#HGPlaylist 23: Rana Ghose ( Reproduce Artists )

023 RanaGhose

It’s almost impossible to introduce Rana Ghose, this week's playlist creator. Because as you will soon see by his own ‘playlist contextualising’ description below, he’s well capable of giving you keen insight into his eccentric inner workings himself.
If you make it through unscathed though, we can vouch for some beautiful choices in song.
Here’s Rana on everything related to this playlist, and then some..
"So, what do you do?" usually generates one of two reactions from me; a blank stare, or an urge to flee the imminent conversation. During my more stable moments, I might say "I write emails”. A series of numbered points. Vacuous sentiments like "hope you are well". The spectre of winking, passive-aggressive anthropomorphic glyphs. The cherished masculine power insecurity nugget, "buddy”. While I possess empathy, receiving correspondence closing with an "x" causes me to mentally visualize the author being flung into an active volcano. I love emails.
While writing, I’ll often stop, and I'll stare at something. Patterns of ash on my desk, discarded and misplaced. A palm frond about to fall like some suspended assumption. The bottle of water to my right refracting light from my desk lamp offering an insight into the physics of my distraction.
I'll hear a song in my head during these moments; one of those songs that I was forced to play relentlessly for days. A majesty rinse, a sort of exorcism, some means to internalize why this melody, that lyric couplet, or that bass drop at that exact moment just changed the way I would deal with everyone and everything around me. A joyful exorcism perhaps.
I measure the passing of time by placing memory in a series of signposts, most often triggered by meals, cameras, and music. Strangely, Varun recently asked me to compile a playlist for the website he works with. To frame the seemingly limitless number of songs that I could choose from, I decided to focus these joyful exorcisms. I am compelled to revisit these songs on a regular basis for reasons that perhaps I am trying to come to grips with here. Iterative gravities.
This is clearly more for me than you.”

I. Big Star - Stroke It Noel

[1] left. [2] moved into my house. He had a cha-ching and a bag of cheap tobacco that he use to churn out loose butts that he would then chain smoke relentlessly. They smelled like cat urine. He had just been diagnosed as schizophrenic. He ate 2L of vanilla ice cream in one sitting, and then almost burned down my house. I was sad and altered all the time. Fourteen years later, [3] left for the first time. I was on a bus sitting in a window seat. It was 6pm and everything was orange. I passed half harvested cotton fields and admired the long shadows that those lifelines would cast. All their husbands killed themselves by drinking pesticide.

II. International Submarine Band - Luxury Liner

[4] left a note on my hotel room door the next morning apologizing for her lying to me about her not having a boyfriend, while still asking me to join them both for Mezcal that night near the city square. He had just arrived. I accepted. She and I played a variation of footsie under the table while her soon to be estranged boyfriend and I spoke animatedly about the merits of Sepultura. I actually really liked him. The next morning I felt elated and guilty, and I called [5]. [4] was exquisite. [5] was upset.

III. Demon's Claws - Gun To My Head

I was fascinated by how the sparks were flying in indiscriminate directions off the flaming door frame as I swung it around my head. I almost smashed [6]'s face with it. He was pissed off. Sorry [6].

IV. Squarepusher - Port Rhombus

If you obsess over the divisions where stones or concrete are divided when you walk down a sidewalk or street, a certain rhythm will emerge subject to the speed and arrogance of your stride. You can make breakbeat proxies by stopping momentarily or spinning around. This pithy observation was gleaned after finishing an econometrics final one overcast March afternoon in [A] while walking aimlessly in a sort of exhaustive, post applied logic daze. Econometrics is totally disturbing and evil in its deluded precision. It's the best.

V. Rolling Stones - Gotta Get Away

The landscape of [B] is a cherished lunar proxy; if the moon had a black, raging ocean pounding your uncertainty into submission instead of no atmosphere whatsoever. People often die at the edges of the boulders there, tempted by the majesty of the ocean at its most unforgiving, only to be subsumed and negated into its wrath. It's perfect. Once, we drove there in the rain at night. [7]'s left rear speaker was blown out, this song was perfectly distorted and rendered hopeless, and his right windshield wiper was frozen in place. Two years later he was slated to be a TV news anchor, and two years after that he was suicidal and homeless.

VI. High On Fire - Baghdad

[8] met me at the airport and drove me to her house. One evening, I met [9] and his friend. Her bracelet appeared to be platinum and I played with it a lot. The next morning I ate cold grits with warm lager and someone commented on how I looked like an actor who played Zorro once. I thought that was ridiculous. I was editing at the time so I was drinking a lot of coffee and listening to this song constantly. I also like this song as it's called "Baghdad".

