Desert Sandscapes : A Playlist

Those who dwell in the desert tend to strongly identify with their terrain and integrate the landscape into their identity. We are the desert people. There’s a phenomenon I’m noticing in which people who call the desert home leave only to explore other arid zones. I meet people from Tucson who come to Joshua Tree for the month of August, or those who “escape” to Needles for inspiration and rejuvenation, or the truly worldly travelers who explore the deserts of other continents before returning to our corner of the Mojave. Of course, we enjoy our mountains, our tropical canyons, our forests, but there is no other with the same mystique, the same draw that captures the imagination in quite the same way. Once it’s inside you, it’s a fascination you don’t easily leave behind.

For eons, the wide open expanses have provided some carte blanche, an open canvas inspiring even the most creatively-blocked among us to begin pouring out artworks. Many of the songs on this mix are by desert dwellers, many more are written far away while dreaming of sweltering, infinite highways. That’s what happens here- it gets caught in your mind, if you’re a particular type of creature, and doesn’t leave. It haunts your dreams, becomes a waking vision, until you eventually have to stay.

The desert is a place where your expectations are up-ended and your manifestations can blossom dangerously. In a recent conversation with Sarah Louise, we talked about how I used to have this idea that only “wooden” music was natural and could work to celebrate nature, but as she thoughtfully pointed out, humans make electronics and aren’t we part of the natural world, after all? Local musician Derek Monypeny’s latest album is similarly all about collapsing these binaries, like the imagined divide between the organic and unnatural, walking the line between anticipation and agitation. These themes have altered what I conceptualize as “desert music” – to some, that may mean something traditional, to others, something more psychedelic. My own relation to the music I listen to and the soundscape has altered and this mixtape is the most recent iteration – scroll through my past desert playlists and you’ll see how my mind has altered this concept over time.

Although many of these tracks are more formal song structures, they’re still soundscapes in their own rite. For example, Tan Cologne uses words not necessarily to convey narrative but to draw associations and add another dimension, coloring the landscape with vocals-as-instrument and words-as-sound, using language as a conduit to actually transcend meaning.

This mix is music that I now deeply associate with the expansive vistas that surround me, sounds that amplify the complexity and uniqueness of this part of the world – closer than ever to nature, but with unseen energetic forces lurking about and revealing themselves to those who are open.

Tracklist:
Corntuth – D-003
Nailah Hunter – White Flower, Dark Hill
Beyond The Breath Of Grace – Prison Goat
Laura Sullivan – A Darker Season
Andrew Collberg – Magnolia
Corntuth – C-004
Saariselka – Afterlight
Derek Monypeny – The Hand As Dealt
Ami Dang – Conch and Crow
Prana Crafter – Eyes Closed Inner Thunder
Yialmelic Frequencies – Auric Massage
Golden Brown – Weird Astral Phenomena
Arushi Jain – The Sun Swirls Within You
Derek Monypeny – Waves of Nightingales
Xisco Rojo – The Nāga & The Dvārapāla.wav
Bobby Lee – Palomino
The Howard Hughes Suite – Silver Moon, Turquoise Sea
Corntuth – C-003
Laura Sullivan – Rest Your Sorrow
Tan Cologne – New Dunes
NikNak – Compass
Herb Benham IV – Obsidian Dust
Howe Gelb – Melted Wires
Lonna Kelley – In the Dark
William Tyler & Luke Schneider – Memory Garden