I often write to music, and the right song is sometimes the only way to slip into a place where I can actually forget the mundane and drift into the fantastic, the otherworldly, the weird. It's why most nights you'll find me at my little writing desk, studying a screen and a jam jar half-full with wine, ear buds firmly plugging me up against distraction.
What do I like to write to? Here are a few of my favorites.
There's an energy to the Yoshida Brothers' music that just makes me feel like I'm whipping over some wild and unknowable landscape.
Loreena McKennitt is an oldie but an oh-so-goodie. "The Mystic's Dream" transports me into the secret places of Eiren's world. I actually listened to her a whole lot while writing the draft that grew up to be the first draft of The Hidden Icon. It was a different story with the same heart, but trust me when I tell you that it was a mess and you never want to read it.
If I find I need to feel some feelings, Damien Rice rarely lets me down. The Avett Brothers are pretty good for this, too.
Bonobo is another that pulls me instantly out of myself and into the narrative.
And because it just wouldn't be right not to mention it, Gannet actually has his own song: Beck's "Nobody's Fault But My Own." It has some of the same haunting quality of other things that I listen to, and it just speaks to that secret, troubled dude.
Also, that hot mess of a draft? I was so young. Forgive the dance scene with a strange variation of this tune to inspire me. There's a reason it was cut, even if I do fancy it now and again when I've drained that jam jar.