Since taking over the gym this summer, things have been pretty hairy around here. Turns out all my management experience in B2B, retail and corporate left me profoundly unskilled for gym ownership.
Fortunately, we have a great team at Lolakana; Lyndsie and Zach have been holding things together while I figure out what I'm doing, Jessica has been keeping me focused on what's important while she works out her spot in what we're building, and the community has been patient while I learn the ropes.
The grey autumn and rain that's been rolling in lately has been a welcome downer that I've paired with some ambient and downtempo as a sort of counterweight to the chaos. Here's a few albums I've kept on repeat over the past few weeks as I've been sitting in gridlock trying to drive all over town:
Fluke - Risotto
This was the first electronic album in any style that I properly loved. It's also one I absolutely regret ever selling and wish I'd kept around as an artifact. Unfortunately it's not on any of the streaming services, but I was able to play it on my phone because it was the first CD from my collection that I ever ripped and I've kept a hold of the files since then.
My path here started with WipEout XL on PlayStation in '96—I'd go on to play this game for years. At first the soundtrack was unusual and unfamiliar and annoying, then it became less annoying and unusual, then it just sort of sat there and then I started to really dig some of the tracks.
I'm leaving work one night and hear a familiar melody on the TV. The video for Atom Bomb is playing. I know the instrumental from the game but the video has vocals and footage from the game. I was hooked.
(A purple-haired girl prancing around in a PVC suit—she's supposed to be Ariel Tetsuo, a pilot from the game—helped with the hooking)
NOTE: Atom Bomb and Absurd from Risotto appear on the Uppers Sampler no.2 and Big Beat Sampler no.1 respectively.
Saw the album at HMV a couple weeks later and grabbed it on impulse.
Risotto completely changed my taste in music. Big Beat tracks, but also downtempo ones that put me onto quieter music I'd never enjoyed before. Music was always something I used as an upper—this was the first time I appreciated things that were more mellow.
I'm always happy when I go back to this album.
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
I was a latecomer to ambient.
Electronic music didn't click for me until Big Beat arrived in the late 90s—the rock and metal elements gave me a reference point I didn't have before.
As a teenager I wouldn't have appreciated it. Even after becoming obsessed with electronic.
A few months ago I stumbled across it again when I was looking for something both familiar and ambient to listen to.
Exactly what I needed right now during all the gym chaos.
The album has always sounded a little spotty in places—legend has it some of the cassette tapes were damaged by a cat—but it's never mattered.
When this came out in '92, music critics fell all over themselves trying to describe what made it great. I'm even less qualified than they were. So I'll save you the trouble: I loved it, it's been great to revisit, and if you want a good example of ambient, give this a spin.
It was an instant classic then and it's still a classic now.
Polar - Gabriél Ólafs
Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music | YouTube
This was a TikTok recommendation, but I can't find who put me onto this and it's driving me a little bit nuts. Any time I get to dust off the Apple Classical Music app I give it a shot.
Gabriél Ólafs is an Icelandic neoclassical composer and this album is a "speculative fiction-inspired work" according to Grok, about an imagined frozen planet and its geological features and a lost civilization. That's what piqued my interest. There's a companion release that includes a short story written by American author Rebecca Roanhorse and voiced by Hera Hilmar—I have no interest in this sort of thing (although I have enjoyed Ms. Roanhorse's writing).
I lack the tools to really understand classical music, although this is more up my alley; dark and somber. Good for driving around with the volume high, especially in bumper-to-bumper traffic during a rainy windstorm with minimal visibility. 4pm in autumn, light already fading. The music matched the mood.
