indie coffee shop, yoga studio, weed dispensary, vegan cafe, boutique pilates studio soundtrack

the sound of today’s indie rock (for wellness-oriented consumer products & services)

• # of Tracks: about 150

• Length: 9 hours+

• Themes: catchy songs & earworm production choices ~ young pop energy ~ technically not commercial pop music (for the most part) ~ chill lo-fi beats you might hear on in-store radio programming ~ music from everywhere and nowhere as if America, England & Canada defined global culture ~ the sound of a low-key Uniqlo or Urban Outfitters franchise in the cool neighborhood of a big urban center

• Link: spoti.fi (Spotify) — apple.co (Apple Music) — bit.ly (YouTube)

“Would you like a lavender CBD tonic to recover from your hot yoga?” the attendant says, looking perky¹ in their outfit. (Possibly Lululemon, but maybe something a bit more niche: Outdoor Voices perhaps?²)

This is the soundtrack for that interaction. This is music for curated consumption. This is music for contemporary wellness. This is music that remains sanguine and untroubled (in troubled times). I’ll briefly get to what I think about all that at the end of this introduction.

But first I want to offer an apology: In an ideal world, I share a new mixtape every 4 to 6 weeks. This one is arriving a full season since the previous installment. I started this new collection about one year ago and it’s been more or less “finished” for some time. But this mixtape is filled with bright/warm/optimistic type music, and we’ve been living through dark/cold/dull/deflated times. So I dithered…

And yet…

I won’t blame the delay in sending you this mixtape on the increasingly uncontrolled spread of the Covid-19 virus. I won’t blame the BA.5 variant for harshing my mood and derailing my productivity. I won’t blame the escalating levels of violence wrought by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I won’t blame the U.S. Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade. I won’t blame American gun laws or the racist shooter in Buffalo, New York…or the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas…or the shooting that disrupted a 4th of July parade in the affluent Chicago suburb of Highland Park for which no clear motive has been established.³

I won’t blame the fact that on April 26th, a day before I posted my last mixtape, New York State felt the need to pass a law expressly prohibiting the possession or sale of ghost guns and “unfinished” or unserialized frames.⁴ I won’t blame the assassination of the former Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, committed with a bulky, handmade gun reminiscent of the kind of 3D printed weapons that New York law was intended to suppress.⁵ I won’t blame the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, about a month ago, that says open carry should be legal in New York City where I live.

I won’t blame the 1,700 deaths attributed to the heat wave (climate change!) in Europe, primarily in Spain in Portugal.⁶ I won’t even blame Drake and Beyonce for both releasing new tracks that sound like low-key house music. (In fact, Drake’s new song “Sticky” is kind of awesome so I’ve put it on this mix.) To quote my favorite passage in the writer Lorrie Moore’s short story “Real Estate” here’s how I think we should feel about all that’s going on out there:

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

The actual quote goes on for quite bit longer but we have limited space because this is just a blog post, so let me take a different, less unhinged tack…

I haven’t really suffered from depression since my teen years. Whatever sturm und drang of current events swirls around, I tend to stay hopeful, optimistic even — to stay gold Ponyboy stay gold — to keep my eye on brighter horizons because the future is all that awaits us so we best embrace it, right?

So that’s sort of what this playlist is about. It’s about my reluctant acceptance that life sometimes requires a soundtrack that might align with the purchase of CBD tinctures and circulation-enhancing massage rocks made of jade; or whatever shit they sell on the hipster high street in Brooklyn and London and Toronto and Sydney and Los Angeles; or whatever shit they’ll end up selling on the wellness vertical Amazon.com is sure to launch now that they’re entering the Healthcare Space.

But ok, here’s the thing: I actually don’t like how staying sane and healthy is increasingly linked to buying stuff. I don’t like how the twined cultures of wellness and consumption creates a bubble universe in which an illusion is created. In this bubble universe there are plenty of cacti and cannabis products but there are no ghost guns or kids and families starving because America will not raise the minimum wage. In this bubble universe, there are lots of remedies but no solutions to real world problems. In this bubble universe there is no real world.

I won’t go so far as to suggest people should wear handmade loin cloths rather than Lululemon. I realize that not everyone has the opportunity to spend time in an off-grid log cabin enjoying the simple things like I sometimes do. I won’t go so far as to suggest we should find a way to shut down Goop and develop consumer products more….useful….than GOOPGLOW Microderm Instant Glow Exfoliator ($125 USD) or GOOPGENES All-in-One Super Nutrient Face Oil ($98 USD).⁷

And yet: I am maybe suggesting that when you need a bubble universe, let music take you there instead of a company trafficking in nutraceuticals or a small businesses with over-the-top barista concoctions involving anti-inflammatory turmeric. Music can help. Music is powerful. And that’s what this new playlist tries to do: Enhance your power with art of an ephemeral variety. Not give you stuff but fill your heart with sound.

