Last time I was sleepless on the redeye back from Washington to London, I found myself rifling through my mp3 player in an effort to find the most perfect music for staring out of the window as we hurtled through the night sky, towards the dawn on a plane full of sleepy travellers.
I came up with a few candidates, but my two leading contenders were as follows:
Such Great Heights - The Postal Service
Originally discovered via last.fm’s lovely “recommended” feature, there was something about the insistent rhythm and the rather sweet sentiment that seemed fitting to the surreality of transatlantic midnight travel.
She Dreamed the Library Fallen Down - John Avery and Tim Etchells with the voice of Claire Marshall
I heard this once on Late Junction, and then spent ages tracking it down. It’s a haunting piece, consisting of just some simple chords and arpeggios with a woman talking over the top. She’s not telling a story, but delivers a sequence of mental images of a woman’s dream, which seem in themselves almost dreamlike. At 40,000 feet in the night sky, trying to relax in a stuffy plane, listening to this track helped me to escape, conjouring the visual images suggested.
(People in my neighbourhood on Vox can listen to these tracks and read the lyrics over there.)
Given the amount of travelling I’ve got coming up in the first half of next year (3 continents at least), can you suggest good high-altitude listening?
Hi meg :)
Well, seeing as my London/Brighton life means I spend a lot of time sitting on a train looking at the same patch of scenery whizzing by (with varying dergrees of rainfall) I feel like i’m at least partly qualified to make some suggestions…
My first would be “Thursday Afternoon” by Brian Eno:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thursday-Afternoon-Brian-Eno/dp/B0007GFFV6
It’s exactly 61 minutes long, was the first piece of music composed with the CD specifically in mind, and is …well, it’s really rather empty actually. “Nothing happens, frequently” is on of the reviews on the amazon page, and they’re right. It’s like the longest lock-groove you’ve ever heard, and is like some sort of mantra. I put it on at Victoria, i’m normally asleep just past East Croydon. Rah!
The other would be this….
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bryars-Jesuss-Blood-Never-Failed/dp/B0000040UT/ref=pd_sbs_m_h__1/202-0803624-4863807
Legendary. A “found” recording of a homeless man singing a snippet of a religious song; which, when it was found to have perfect pitch, was looped and set to music.
iain
x
Your post is aptly titled, as I find that the right music makes me slide into a strange semi-asleep-yet-awake lucid state. I have passed many an hour this way. Generally, I like downbeat tunes on the plane, like Crustation’s album “Bloom” or Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man.
Also, big ups to last.fm for recommending the Postal Service, I love them. Check out the John Tejada remix of Such Great Heights here
Another of my favorites is their cover of Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds”. Apparently, its from the soundtrack of a movie called “Wicker Park”, which I’ve never seen (or heard of, for that matter. Check out the video here:
http://www.gloriousnoise.com/links/2004/postal_service-08-18.php
J.
It was a bit of a strange choice, but the last time I flew (which was quite some time ago), I ended up listening to Michael Nyman’s MGV (Musique a Grande Vitesse) for virtually the whole flight. I know it’s based almost unmistakeably on the journey of the French TGV train service, but somehow I’ve found that it works superbly for any travel experience - including London buses and the tube. It’s on the CD of the full Piano Concerto, but do let me know if you want a copy.
I usually stick on something familiar, something that is fairly constant in volume and let my mind drift off.
Suggestion wise… apart from the obvious Massive Attack and ilk… hard to say.
I’d have to say:
Tori Amos - To Venus and Back
Lisa Gerrard/Dead can Dance
Cocteau Twins.
That’s what I’d listen to anyway. Anything else and I’d be lead off the plane in handcuffs.
Last time I flew back from a business trip, New Order’s Elegia from Low-life kicked in just as we flew over a cloudless London.
Sublime.
For trains, nothing beats looking out the window to the Chemical Brothers’ Star Guitar, if only so you can recreat the excellent .
How can I get hold of a copy of ’she dreamed the library falling down’ - Can anybody help? Many thanks. PMac
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