Below you will find descriptions of these Vibes as well as links to YouTube playlists containing hours upon hours of exemplary music for you to enjoy. The playlists suit a range of emotions and are as follows:
A hand-picked list of only the most choice desert rock & space rock. This type of music fits two particular types of situations: the way way way pre-party, and the after-after-after-after-party (frequently one & the same). When you're tearing across the hot orange Earth on a cruise to Palm Springs or Vegas with the throttle wide and the engine sprinting, with all the energy of anticipation and wonderment and awe at our special little place in the big hard universe pressurizing your veins & fluttering your heart & tickling your crotch, this is the music that will ratchet you one unimaginable notch higher past warp speed in to that reality-bending hyperplane of excellence where you skate against the face of god.* If you want to absolutely turbocharge your existence there is no better way to proceed than taking a stroll through the Heavy Meadow.
Like pairs of experiential bookends, these songs feel equally suitable for the leadup to a great adventure as for the denouement of one, when you return from the land of glory and back to worldly concerns like how traffic will be on the 405.
The playlist is largely characterized by "desert rock" though generally present are intersections twixt surf rock's smoothness & virtuosity; heavy metal's hard-edged, big sound; psychedelic music's endless sonic landscapes; and space music's experimental otherworldly trippiness. The playlist is organized with the best examples of this beautiful, harsh, invigorating music at the top. Songs/albums further down the list are more tangentially related to the essential "Medusa Oblong Gato Heavy Meadow™" sound; most entries in the playlist have some notes to describe what particular style they emphasize.
Selections span the Moh's scale, but all are tied together by a focus on expansive soundscapes, instrumental talent or unique sounds, finding harmony in the hardness, intense psychedelic journeys, and generally getting to that "next level" you keep hearing about.
Originally a playlist titled "Pool/Fuzzy" was born: an outgrowth of the Groovy playlist (see below), Pool/Fuzzy was the most nebulous of all the playlists. It began as a place to put things that had Groovy intentions but didn't have the intoxicant sex appeal Groovy demands; "Groovy Lite" (Diet Groovy? Crystal Groovy?). As this playlist continued to find its personality it became music for the late afternoon, when you invite a few close friends over before the full crowd arrives and the real chaos begins. It's for lounging around the pool and getting to cruising speed before the cocktail dresses & casual jackets arrive at the threshold.
All the while this playlist couldn't ever decide exactly what type of pool party it was trying to host, it's protean nature coming from constant vacillation twixt extended casual aquaphiliac excursion, relaxed intermissionary slow-burner, north-of-Sunset pre-orgy kickback, exploratory Ken Kesey homage, and back again. The red thread through it all is that this is music you share with loose people who are your tight friends, equally serving to bring you closer together and to fortify yourselves for the rapturous joyful intensity of the masses that is sure to follow, whether in a few hours or on another day altogether.
As time went on I realized I had no choice but to separate this playlist into two, because it truly did adhere to separate vibes: one representing the rambunctious yet relaxed energy of an anticipatory pre-party to the main event, and another representing a fuzzier, spacier, more permanently-relaxed atmosphere that exists for its own purposes, where the pool is not an accessory but the centerpiece, that is to say the party exists outside time and in the realm of sheer principle.
As such the original archaic-yet-adorable "Pool/Fuzzy" playlist persists merely as a record of the meandering attitudes that spawned & continue to form this ever-growing entity: I have intentionally not re-ordered it, the order of entries being that in which they were added chronologically so as to preserve a document of the weaving mentality that informs it. It reached a point where there were multiple vibes coexisting, undermining the entire purpose of these playlists, and so I've separated them more usefully (by pH, you might even say):
"Pool: Mindwarp" (the acid) covers the ballsier side of pool playlists. Fuzz comes on thick in here. This is music for dawgs and devotchkas, Angels and Pranksters, to really lay back and open your mind (or perhaps your legs). It's a way to be relaxed and be challenged all at once. Soundscapes are layered atop each other and baked into each other; the au-gratin of musical composition. Now serving anyone who wants to get truly far out.
