On winter and its music.

January has now ended, which means I can say this: January is my favorite month of the year. No one expects anything of it.

Folks who like Valentine’s Day start to get a little fruity-eyed at the beginning of February, but January—January is great. It has nothing imposed on it. In Ohio, it’s gray and gray and gray, and mostly rainy, and free as a whistle. Everyone else stays inside thinking fondly of the bygone holiday season but not me—I’m out in the drizzle in my not-quite-waterproof gear, nose pointed toward the horizon, frizzy-haired, feeling alone and fantastic and utterly relieved.

Last week, when it was below freezing and somehow raining instead of snowing, I went to the zoo, and every zoo employee I ran into looked at me strangely. The implied question: Why on earth are you here?

I was there because no one else was; the zoo was cold and damp and abandoned. A turtle and I stared at each other for two full minutes, ala Annie Dillard. It was unmitigated bliss.

Some of the relief of January for me is the re-establishment of routine. December is a month of nonstop interruption and exclamation points, when the world rings bells and flashes lights and insists that everyone achieve their personal apex of happiness.

January is the Monday of the year; the time when we’re all dumped unceremoniously onto a blank slate with a lot of mundane shit to get through, and since we’re out of flashy toys and holidays to distract ourselves with, the only thing to do is…start. Work, school, bedtime, kid drop-off, kid pick-up, Friday all-hands meetings. January is the reestablishment of boring patterns and the same old, same old. (How do you eat the frog? One bite at a time.)

My music for January has that kind of energy: repetitive motifs, minimalist, notes against a ground, phrases played so many times in a row it takes three days to evict the sound of them from your skull. Routine, but with the light breaking through.

Here you go.

#1: William Basinski | The Disintegration Loops

The same loop, play over and over for an hour, as it fades from existence. Metaphorical bliss if listened to attentively. Meditative in the background of projects.

#2: Caroline Shaw | The Beech Tree

Caroline Shaw is one of my "drop everything for new releases" composers. This isn't a new release, but it's beautiful—and beautifully played by the Attacca Quartet.

#3: Dawn of Midi | Dysnomia

Uncannily precise, constantly evolving, mind-blowing. Dawn of Midi didn't release another album after Dysnomia, but this one will last forever.

#4: The Mistral Noir | Daniel Herskedal

My music service files Herskedal's albums under "jazz," which I'll allow because there's no category for "horns whispering secrets to each other."

BONUS: Satyagraha | Philip Glass

The piece that made me finally "get" Philip Glass, played by the artist who played it for me somewhere in a little church in Cambridge. It's come back to me many times over the years and each time it's a little bit richer.

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