripped-back, straight up folk songs that look ahead to its follow-up, the resigned Nebraska, which Springsteen recorded almost completely unembellished while touring for The River. Before this year, I remember thinking the lines, “I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company /But lately, there ain’t much work on account of the economy” to be a little too on-the-nose. But more and more, I’m starting to get it: the appeal of Bruce Springsteen is that he always sung them straight.
Marshall Gu is a music writer quarantined in Toronto
“Water I/Here Comes the Flood/Water II”, Robert Fripp, Exposure (1979)
Robert Fripp’s Exposure is the record I reach for in times of mounting tension or suffering, specifically the three songs referred to by some fans as the “Water Suite.” “Water Music I” begins the cycle with frippertronics (tape looped guitar) and features a gorgeous harmonized melody that then segues into “Here Comes the Flood,” which is mostly Peter Gabriel alone on a piano. A few choice spots have Fripp returning with tape loop magic to accent the pertinent and absolutely moving lyrics about a world-wide disaster: “If again the seas are silent/ In any still alive/ It'll be those who gave their island to survive.” As the song fades out to “Water Music II,” Fripp brings back the original theme, with an added layer of degraded loops creating a misty quality that sounds like a wave, bringing this cathartic experience to a close. For a while I can feel relaxed or whole amidst the very real chaos in our lives.
Jeff Brown is a musician and music writer quarantined in Seattle
Ambient Hawai’i, Ambient Hawai'i (1997)
I have always known that my relationship with music hinges strongly on my feelings, but I’ve generally always believed that my favorites would remain favorites regardless of a changing disposition. The current pandemic has really upended that notion for me. Recently, I found myself completely disengaged while listening to a record I consider part of my pantheon. Ambient Hawai’i, Japanese pop singer Sandii’s loving tribute to her Polynesian heritage, and a record I never imagined growing tired of, suddenly wasn’t bringing me joy the way it had for so long. I have been feeling an uncharacteristic disinterest in the arts broadly, but my indifference to this particular album gave me pause. I’ve come to realize in this time of uncertainty and loneliness, my feelings are not only important to my appreciation of music, they are everything. Not unlike how difficult it can be to talk to someone face-to-face when you don’t feel much of anything, I can’t seem to receive much from music or give back to it with my full heart right now. I hope to be able to join the conversation again soon.
Shy Thompson is a culture writer quarantined in Spokane, Washington
“Love Pumps Through My Veins As Quickly As You Kiss Me Goodbye”, La Torture Des Ténèbres, IV - Memoirs Of A Machine Girl (2017)
COVID-19 wriggled its fingers across the vast span of America roughly as I began fleeing across the continent in the opposite direction. I’d uprooted myself from an apartment I’d only shared with my cat in Reading, Pennsylvania, and moved into a small office space repurposed into a bedroom for me by two deeply concerned friends in Chicago. I became an awkward asteroid flung about an orbit accommodating me instead of acclimating, and a citywide lockdown froze us like that.
Listening to music has always been a way to fight loneliness for me. Sitting down with someone else’s hands, and resting my head in theirs, as their absent mouth speaks into my ears: when other people speak on what they feel when they pray, I think of my hands folding over a Walkman, volume cranked, drowning out the world. I’ve learned embarrassingly late in my life that my drowning waves of noise leak outward, too; I wasn’t expecting to ever hear La Torture Des Ténèbres recognized aloud. Luckily, it turns out my friends also like to spike their ambience with a jagged scrape of mechanical panic now and again. It’s made breathing easier.