Groovy & Ubergroovy:
The playlist that started it all.
Quick personal note because we flaming narcissists love talking 'bout our selves: the voracious journey of musical consumption upon which I've embarked (and from which I hope never to return) began here, at the top of this playlist. My journeys through synthwave, hard rock, pop, trip-hop, and everything else began by exploring what's groovy, so this playlist holds extra special regard from me.
'Nuff smalltalk, time for the goods: Imagine that zone you get into at the finest parties, where time stands irrelevant, the pure joy of fellowship reigns, and your consciousness exists entirely in the present (you hosts out there know exactly what I'm on about). This is the music you want playing.
But take that feeling further: it needn't happen only at a party. I know for a fact - and I think you do to - that it happens in any sort of place from an alleyway to a mansion, with big crowds or with a single partner, it can even happen alone. It's a purity of being, and if you'll allow the boastful comparison I daresay it's akin to what the Buddha himself was on about. This is music for being happily in-sync with the universe, whether all of it or just the few square feet your self happens to comprise. It's just as well suited to a delicious gathering as it is to cruising the Riviera making a flawlessly clean shift in some sumptuous drop-top Italian machine.
The whole universe is vibrations & oscillation, things happening in rhythm & time: waves on the ocean, materials resonating, economies, sounds, hills on a roller coaster, pleasure of each and every sense over time, dance. And don't get me started on string theory. These - these most Groovy - are the vibrations you want.
Ubergroovy explains its self. If Groovy is the Cadillac of music, Ubergroovy is the Eldorado Brougham. Most everything on Ubergroovy is also in the main playlist, this simply serves as an "all-time grooviest" collection.
Things are winding down, and energy is subdued but by no measure is it low. All the casual folks have left, and the people who remain are the kind who really know how to have fun. The needle continues onward to the centre groove of record after record, the drinks keep flowing yet at a bare trickle. Somehow every thing heats up & cools down at the same time. Reality feels guided by massive forces, yet all of them are in such eloquent balance as to make motion slow. You know this place.
This is music with delicacy suited.
Subtlety rules. Indulge. If you enjoy your trip to Xanadu, stay awhile.
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Aforementioned are playlists of the day, of the journey we all take. Sometimes this journey occurs over a literal day, sometimes over a short hour, sometimes a week, and sometimes years. Below are playlists which suit other Vibes that are not specific to time nor schedule. They are here when you need them, to accompany your life as that lifetime demands.
Chill:These sounds are low-intensity but always invigorating. They mesh smoothly into your life, for times when you move with slow ease, coursing through the world with calm calculation or relaxed comfort. In many cases, the sonic equivalent of morning sex. Like the effect a woman has on a man, these sounds soften but never weaken.
In the city you drive like a madman, alert to every angle, constantly signaling and switching between pedals, shifting up and shifting down and shifting up and shifting down. But on the open road you drive like a different person. Your machine behaves in a way your city friends never get to see. The road isn't a casual fling. The road is a dedication, a long-term relationship with its accompanying ups & downs. The road is vast but it demands intimacy which only trust can forge.
These songs move forward with the gracious unstoppability of a steam train. When you're running in top gear, blazing along at high speed & low revs, Torque is on your side. Let this soundtrack accentuate your journey, you wonderful Lindbergian descendant.
"The car is the closest thing we will ever create to something that is alive."
- Sir William Lyons
"Pop" is obviously broadly applied by nature of its definition. This playlist comprises music that's definitely - and even definitively - 'pop' above all else and simultaneously possesses a distinct level of musicianship. The cynics among you will call this a "guilty pleasure" playlist, composed of all the things you don't want to admit you like even though you love.
Expect happiness, foolishness, silliness, and generally taking shit less seriously than we all-too-frequently find ourselves taking it. Stop giving a damn about that which does does not matter and let your soul smile for no reason. It should be easy, after all, this stuff's actually good.
