Now Playing: November 2020

In November’s edition of Now Playing, our contributors have more recommendations to get you through, as one of them puts it, “the dumpster-fire times.” Their recent interests run the gamut from choral music to board games—something for everyone.

Claire Rudy Foster

The last thing I listened to is Arvo Pärt: "Choral and Organ Music." This album is a plainsong combination of voices and instruments, and the compositions use "tintinnabuli," a musical style invented by Pärt that evokes Gregorian chant; voices, used like bells. I miss so many things about pre-pandemic life, and one of them is live music. Singing is supposed to be very dangerous now; breathing and projecting in a contained space spreads COVID-19 germs. Listening to holy minimalist music eases my loneliness for choral music. Hearing the individual singers, within a whole, is comforting. It makes me feel as though time has folded and I exist in another century, where every body is an instrument, capable of carrying a tune.

Gabrielle Griffis

I’ve been listening to my own music lately. If you enjoy songs inspired by deep wells of sadness, windswept landscapes, and trees, these jams are for you. You can listen to my songs at gabriellegriffis.bandcamp.com/music.

Adele Elise Williams

So. I’ve been gorging myself on Neobaroque film for a Grad school project, and while much of it stays way over my head, I can’t stop thinking about Raúl Ruiz’s “City of Pirates” (available straight up and ad free on YouTube). It’s permissively bizarre and visually immense (think Magritte, Borges, Arcimboldo) and more or less plotless. During a year of epic unrest, it was a nice break from reality, from responsibility (if just briefly), to be honest. 

Buckle up. Take a ride with Raúl.

Kate Felix

I have been listening to a weekly livestream by “Jonathan Byrd and the Pickup Cowboys” at The Kraken in Chapel Hill, NC. I have been feeling adrift in the endless uncertainty of the pandemic and these dudes who continue to play their weekly gig to a videographer and an empty house are one of the only things I have been able to depend on since the dumpster-fire times began. They give me faith that, somewhere over the smoky horizon, the good old days of sharing drinks and invading people’s personal space still exist, and sooner than I think, they might just ride back into town.

Teresa Meier

So I just finished listening to the fourth book in the "Outlander" series, which I'm totally enjoying. And I got dominated in a game of Bananagrams last night. I like the part where I get to yell bananas.