VII. Mogwai - Tracy

I've been listening to this at least twice a week for the past 15 years. There's the Labrador Sea disguised behind fog cleverly disguised as harmless, there’s some blackened tin foil, and there she is leaving on the bus to [C], hands pressed on the window, face twisted grotesquely in perceived loss and palpable fear. Most recently, there's [10] playing this song off YouTube backstage, there's me submitting to histrionics because it was the last thing I was prepared to hear in that context. There's us mutually realizing we were going to die together happily. There's us veering across three lanes of an interstate, there we are sleeping in a parking lot. There he is getting robbed at gunpoint, there he is destroying his car. He's sad. There you go.

VIII. Sly & The Family Stone - Just Like A Baby

There was discarded furniture in the corner which I promptly began to destroy. As both fire and concerns were set, [11] began to sing along to this song in a faux soul falsetto, crooning "here comes the penis" in varying degrees of appropriation. [12] was to my right, jaws clenched and grinding, while [13] emerged from my left. That was the first time I met [13]. The sun rose and we were soon surrounded by desperate casualties. The flawless LP this song came from is with me now in physical form, but the heat has warped it. I'm often drawn to this warping event because its a constant reminder of how the seemingly indestructible can fall into a state of irreparable damage. Or not.

IX. Cat Power - In This Hole

I first heard this at [14]'s house one summer and was stunned at its self absorbed depravity. Months later, I was barrelling down a flat, endless plane to the [D] sea. I have a series of out of focus photographs of this event. I looked at myself framed in a rear view mirror as the night passed by. I am a dramatic narcissist. Years later, [15] and I had a competition for the most hopeless song in the universe. I suggested this, she suggested some Piaf song, I can't remember which. Soon after I came to [16]'s house in [E] and found all my belongings in the trash out front. It was nice of her to drop it off. Unless she had someone else do it, which is a bit gauche. I'm actually not sure who did it. I should ask her.

X. Hudson Mohawke - No One Could Ever

Recently I tried to use a DJM-800 mixer for the first time. [17] and [6] quickly explained how to use some of the knobs and buttons. There was one pair that I was drawn to, though I have no idea now what they were called. Basically, if you turned the knob to the left slowly over the course of an instrumental break, everything would go FSHHHWKKK and then if you smashed the button just when the beat would drop, it would go back to normal and people would go WOOO. It was fun. It was "the make people go woo" knob and button combo. The guy who rented the gear was stressed because I was having so much fun with that button. I totally didn't break that button.

XI. Hot Hands Hula - Hot Hands

A mentor at a college radio station I used to volunteer at as a teenager suggested I pay close attention to the compilations section. One afternoon I found a record in a white die cut sleeve called "Acid Trax Vol. 2". I put it on, confounded by the then completely and utterly alien music I was hearing. Life wouldn’t be the same. Last year I soundchecked for [18] in this massive disused industrial hangar in [F]. I have no idea how may watts that PA was, but it was devasting. Tweaking a 303 over that PA was like swimming in the primordial ooze that wrought forth the genesis of our alleged creation.

XII. Skip Spence - All Come To Meet Her

I was packing my bags, confused and yet helplessly drawn in. I had to say no to [3], and I began to consider going to [G] to see [19]. People thought I was somewhere between inspired and bonkers for even considering going to [G]. So of course I went to [G], and of course I almost ate my left arm. The other month I was driving to [A] from [H], and the car I was driving in met some black ice, Cliff Burton style. We did a 720, almost flipped the car, and just missed going off the bridge. I distinctly remember looking straight ahead at a shifting panorama, admiring how slowly it all seemed be occurring. When Skip was released from the institution/thorazine he was interred within, he immediately made this record. He died of lung cancer, homeless and forgotten. I’m certain it all made sense at the time.

XIII. Black Flag - Thirsty And Miserable

When I was 14 I moved to [H]. In light of my appearance and demeanor at the time, I found myself soon surrounded by the “stoners” and “freaks”. Luckily, one such individual was [20]. He lent me Damaged, and I lent him Earth AD. He lost my copy, I taped his entire SST LP collection, he is now apparently a luxury Buddhist in [A]. Years later, I burned this on an MP3 CD and gave it to [21]. He was soon inspired to attempt to destroy his room over one evening listening to it, and I believe soon after that the young lady he was with at the time attempted to burn down his house. I may aspire to be Greg Ginn's guitar tone, but it's just not going to happen.

"In writing this I’ve noticed that arson seems to be a theme. I’d like to go on, I won’t, I probably shouldn’t. Shout out to those who understand and appreciate the value of bathing to music."Words: Rana Ghose

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#HGPlaylist 23: Rana Ghose ( Reproduce Artists )

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