Optipess

I guess it’s safe to say I’m REALLY into music, and in turn also the excessive but obligatory constructing of various lists. This particular one of the “Desert Island Five” variety consists of not necessarily my “five favourite albums ever”, but the five ones I’d be happily content being stuck with for the rest of eternity. If I had brought some food as well, that is. Oh, and here’s the entire list:

Radiohead – OK Computer
Probably the one album that has meant the most to me. I might not listen to it as much as I once used to, but still, it has shaped me and my musical taste into what it is today. A line could probably be drawn between everything I now listen to and OK Computer, and in most cases that line would be entirely direct and concisely short. But not only has it shaped my musical taste, without it even I would’ve ended up completely different, someone else somewhere else.
(listen)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
Hope. This album is entirely about hope. It’s about seeing glimmers of absolute beauty in even the bleakest of moments. Often classified as a chamber rock soundtrack to the apocolypse, this album also provides a monumental and glorious backdrop to everyday occasions of seemingly mundane capacity. It infuses nostalgia into the present, makes you long for an unlikely future, makes you remember events you’ve never experienced. And it gives you hope. With this album loudly playing, the stars high above that desert island would shine even brighter.
(listen)

Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts of the Great Highway
For me, Mark Kozeleks The Great Highway represents every dusty road branching across the United States, every interwoven and intersected path through a timeless state of eternity. The Ghosts are everything we’ve left behind, available to haunt us at every opportunity. This album is about being utterly and completely alone in the biggest of worlds.
(listen)

Stars of the Lid – The Tired Sounds of…
The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid are just that. Drawn-out ambience reminicent of a sleeping orchestra, their music has the ability to make you question laws of nature you’d previously take for granted. There, on that desert island, it would make the ripples of the ocean move slower, it would make the breeze feel warmer and the sand cooler. It would make the stars crawl across the night sky. If you’re stuck on a desert island for an eternity anyway, why not make it feel even longer.
(listen)

Songs: Ohia – Magnolia Electric Co.
For every moment of complete solitude on that deserted island, the only sure way of connecting out to anyone, anywhere, with eyes closed, hands up and feet apart, would be to listen to Jason Molinas authoratively soothing voice. Right then and there, you’d be firmely placed in a busy street, filled with blue-collar workers hasting across rusted river towns, beneath twisted power lines, pulling the grey skies down for you to be alone with everyone.
(listen)

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