Hi! I'm Michael Donaldson, and I write about music on 8sided.blog, license and publish music through 8DSync, and make music as Q-Burns Abstract Message. I think about music all of the time. My guess is you do, too.
This is the fourth episode of Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, a newsletter loosely about music-making and music-listening and how technology changes the culture around those things.
Each episode of the newsletter has its own theme song. I can’t say that this episode’s song has much to do with the topic that follows — there are a lot of drums. So, take a listen to “Tooth or Snare” and enjoy my ramblings about the commoditization of coziness.
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In the article Why Are So Many Brands Pivoting To Coziness?, Vox's Rebecca Jennings reveals a curious marketing trend: brands displaying promises of comfort to attract millennials and Gen Z'ers. In youth-oriented magazine advertisements, we're used to photos of adventurous consumers climbing mountains or traversing an exotic, unfamiliar city. Now you're as likely to see a picture of someone sitting at home seated on a couch or maybe even — gasp! — reading a book. Combined with emerging products like weighted blankets and CBD shampoo, it's evident that chill is 'in.'
Media theorists point out that horror movies are popular during times of unease and distrust in society. Jennings has a similar reason for the rise of coziness: "Things are bad, and people are anxious about whatever ongoing horrors are metabolizing in geopolitics, the environment, and capitalism." However, there's an always-online twist to this movement. "The selling point is that this product will make you feel calm and safe, but the experience of using it is still supposed to look good enough for other people to see."
Ambient music isn't exactly mainstream, but it's more in vogue — and pervasive — than it's ever been. The flavors are varied, from dark drones to nature noises, from New Age throwbacks to chill-hop YouTube streams. If we're defining ambient music as music that sits in the ambiance, politely ignored as we go about our lives, then all of those styles qualify. And, like brand-marketed coziness, the music is often pushed as an antidote for a hectic life. There's something spacey and unobtrusive playing in the background as that person sits on the couch reading his book.
Streaming has enabled an even more utilitarian strain of ambient music, something that The Baffler's Liz Pelly refers to as "emotional wallpaper" and "music that strategically requires no attention at all." This music is made to fall into playlists that play on repeat as we study, or meditate, or slowly fall asleep. The primary purpose isn't to calm our brains but to rack up Spotify plays as the playlists churn in repetition. Ambient music is perfect for this — we can only listen to the same pop hook so many times. An ambient drone might as well be endless.
Of course, music has always had calming and self-healing properties. That's ancient history. And it's untrue to say that 'western' music ignored this aspect, with blues and — of course — gospel as examples of genres containing elements of spiritual remedy. But the connection came as a surprise to many of ambient music's forerunners. Take John Cage, whose life and direction changed after a conversation with Indian composer Gita Sarabhai in the 1940s. She pointed out that it's okay for music to be meaningless, to exist solely to "sober and quiet the mind." It makes sense to us. But this was a revelation for Cage, a stone thrown in the pond with ripples continuing outward.
What's new is our era's odd commoditization of relaxation music. Sure, the New Age genre was a small phenomenon in the late '80s — those Windham Hill CDs flew off the shelves at the Camelot Music I worked at as a teenager. But playlists targeted to sleeping 'listeners' for money-making purposes is a bizarre twist. Consider the Sony-affiliated Sleep & Mindfulness Thunderstorms playlist, featuring 990 one-minute tracks containing sounds of rainstorms. Why a single minute each in length? Because Spotify will deliver a micropayment to a track that plays for at least 30 seconds.
But let's get something straight. Personally, I love ambient music. I work to it. I relax to it. I sometimes sleep to it. And, if you can't tell, I'm fascinated by it. That presents a quandary as I'm using the music in the same way as those studying to ChilledCow's YouTube channel. What makes my cozy space so sacred?
