Valentine's Day: Dissociative & Ambient Pop Playlist

[myoung5]

Here is my playlist and my thoughts on each track. Let me know if I should continue this series. Sharing it for you lonely souls out there like myself.
Zelienople: Hold You Up

https://zelienople.bandcamp.com/track/hold-you-up-2

A cascade of feelings and memories haunt me when I listen to this track like staring at my reflection in a waterfall. I love the immersive, sun-soaked ambience, and smoked out meditative guitars. The dust particles illuminated by the sunlight bleeding faintly through the curtains. A perfect soundtrack for driving alone on the coastline before passing out on the beach at night.

HTRK: Reverse Deja Vu

https://htrk.bandcamp.com/track/reverse-d-j-vu

Suffocated by vaporous MDMA textures, velvety guitars, hypnagogic lush pads, and dubby 808 minimal bass grooves, the track is a beautiful marriage of R&B, folk, and downtempo. This music evokes images of wilting petals, traveling windswept roads during twilight, and modern ennui. If you enjoy Slowdive Pygmalion you'll love this.

Slowmotiondancer: Chat Distant Police Sirens

https://slowmotiondancer.bandcamp.com/t ... ice-sirens

Poignant R&B ballads and impressionistic cloud rap. This one is certainly the oddball on the list. For some reasons, it gives me SOPHIE vibes but on downers.

Coby Sey: Eve (Anwummer​ɛ​)

https://cobysey.bandcamp.com/track/eve-anwummer

Sparse piano meditation, crooning vocals, and rainfall ASMR calming sensations. I found his music on a NTS mix and I haven't regretted it since. His music is very UNIQUE and shares similar aesthetics and eccentricities to UK artists like Tirzah and Dean Blunt. Coby Sey's music channels different frequencies from golden age trip hop, electronica, grime, R&B, and post-punk. Quite frankly, artists like this from the UK are inspiring because they're pioneering a whole new wave and sound.

Danny Brown: Bass Jam

https://dannybrown.bandcamp.com/track/bass-jam

I'll admit that this is my first time checking out Danny Brown and I'm very impressed by his artistic ingenuity. This track is probably the best closing track on an album I've heard so far this year. It is a stellar and immaculate fusion of ambient pop and gauzy R&B. I'm totally speechless. The bass rhythm and atmosphere on this track is utterly pristine and angelic. It feels like a sweet farewell to a closing chapter in one's life. I just noticed that this album Quaranta alongside Kelela's Raven is both on Warp Records. This album will be remembered as a future classic.

Tujiko Noriko: Land Next To Me

https://tujikonoriko1.bandcamp.com/trac ... next-to-me

Tujiko Noriko's music is difficult to categorize and falls somewhere between the lines of cerebral and intimate pop. Her music is delicately-crafted and colourful: it combines elements of electronica, folk, dream pop. I rather avoid the oversimplification of a Japanese Bjork. It feels like an inaccurate and superficial attempt to diminish her sound. This track is both tender and nostalgic just hear it yourself. It also is vaguely reminiscent of Frank Oceans Blonde.

This Mortal Coil: Barramundi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2zhmn1evPw

A timeless classic from one of my favorite releases on 4AD. This album helped forged the template and crystallize the signature sound of 4AD during the eighties alongside the Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance. This is dream pop and goth at its best: transcendent and heartbreaking. I love this instrumental track; it is both otherworldly and ethereal. It combines elements of pop, modern classical, and even Eastern music.

Robag Wruhme: Prognosen Bomm

https://robagwruhme.bandcamp.com/track/prognosen-bomm

This style of dance music fills my soul. Intricate and organic percussion, delicate and melancholic piano loops, and airy samples: a unique blend of pop, ambient, jazz, and minimalism. This track is pure class and of course originates from Cologne, Germany. If you enjoy this I suggest checking out the music label KOMPAKT or Aphex Twin.

Arto Lindsay: Ridiculously Deep

https://artolindsay.bandcamp.com/track/ ... sly-deep-2

Whimsical yet claustrophobic pop, bossanova, and hip-hop adjacent hooks. Break out the wine for this one -- deep resounding ~~~

Crystal Winds: Maybe What You Do Comes Back On You

https://aotns.bandcamp.com/track/maybe- ... ack-on-you

Sophisticated and blissful soul. I am always seeking out this kind of hypnagogic sound similar to Sade. It comforts my soul and medicates my depression.

Klara Lewis: Us

https://klaralewis.bandcamp.com/track/us

Although this track is the most leftfield and abstract on my list, beneath its murkiness and fragmentation, there is a ethereal and tranquil quality to the music. If I could describe its style, I'd say some combination of field recordings, electroacoustic tapestries, and ghostly pop music from the ether. Give me a break, I am trying to be sincere without sounding pretentious. The track interestingly begins with a jubilant applause before it abruptly transitions to a jarring, surreal, and dubby rhythm layered with timestretched vocal samples and symphonic drones. Like the album artwork, the sounds and rhythms are very processed and diluted. They've become smeared like silhouetted and vague sketches and shapes suspended in the distance. Compositionally, the sound design is so immersive and rich; it invites you to a cavernous dream where you can lull yourself to sleep and be enhanced by its mysticism. This the kind of music that creates its own storytelling through the sounds and perhaps make sense of the intangible in art and music. It's not for everyone, but cheers!