Tara Hillegeist is a writer and critic quarantined in Chicago
“An Utterly Dark Spot”, Jasmine Guffond, Microphone Permission (2020)
New music is largely failing to provide an emotional escape for me at this time, so my daily listening has been mostly confined to artists that have comforted me in the past: Nick Drake, Caetano Veloso, George Harrison, Minnie Riperton, Arthur Russell, Al Green. When I have sought out unfamiliar music, it’s been due to a conscious effort to challenge myself through the act of listening. Being isolated at home alone, it’s very easy for me to start spiraling into unhealthy habits and thought patterns, many of which relate to my phone. On the upside, I also now have the time to practice counteracting those same habits and patterns through more active listening. I’ve found myself appreciating music that engages and rewards close listening, something that is helping to train my mind to investigate its wanderings rather than simply follow its impulses. Jasmine Guffond’s Microphone Permission, for which the conceptual artist and electronic musician used cellular data as source material for her compositions, is one such record. I don’t necessarily feel Microphone Permission is leading me to any great insights about computational listening, but there’s a level of poetic justice to the fact that it is helping me reclaim my attention from the feeds, making for a strange and fitting source of growth.
Leah B. Levinson is a writer quarantined in Los Angeles
“Jumper”, Third Eye Blind, Third Eye Blind (1997)
A couple weeks before Chicago went into lockdown, I started going to therapy for stress and anxiety. I had taken on too much work for too long, and things I was already being medicated had begun to affect me in drastic, scary, and physical ways. Right as COVID-19 started to mean no longer having to deal with an excessive to-do list that was causing me multiple panic attacks per day, I added a new medicine to my intake. I don’t know whether it’s that my workload is finally manageable or that I am on a new medicine, but quarantine has given me back a chunk of sanity. Since going into self-isolation, I’ve been listening to music for enjoyment rather than because I’m under deadline or because I need to respond to a demo submission. Third Eye Blind’s “Jumper” is a song I heard as a kid that became a favorite in college. I’d sing it drunkenly late at night as a friend played the chords on guitar. I miss that simplicity. I put “Jumper” on while working out ten days ago or so, and all those feelings and memories came flooding back. I love listening to music, but nowadays, the act of listening can be just as much of a job as a hobby—this song reminds me of a time when it was simply for fun.
Jordan Reyes is a musician, writer, and label head quarantined in South Florida
“Yamming Snacks Like Shaggy”, Tom & Jerry, Scooby’s Dreaming (1993)
I’m not exactly sure if self-isolation has changed my listening habits. It’s actually made me even more taken with music I already find truly vital and singularly brilliant. As a critic, I do keep up with new music to stay in the know and not miss out, but if I tasked myself with listening to unassailable mediocrity like the new Waxahatchee in a time of crisis, my brain would probably go smooth instantly. Thus, as usual, Tom & Jerry has stayed lodged in my eardrums. The un-Googleable jungle giants were monstrously good—seriously listen to this shit. That flip of New Edition’s “Can You Stand The Rain” is pure arrogance, and I love it. The gall to be that talented keeps me going in this dire period. Just knowing that humans can make stuff like this hits me with hope. Tom & Jerry gets me in that good zone, the one that makes you forget the world and just immerse yourself in the tunes.
Eli Schoop is a writer quarantined in Cleveland
“Expressway to Yr Skull”, Sonic Youth, Live At The Orange Peel 2004 (2019)
“Listen, The Snow Is Falling”, Graham Lambkin & Jason Lescalleet, The Breadwinner (2008)
Stuck inside during quarantine, I either indulge my nostalgia for the innocent past or reckon with the interminable present. I romanticize packing together with strangers in a sweaty crowd through Sonic Youth’s recently available live archive. The place to start is this 2004 show at the height of the Jim O’Rourke years. The 26-minute version of “Expressway to Yr. Skull” is worth the download price itself. But then the matter-of-fact “26:09” listed next to the track title reminds me that if I were there, I would be experiencing it in real time, amazed that they just keep going! The present comes roaring back in full focus and I need to convince myself that everyday life has enough of its own inbuilt beauty. Then I reach for the quieter music, like Graham Lambkin and Jason Lescalleet’s classic The Breadwinner (subtitled “musical settings for common environments and domestic situations”). The heavenly choir of voices and the floorboard creaks of “Listen, the Snow Is Falling” calms me, until it suffocates me, and back to the concerts I go. Rinse and repeat.
Matthew Blackwell is a music writer quarantined in Iowa City