This music is about capturing the essence of these niche consumer goods and presenting it in a medium that is less spendy and specious. It’s about turning that essence of healthy vibrance into a sound and a feeling. Or, as Claes Oldenburg (RIP) put it in his riff-slash-rant “I Am For…” (1964):

I am for the art of sailing on Sunday, and the art of red-and-white gasoline pumps.

I am for the art of bright blue factory columns and blinking biscuit signs.

I am for the art of cheap plaster and enamel.

I hope when your feet feel fused to this fallen world, this mixtape creates a bit of light and space in your head and chest. As always, thanks for listening…

Spotify version

Apple version

click here —> 

YouTube version

click here —> ▶️

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The playlist includes songs such as…

^ Dijon: “Talk Down”

^ Faye Webster: “Cheers”

^ Christian Lee Hutson: “Northsiders”

^ Wet Leg: “Wet Dream”

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Extra Points:

• Kieran Hebden’s 155 hour sound bath: This playlist by DJ Kieran Hebden—better known as Four Tet—has been a long-term subject of fascination. Titled with an incomprehensible string of emojis, I’ve returned to it multiple times over the past 3 or 4 years, certainly more so than any other artist-curated mix. It’s minimalist at times; usually beat-based and body moving; yet always…gently unfamiliar and constantly flirting with abstraction. Detailing why it’s so great is a bit of a challenge, but Pitchfork just did an interview with Kieran about it. So now is a good moment to dive in with some readily available context from the person who made it.

• Martin Beck's contribution to the Front Triennial: One of my closest friends Prem Krishnamurthy curated a big ass exhibit that’s taken over pretty much every arts institution in the city of Cleveland this summer. If you can make your way to the midwest by October 2nd you should visit! But if you aren’t able, here is a souvenir from the great but problematic state of Ohio—an MP3 mixtape by artist Martin Beck—an extension of his very AHB’s Goodies-like project in which he shares occasional mixtapes with friends. Beck’s selections include Khrunagbin—a very on-brand, indie coffee shop-type band—but overall it is more eclectic than that, including a ton of vibey global music of the sort that I love but am reluctant to share on my own playlists.⁸

• AHB’s Today Show: A reminder I’m consistently updating this playlist with a selection of records and songs that have piqued my interest recently. It’s made up of music that I’m dead set on giving close, undistracted attention to, or that I’ve already had a profound experience with recently.

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People Who Died: Claes Oldenburg — Bob Neuwirth — Earl McGrath

Let’s try introducing a new feature to this blog. I’m calling it People Who Died⁹ — a simple list of folks whose lives we’ve lost since the last installment who I find particularly inspiring. I suspect it’s better to keep this section minimal— providing just one link about each of them. If you want to know more, use Google or something?

Earl McGrath with his custom knives-in-back blazer

1. …in a strong, healthy, athletic and well-maintained but only via a whole food diet and isometric exercise kind of way. This is not a prurient or (fully) sexualized perky. To be clear.

2. For many years I thought Outdoor Voices might be a place where one picked up writing and stationary supplies — like some riff off Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” only if Virginia Woolf wrote it.

3. “He was in a 4chan bubble of ironic Nazi and anime memes, fascist-inspired music, and mass shooter ideation that basically consumes nothing but irony and sadness,” says Mike Rothschild, author of a book on QAnon, in one article unpacking the events in Highland Park on the 4th of July.

4. Get a link to the PDF of the New York ghost gun provision here.

5. If you noted only the assassination not the homemade weapon aspect of this killing, look closer. As if plain ol’ fashioned gun violence didn’t give us enough to worry about.

6. 1,700 is the number dead last time I checked. I probably won’t check that number again. And yes this is something of a callback reference to my last mixtape.

7. Apparently David Foster Wallace is not actually dead; he’s in a cubicle in Santa Monica (or Marina Del Rey?) writing copy for Gwyneth Paltrow’s pseudoscience lifestyle brand.

8. I don’t include this kind of music because I lack in-depth knowledge of the scenes from which such music emerges. Martin’s work allows me to just kick back and enjoy his curatorial instincts. Thank you Martin!

9. Yeah of course this is what I’m referencing: