Category: Music

Enjoying 9 Dead Alive by Rodrigo y Gabriela

Guitar player

One of our many, many Slack channels at Automattic is one that focuses on great soundtracks, and other instrumental music. We usually share movie, TV, and game soundtracks in the channel.

The other day, I mentioned how I’d love to find more music like Cody Francis’ “Mountain Air” –

I really enjoy this track, but none of Francis’ other music on Spotify seems to be quite as good. One of my colleagues suggested another option – Rodrigo y Gabriela, an awesome guitar duo.

I dove into a recent album, 9 Dead Alive, and it’s terrific! Check this out:

I love how you can watch artists perform, and it adds a new dimension to their music. Here’s the duo playing “The Soundmaker” live:

If you’re interested in some of their story, it’s also worth listening to their 2014 Spotify Sessions performance where they both play, and are interviewed about their work:

The reason why Rodrigo y Gabriela came up in a channel about soundtracks is that they also performed for Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides“:

Now that I know this, I think I need to listen to that soundtrack again! I also think that this music could be great running music (I’ll try it as an alternative to my usual podcasts).

unsplash-logoFeatured image by Jefferson Santos

Keeping track of my media diet

This idea of tracking my media diet really appeals to me:

Just like last year, I kept track of almost everything I read, watched, listened to, and experienced in my media diet posts.

Jason Kottke

I follow a few people who do this too, sometimes pretty publicly. I’m not sure that I’d want to share everything I consume, but I do like the thought of capturing, and aggregating everything.

I’m just not too sure how to pull it all together, if I were to do this.

My favourite song today is Like Gold

Headphones on a microphone stand

Although it’s not the first time I’ve listened to Vance Joy’s song “Like Gold“, it stands out for me today. I like how the track progresses, and carries you along to the end. I really enjoy it.

I found a live performance in Portland, that I also enjoyed:

unsplash-logoFeatured image by Paulette Wooten

This song goes well with the smell of apples and cinnamon

My wife baked an apple crumble for us this cold and rainy afternoon. As the smell of apples and cinnamon filled it apartment, this song, Mountain Air by Cody Francis, was playing on Spotify:

As song and smell pairings go, this is a good one!

Update: Here’s what that smell was all about:

  • My wife did some baking over the weekend …
  • My wife did some baking over the weekend …

Discovering Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist

It’s a pretty chilly, rainy weekend so we’ve had a pretty laid back weekend at home with our kids.

My wife and I re-watched the sci-fi classic, Serenity, for the nth time (still awesome after 13 years).

Afterwards, I switched over to some music and, instead of picking a favourite playlist, I opted for the Discovery Weekly playlist on Spotify. I haven’t listened to it before, and I wish I had done so earlier.

I don’t know any of the music we’re listening, but I’m enjoying most of it. I guess that’s the idea. 😊

Great Spotify playlist to relax and unwind with

Window with the word Relax

I really like this Relax & Unwind playlist on Spotify. Aside for it’s obvious purpose, I like it as a general purpose/background music/atmosphere playlist:

unsplash-logoFeatured image by Clem Onojeghuo

The Aquaman soundtrack was released today, and I’m enjoying it

The Aquaman soundtrack by Rupert Gregson-Williams was released today, and I just found it on Spotify:

I’ve literally listened to two tracks so far, and it doesn’t seem like it includes the music we heard in the trailer is in the soundtrack. Just the same, just based on “What Could Be Greater Than a King?“, I think this will be on heavy rotation for me.

Danny Elfman’s Batman theme in the Justice League soundtrack

I thought I’d listen to Danny Elfman’s Justice League soundtrack again this morning, and noticed a familiar theme while listening to the track “The Final Battle” at about 1:12:

It’s familiar because Elfman probably drew on his theme from the Michael Keaton Batman movie themes. Listen to this track from Batman, titled “Attack of the Batwing“:

It comes out pretty clearly in “Batman Theme Reprise“, too:

I’m not as much a fan of Danny Elfman lately, but I love hearing these throwbacks to this soundtrack that I really enjoyed back in the day.

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