Music and podcasts can be something you put on in the background to keep your mind busy during monotonous tasks, or something that demands your total attention. For many of us, they fit in our lives in places where other media may not: while we’re doing dishes, commuting or relaxing after an overstimulating day. But they can also be profound experiences that change the way we see the world or help us understand ourselves better.
So, what’re you listening to?
Use this thread to talk about what you’re listening to at the moment. Podcasts, music, old radio dramas: it’s all fair game here! Whether you’re digging into a new podcast about something that interests you, revisiting a classic album or bumping a game soundtrack you recently added to your work rotation, please, share what you’ve been listening to below.
While posting, please keep in mind the following:
Please include content warnings if the media has triggering content that would warrant a warning for particularly sensitive topics.
Please use the spoiler tags for any discussion that might spoil the story of a narrative podcast
If you would like to talk about any listenable media in depth, feel free to create a topic for it.
As a Canadian and a music-lover, I always feel something of a duty to explore at least some of the year’s Polaris Prize nominees in anticipation of the prize getting handed out in September. I’ve only just started with this year’s batch of nominees, but as a result I’ve been returning to Alvvays’ Blue Rev, one of my favourite albums of last year, and oh boy does it still hold up. Perfect, beautifully melodic shoegaze, expansive and layered, never sacrificing emotion for style. Plus, I’ve been playing some American Truck Simulator in my downtime lately, and few songs are a better soundtrack for driving through an open desert or winding mountain trail than “After the Earthquake.”
I’ve had a hard time really getting into new music for a while, but apparently what worked was to make it appropriately parasocial in a way my internet-addled brain can cling to. Which is to say I’m down a kpop rabbit hole. My partner is very into BTS, so I’ve been introduced to the genre for a bit via watching some MVs with her and listening to our shared driving playlist, but we went to a Twice concert together back in June (which ruled right up until my car blew a tire on the way home) and actually seeing the real deal live fully hooked me. I’ve listened to a bunch of their discography, my youtube is now mostly full of their concert videos, and I’ve had a great time trying to figure out whose voice is whose when I’m listening to a new song.
I’ve been meaning to check out the podcast Eggplant: The Secret Lives of Games for ages and I now regret taking so long! It started as a pod dedicated to Spelunky hosted by a bunch of game devs but has since branched out to be about them talking to other game devs about the craft, design and their experiences in the field, and while video games is their main focus, they will at times touch on board games, escape rooms and even reality tv. They also occasionally make special five-episode deep dives into specific games, like with Spelunky 2, Kentucky Route Zero and Mutazione.
I’m still going through their archive but they have a ton of cool interviews with indie devs. Some that I particularly enjoyed were the ones with Cosmo D (Betrayal at Club Low, The Norwood Hotel), Xalavier Nelson Jr. (basically a fuckton of games including Hypnospace Outlaw and An Airport For Aliens Currently Run By Dogs), NamaTakahashi (Elechead, interesting to hear from a japanese indie dev!), Tom Francis (Gunpoint, Heat Signature) and Sarah Northway (I Was a Teenage Exocolonist).
I’ve been enjoying the sort of indie prog album from the mid 80s, O De Dun Dun by Ring, originally released on casette, but was been re-released digitally a couple of years ago!
