Now Playing: October 2022

Our October edition of Now Playing features CD skips, playlists stuck on re-re-repeat, hits of nostalgia, and animal songs, all from our contributors!

brittny crowell

I’m attempting (poorly) to write a golden shovel using a line from Cameo’s “Why Have I Lost You.” One of my favorite people in the world was my Aunt Donna, my dad’s sister. Her house was the spot we all congregated to on the regular and this song was on a CD she would always play. The song used to skip at a particular moment at the end and I still anticipate it when I hear it to this day. She and that CD are gone now, and though I continue to listen to the song frequently, it's not the same without the skip or her sweet face laughing across the spades table. 

Nathan Willis

The Rural Alberta Advantage make sad songs and turn them into catchy, energetic anthems. At least they did in 2009 when their album Hometowns came out, which is where I have been spending the bulk of my listening time with them so far.

I hadn’t heard of The Rural Alberta Advantage until they recently showed up in a Spotify-generated playlist. Since then, I have had a handful of their songs in heavy rotation. There would be more, but every time I move on to another song, it lands on repeat for however long before moving on to the current driving/writing/cooking playlist.

Songs I keep going back to: The Ballad Of The RAA, Don’t Haunt This Place, In The Summertime, White Lights

Rob Roensch (he/him)

I try to listen to lots of new music, and inevitably I find I’m drawn to music that reminds me ofwhat I listened to when I was 17. To that end, I love Horsegirl’s “Dirtbag Transformation (StillDirty).” The video is what it felt like to be a teenager (the good parts) condensed into threeminutes:

Delta N.A.

Recently we walked on the hills, in the grape fields of our land, the sky seemed made of bubbles while in the clouds a mirror reflected our souls. In the reflex two rams were ululating over our shoulders,they were so beautiful that we started to cry and the tears felt down became fawns that were running free to infinity.