afIt’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.
