This is a guest post from Caleb J Ross, author of the chapbook Charactered Pieces: stories, as part of his ridiculously named Blog Orgy Tour. Visit his website for a full list of blog stops. Charactered Pieces: stories is currently available fromOW Press (or Amazon.com). Visit him at http://www.calebjross.com.
Music is a way to color the air, as some pot-stupored hippy probably said sometime. And since I had dreadlocks at one point in my life, I am forced to agree with my nappy-haired brethren. Music interprets the intangible, with as little audience participation as possible. And this lack of participation makes music a perfect complement to nights spent hovering over a keyboard, trying to meet some self-imposed word count goal.
Charactered Pieces: stories has roots in so many years past that to try and recreate the soundtrack during its initial conception would be impossible. However, the edits—the many, late-night edits—had their own, more recent score.
Tom Waits, Night on Earth – Having long been a fan of Waits, I adopted this album after tagging individual, instrumental songs from my entire Waits collection to create a writing playlist. At the time, I had no idea this album existed. It’s hard to find, but definitely worth the hunt. It has the feel of Waits’ Rain Dogs trilogy from the 80s, dissonance and percussion galore. Perfect for writing flawed characters.
Bohren und Der Club of Gore, Geisterfaust and Sunset Mission – Alex Martin turned me on to these guys a couple years back. By far, this band is the most played writing music in my collection. Though all of their songs are similar in mood and tone, I welcome the seemingly seamless feel, as it allows the music to fade into the background beautifully. Their style: slow ambient jazz, but way better than that description implies.
Bush, Razorblade Suitcase – definitely the most lyrically-dense album in my list, this one snuck in likely for nostalgic reasons. I re-fell in love with this album during college, when two of the stories from Charactered Pieces were written (the title story and “The Camel of Morocco”). This album must have reawakened some synapses, acting as a psychic bridge to the stories’ origins. Lyrics usually bother me when writing, but this album transcended that wall.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Yanqui U.X.O.- Menacing might best describe the feel of this album. GYBE is one of those oft-referenced bands, but rarely adequately described. Not that their sound is experimental in any way, but the fluid, meandering style has the tendency to confuse rather than offer itself up for categorization. A lot of Charactered Pieces was arranged at a macro level to this album, moving full chucks of stories around (as opposed to line-edits). These songs are long (four of the five tracks are over fifteen minutes) and have a story-arc sensibility, often building from simple progressions to multiple layers, which I think helped in this macro arranging.
Russian Circles, Station – A bit more rock than I would normally listen to while writing, but it’s chugging riffs are more Tool than, say, Anthrax, giving the album the much desired mood quality so important to writing. I came to this album late in the edits, so its impact is likely reflected only superficially. But still, it’s there.
NIN, Ghosts I-IV – this album was a godsend. Simple. I remember quite vividly, being stuck with the edits, unsure why a certain story wasn’t working. Then a friend emailed me about Ghosts, with a link to a FREE (and legal) download. Everything clicked during my first listen. This is mic-less Trent Reznor’s self-described “dreamscape” album, full of loops and industrial beauty that has a way of coaxing the right synapses at the right times.
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