OCEANOFANTICS

What a year it’s been. 

 In the interest of continuing to document what I’ve done, what I’ve loved and where I’m at, here are some of the things that I’ve done and read that have guided me through the past handful of months. 

My work: 

A profile of Destroyer’s Dan Bejar (The Coast) / An interview with Dan Bejar on his voice, his career and the value of solo performance (The Arts Abstract)

A reflection on Basia Bulat, Daniel Caesar and the power of the human voice (The Arts Abstract)

A profile of Eljuri, her brazen music and her compassionate politics (The Coast)

A feature about Thundercat ahead of his performance at the Halifax Jazz Festival (The Coast)

A short profile of the shapeshifting art-rocker Veda Hille (The Coast)

A preview of photographer Meryl McMaster’s Collected Journeys at the Anna Leonowens Gallery (The Coast)

Others’ work: 

The Imposter, CANADALAND’s electric and necessary foray into arts journalism. 

The FADER’s great portrait of Kaytranada ahead of his banner year. 

Everything published by The Creative Independent. In particular: conversations with Kim Drew and Cynthia Daignault. 

Julia-Simone Rutgers on the experience of being a black student on a “progressive,” predominantly white campus. 

Sean Michaels on Mitski’s “Your Best American Girl” and finding new meaning in new music.

In a summer filled with varying profiles of Angel Olsen, Hazel Cills’ sharp and penetrating feature for MTV stood above the rest. 

Sasha Geffen, clear and insightful as always, on the “queer potentialities” of Carly Rae Jepsen.

Emma Healey on loneliness, aloneness and the film WEEKEND. 

Music: 

Angel Olsen’s exquisite My Woman, my favourite album of the year

Mitski’s illuminating and devastating Puberty 2

Daniel Caesar’s sharp ascent to Canadian infamy

The always beautiful and literate Nap Eyes reached new heights on Thought Rock Fish Scale 

Psychic Materials, the jaw-dropping solo debut from Casey Mecija 

Basia Bulat subtly redefined herself and put together her best set of songs ever on Good Advice 

Kaytranada’s pulsing and aching 99.9% 

Hi friends! Here’s a piece that I wrote recently for The Media about challenging the lack of representation in university curricula and developing a practice of self-criticism when relating to the canon. Writing for a publication that I admire about a topic that excites me so much has been hugely inspiring—please give it a read if you have the time.  

Casey Mecija - “We Feel The Same” 

Trust me when I say I’ll be good

I’ll be fucking good 

Beach House - “New Year”

All you ever wanted Is it getting away Visions of a feeling The footsteps at bay You were getting stronger Memories again Now you're open wider It's better this way

In 2015— a year with more personal changes, ups and downs than any other in my life—my relationship with music felt more vital than ever before. I may not have chronicled that relationship with the same energy as previous years, and there is a part of me that worries I might be losing that urge to document my experience. Still, I loved a lot of music this year. And in the interest of documenting that love and capturing this moment in my life, here are the five songs that I held nearest to me this year:

Braids — “Happy When” 

Art built of shattered fragments. Moments of sound and feeling pieced together to form an image of isolation and expectation that captures so much of what I felt this year. Braids has always excelled at creating beguiling sonic sculptures; here, they pair that talent with a sense of anxiety and the acute realization that happiness isn’t a moment to anticipate, an event to attend, or a person to meet. Coming to terms with this realization—thanks in no small part to the beauty, truth and empathy found in every second of this song—was one of the greatest things I learned in 2015.

Carly Rae Jepsen — “Run Away With Me” 

Undeniable.

Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment — “Sunday Candy” 

Few things filled me with more joy this year than the embrace of this song and its tireless heartbeat. 

Majical Cloudz — “Downtown” 

Here is a singer singing words so true, so direct, with little more than a sparse background of electronics and soft lighting to distract from their meaning. And here I am, reminded through only song and eye contact of the depth of my own emotions. 

PWR BTTM — “I Wanna Boy” 

I’ve never received a physical mixtape, nor have I ever crafted one of my own. Still, I love making mixes and playlists—arranging songs just so, capturing a feeling with music, even imagining what a hypothetical tape jacket for a certain mix would look like. I also love seeing other people’s mixes: Andrew Patterson, a poet here in Halifax, included a handful of gems on his (dearly missed) blog The Mangroves Go Quiet, which was a formative influence for me as both a writer and a listener. I used to seek out the songs that Andrew compiled and listen to them in order, a hobby that led to some musical discoveries that have stuck with me to this day. Equally important was the order of the tracks—there is a certain magic in the way that songs from different artists meet up and bump elbows in ways they were never intended to do. 

Today, as snow falls in Halifax for the first time this season and I sink deeper into an end-of-the-year lull, I felt like collecting a group of songs to soundtrack my contemplation and reflective writing. From an acoustic welcome to winter by Jon Mckiel to a slow dance with Beach House, this mix captures where my mood is at as we approach the darkest days of the year—a mix for me, a mix for you, a mix for now. 

Jon Mckiel — “Snow Owls”

You’ll Never Get To Heaven — “By This River” 

Peter Broderick — “Not At Home” 

Low — “In Metal” 

Grouper — “Towers” 

Long Beard — “Hates the Party”

Yo La Tengo — “Tears Are in Your Eyes” 

Moses Sumney — “Seeds” 

Dog Day — “Before Us” 

Yo La Tengo - “Last Days of Disco” 

I had the pleasure of spending the weekend in Sackville, New Brunswick for the tenth annual/my first SappyFest. I saw lots of music from many artists that I love—sets by Jennifer Castle, PUP, ANAMAI, Mozart’s Sister, DIANA, Angel Olsen, Nap Eyes, Les Hay Babies and Jon Mckiel were all wonderful, as was an immersive performance called The Water Thief. 

We ate our sandwiches and looked at each other through the air in front of our faces. It looked clear but maybe it wasn’t. We thought hard about this while we drank the provided soda. This could change everything.