WC interviews 9 year-old Bradley Brennan, a dinosaur aficionado

WINTER is a time for retreat, interior spaces, introspection, dark creativity and hibernation…if one could in theory actually sleep for an extended time.  For me, this particular winter in early 2019 has been one of cyclical sleep with the teething cycles of my infant son, of seemingly infinite time spent in the wee hours between soothing a suffering child and listening to the sounds of the season outside: rain tapping the window, the wind off the bay whistling through the shuddering trees, the odd hailstorm pelting the icy ground in staccato bursts of rhythm.  The music of the universe when the world is quiet enough to hear it if you listen…

This season’s late-night musical meanderings honor the winter spirit of melancholy, quiet spaces in music looking inside yet reaching around the world: from Iceland to Antarctica, from music crafted at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan to a recording for performance in a lighthouse, from classic jazz and soul singers reimagined to an angelic intersection of Welsh harp and Senegalese kora, along with other soundtracks for the insomniac soul.

In this dream…you are in a winter’s cabin, socked in till the snow melts, as the elements rattle the windows, howl across the roof, shake the foundations, inside all is calm and cozy.  You sit in a bundle of warmth, gazing into the flicker of a fire, watching the shadows of memories dance upon the walls around you, as you wait on...a rider to make it through the storm, the arrival of spring, or perhaps the discovery of something that was there inside all along.

FIRE PLACES - Winter 2019
Jonsi & Alex - Still Sleep (Liminal Mix) - Liminal
Zoe Keating - Icefloe - Snowmelt (EP)
Max Richter with Tilda Swinton - The Blue Notebooks - The Blue Notebooks
Moshimoss - Into The Ice/Long Night - Hidden Tape No. 66
amiina - Perth - The Lighthouse Project
Jose Gonzalez - 07.11.11 - Hälsningar Fran Skogen (soundtrack)
Seckou Keita & Catrin Finch - Cofiwch Dryweryn - SOAR
Zero 7 - Monday Night - Simple Things (special edition)
Alif Tree - Deadly Species - French Cuisine
Hiatus - Defeat - Defeat (EP)
Massive Attack with Hope Sandoval - The Spoils - The Spoils/Come Near Me (single)
The Cinematic Orchestra - To Believe - To Believe (single)
Dinah Washington & Max Richter - This Bitter Earth/On The Nature Of Daylight - The Blue Notebooks (15 Years)
Big Red Machine - Forest Green - Big Red Machine
Mt. Wolf - Exit (with Burgs) - Aetherlight
Rickard Javerling - Sun valley - The Valleys
Garth Stevenson - The Southern Sea - Flying
Cheryl Leonard - Storm On Gamage Point - Chattermarks

Fire Places

In my last Dream Feed, I collaborated with Heather Love, a global documentenarian of audio soundscapes from her travels to different corners of our Earth. We were also co-members of a local Listening Lab dedicating complete attention to music so often a background to something else we are doing.  I appreciate the spirit of anyone who devotes time to sharing the amazing everyday sounds that surround us everywhere that we so often miss, caught up in our own hustle.  Of course, our reality is different now that we are largely confined to our home environments, waiting out the viral storm outside.  So it feels like a good moment to offer the balm of music in these edgy times from our first guest Dream Feed, a moving journey of sound.  Here's Heather:

INTRO
There's not much to know about me other than to say I'm a human like any other human who is, as Adam Phillips writes, "dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear." Developing self-love has felt elusive and chaotic until I began to focus on tolerating the experience of being myself. In bearing my aliveness, I surf sensations in my energy body, I doodle maps of the abyss, and on the days where I find myself anesthetizing instead of being brave, I laugh and double down on whatever (mostly-harmless) hedonistic comfort I've landed in. As I've learned to tolerate and love myself, so has it become effortless to tolerate and love every being. To no longer watch from the sidelines, but to bear withness in all things.

This Dream Feed, Bearing Withness, is dedicated to the intensity of the human experience. We incarnate, we think we have a clue, we realize nobody has a clue, we forgive ourselves, we love ourselves, we love the world, we are the world, we die unto ourselves, and we bear ourselves again. I give thanks to my teachers and lovers and friends. I especially give thanks to Ram Dass, who passed away this past December 22nd. In bearing his own aliveness with so much love and laughter, he gave us a model for how to do the same for ourselves. "Love everyone, and tell the truth." "We're all just walking each other home." "Be here, now." And I give thanks to you, dear listener, for the gift of bearing your aliveness that we may bear withness together for the rest of the ride.

TRACKLIST
They Dream By Day - Pruina - Pruina
Kid Koala - The Observable Universe - Music To Draw To: Satellite
ODESZA - Kusanagi-Instrumental - In Return (Deluxe Edition)
Mt. Wolf - Red - Red (Deluxe Edition)
Mike Monday - When The Rain Falls - Smorgasbord
Donso - Waati - Waati-EP
Oumou Sangaré - Mogoya - Mogoya
Konradsen - Baby Hallelujah - Saints And Sebastian Stories
Jay Electronica - Better In Tune With The Infinite
Josh Ritter - Dreams - Gathering
Ibrahim Maalouf - Beirut - Diagnostic
Sussan Deyhim - Beshno Az Ney / Windfall - City Of Leaves
Djivan Gasparyan - I Will Not Be Sad In This World - I Will Not Be Sad In This World
East Forest & Ram Dass w/ Krishna Das & Javad Butah - I Am Loving Awareness (Christopher Willits Rework) - Reworks
Moby w/ Damien Jurado - Almost Home - Innocents
Jon Hopkins - Abandon Window - Immunity
Maree Docia - At Last, Sunrise - We Were Legends
Essie Jain - O, I Love You - Until The Light Of Morning

WC interviews 9 year-old Bradley Brennan, a dinosaur aficionado

The Truth Depot

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