As the name implies, this is music for moving around the city, be it in your car, riding your bike, or your horse, or what have you. Something about intermittent movement, coursing through reality and all its people at an unpredictable rate with unexpected stops lends itself to a certain type of music. Or, perhaps, the other way around? Your mileage may vary.
Music that helps you to be at peace with your true insignificance in the scale of Infinity.
As humans, we all do this patently foolish thing - even the most intelligent, worldly, or enlightened of us. We draw ourselves, constantly, to finding (or assigning) absolute meaning in the objects and events that populate our universe, even as that flies in the face of the obvious: that not a single bit of it has any inherent meaning whatsoever.
This possessing desire is magnified more than ever in the modern era where we are surrounded by storytelling with all its symbolism, parallels & opposites, and of course the all-important closure, the fiction consumer's equivalent of climactic orgasm, without which he is left with the bluest of emotional balls. Sooner or later all of us come to the understanding that reality doesn't offer closure just because we want its fulfillment. Reality does not provide answers to questions merely because we asked them. And most of all, reality does not have any main characters whose lives are filled with emotional intensity that rises and falls around conveniently-spaced ad breaks, who unwaveringly find true love, and who are guaranteed to continue on to next week's episode.
I have struggled for a long time, and continue to struggle, with being fully present all the time. Like anything else it can be practiced, and in all of living I declare unhesitatingly that it is the highest of all skills. Nonetheless I find myself on casual strolls through innerspace more frequently than I'd prefer. I've become quite cognizant of the fact that it's because I'm looking for something, but I have barely the foggiest idea for what. And here and there I have brief moments of great clarity where I understand that I may not ever find what it is I'm looking for, or that I shall never have a clear vision of what it is, or that it may even so happen that I won't recognize it if I actually do find it. There's even a part of me that knows that the only way to find it is to stop looking, that it isn't anything to be 'found' at all.
In these moments of clarity (which are at first fleeting but become broader and broader each time they are reached, not unlike lucid dreams), all the aforementioned loose ends are of no fearful concern to me. I am only concerned about the journey, not at all about finding some indistinct 'thing.'
Imagine: if you are in a convertible who's best days passed decades ago with your foot to the floor speeding balls-out across the Mexican desert with a small army of criminal henchmen in chase & shooting to kill and a crumb trail of stray hundred-dollar notes flies out of the back seat littering the cracked dirt while the awaiting DEA ahead are almost sure to nab you at the border and your only chance of making it out free rests on the reliability of a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who you know whom you've never met, you are probably going to remember the song that's on the radio. It will probably sound better and richer and deeper than any other song you have ever heard.
Sweeping, high-velocity, articulately-composed, top-shelf tunes that elevate the mind from any depths. There will be lots of crossover with Torque (an extremist might even say Torque & Swollen Hyperspace are related like heavy metal & classical: superficially different flavours of the same fundamental things), for these songs are meant to complement a mind operating in high gear and tempting overdrive. But this is not hard work borne through uncomfortable stress: its power is natural and righteous, with the grace of a cheetah's calculated sprint. Truly excellent for nursing a hangover.
Pinnacles and paramounts of musical composition, regardless of style. It goes without saying that that music and sex are endlessly parallel: there are no rules to arousal, only results. The works that have earned a place in the Royal Outergalactic Symphonik Society span all genres: you'll find classical, rock of all flavours, electronic, pop, jazz, and more. It's frankly unlikely that anyone would love, in the preferential sense, all the music herein, but I personally guarantee that anyone with an open mind will find these compositions to be remarkable achievements.
In many cases I have selected full albums for inclusion in the Royal Outergalactic Symphonik Society, because music is more than just its self - nothing takes place in a vacuum: what makes these albums excellent is their totality, not their individuality. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
These aren't to be taken casually. These are meant to suffocate, to enthrall, to satisfy in ways you didn't know you could be satisfied & ways you didn't know you wanted to be satisfied. Experience Purity of Essence. Surrender. Love.
*I believe this might be what women are on about when they are talking about this multiple orgasm of theirs.
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