EP. 22
highbeams and sweater cuff
Woahhhh Earbuzzz is back in your inbox, thank goodness. Happy to be here for episode 22, and excited to get these mixes off my shelf and into your ears! I’m always always always assembling new stuff, so even if I miss an episode like I did this past week, you can always find something on my Spotify. Check it out if you ever miss me between eps! Now, SCROLL!
If Substack just isn’t enough, you can follow me on Spotify, too. Over there, you can follow my releasing and building of new mixes, almost daily. You can also access my full catalogue of public mixes. Take a gander, and if there’s one you’d like to hear about, let me know.
highbeams
i spent a lot of time walking around at night in college. My college years were complicated, twisted and turned by the Covid pandemic,1 and for most of my time at my small Ohio school, I was deeply, deeply unwell.
winters in central Ohio can be grey, tend to be brutal, and are always long. Darkness comes quickly and gleefully overstays its welcome. January’s nightscapes found me waddling over patches of black ice behind residence halls as I made frivolous treks to and fro across campus. I liked to walk late, and I preferred to walk alone with my earbuds, of course, at full volume. It’s so odd thinking about it now, every memory stained with a faint yet inexplicably present feeling of being hunted for sport. I have no idea why.
all that aside, my music was frequently something angrily melancholic. Miserable and soooo fucking annoyed about it. This mix is a modern construction of what that version of me would look like if she hadn’t ever gone to therapy - girl, get help. This mix is jazzy but dismal. Largely minor key2 and a mix of acoustic, orchestral, digital sounds that converge to make quite the existential mix. If you could hear headlights of cars reflecting off puddles in the street, it’d sound like this mix. A private concert in a dark planetarium. It tastes like copper and black coffee, feels like velvet and a deep toothache, and smells like leather and used car. It’s a good nighttime mix, if a bit sobering. Give it a shot on your next evening wander.
sweater cuff
it’s not easy to listen to that drippy, existential ache stuff when the sun is up, even if it’s behind complete cloud cover. Luckily, the American Midwest excels at capturing the midwestern winter malaise in song, and then making it mad catchy. Midwest emo is a neat ecosystem of bar shows and guerrilla concerts at house parties and the like. I thought no one could do it like us, no one could match the desolate bearing it displayed by people with gauges in Peoria, Illinois. But I was unfamiliar with Australia’s game.
it’s largely, mysteriously, Australian. Not universally and certainly unintentionally, but interesting all the same. It doesn’t have the Midwestern pop-punk lurch to it, but it has a similar headrush, with an odd Eastern Bloc dredge to it to boot. It’s a mix like a heavy fog that settles on your shoulders. It’s a cloudy day sonified. It tastes like ice chips and Raising Cane’s sauce. It smells like a cotton sweater pulled out of storage for the first time since last year, needing to wear it before you get a chance to wash it. It feels like a fraying sweater cuff scratching your chin, like air so cold it hurts to inhale, like wind so sharp it’s impossible to exhale. And still, the sun rises.
Round Up
highbeams: existential, dismal, grey, wet socks
sweater cuff: aussie indie rock, sweater rock, midwest winter, liberal arts
That’s all for today, folks. If you’ve made it this far, leave a like to let me know you’re enjoying Earbuzzz. And, if you haven’t already, please consider subscribing! I send out new mixes every Monday.
If you have artist, album, or song recommendations, leave a comment below and I’ll check it out.
I’ll be back next week with more music. Thanks for reading.
Lots of love, always,
Slim
among other things
I’m not sure I’ve ever truly expressed my love for minor key. I LOVE!!! Minor key. It sounds so mysterious and spooky and I am a lifelong lover of the mysterious and spooky.
Exactly the vibe I’ve been feeling this past week!