Simon Reynolds' recent Resident Advisor long-read about the state of ambient music is worth a look. He grapples with chill-out capitalism in his article, stating:
Still, there is something unnerving about the idea of ambient and New Age music uncoupled from any higher purposes and applied to the task of self-repair. Like power yoga or microdosing, it is taking an agent of change that was originally part of a culture of liberation and discovery, and putting it in service of the status quo. As David Toop, author of ambient bible Ocean Of Sound, wrote recently, "if ambient music only serves as an app to incentivise or a backdrop to productivity, networking and self-realisation, then it has no story of its own, no story worth hearing."
Are we adding too much baggage to ambient music? Perhaps it's just meant to be, like a soothing wallpaper hue or the bird sounds outside my window. Burdening this music with a special purpose or the responsibility of solace might be self-defeating. But, true enough, so is placing a profit incentive on our coziness.
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The tech giants have already mastered the art of profiting off of our attention. Now they’re moving into doing the same for our inattention. As we sleep, study, or walk through the park, these companies are finding ways to gather data and generate cash. The inattention economy, if you will.
The artist-slash-writer Jenny Odell has thought a lot about this state of affairs. With the rallying cry, “I will participate, but not as asked,” Odell sees our alone-time as resistance in an age of FOMO. It’s an inspiring premise in these dispiriting times: quiet relaxation as a non-commercial refuge where we can be our true selves. I strongly recommend reading Jenny Odell’s essay How To Do Nothing. If you find that as thought-provoking as I did, then grab her terrific book of the same title. It’s a suitable guidebook for staying sane in 2020.
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Without set forms or structures or even expectations besides the requirement to soothe, ambient music opens itself up to the implementation of systems and processes. Human-guided generative music is a thing, resulting in songs that could play forever. And our new friend AI is getting in the game, unleashing a limitless trove of ready-made ambient compositions for streaming services and playlists.
But ambient sound originates in nature where emergent systems reign supreme. For example, we humans have previously created music for plants. Now the plants are returning the favor, thanks to Data Garden’s technology that translates “micro-conductivity on the surface of plants into a graph … used to control hardware and software synthesizers.” The strange tones let our houseplants — already an ambient feature in our rooms — influence the background environment in ways that are subtle and profound. We’re aware that these are sounds made by living creatures.
Even more striking is the Fermentophone, an instrument played by microbes as bubbles release in fermenting food and liquids. Creator Joshua Pablo Rosenstock refers to the music as “a duet between me and the microbes” with the generated bubbles “playing the rhythms.” As you’ll hear in the video above, the sound isn’t precisely ambient but hardly out of place in an experimental composer’s repertoire. I could study along with this. So, yeah, I guess it’s time to get our kombucha barrel a Bandcamp account.
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On 8sided.blog, there’s a running series titled #Worktones. These posts consist of recommendations of music that have helped get me through writing sessions and work tasks. You could file most of the selections under ‘ambient,’ and I’ve provided streaming players for sampling each release. I hope you find some treasures there.
On the utilitarian tip, I also enjoy working to Noizo. The app allows you to set various repeating soundscapes and environments to play as you attempt to focus. The magic in the app is an ability to choose more than one atmospheric loop to play simultaneously and adjust the volumes of each, creating a recipe matched to your taste. My current flavor is a mix of ‘River Stream,’ ‘Space Drone,’ and ‘Subway.’
And I’m not a Star Trek fan, but before I discovered Noizo, this 24 hour YouTube stream of the Enterprise’s ‘ambient engine noise’ really did the trick.
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We've hit the one month mark for this experiment that I'm calling a newsletter, and on a leap day no less. Many of you have sent kind words of encouragement, and I thank you for that. As you know, I love feedback, as well as tips or suggestions for things to write about in this newsletter. You can learn more about me, what I do, and contact me with your comments here.
Now I'd like to ask a favor. Please forward this newsletter to one friend who you think would enjoy it. You're even welcome to post a link to this episode on your social media platform of choice. I'm new to the newsletter game, and that's the type of gesture that lets me know I'm on the right track. It means a lot.
Thank you so much for reading! Hang in there, and I'll have more for you next week. 🚀