Each month we explore with our community the sounds that have defined us and shaped us into who we are today. This series of playlists encapsulate the multitudes within us and highlight our ever-evolving stories.
Our latest Rhythms playlist comes from Jen Monroe, a Brooklyn-based chef, artist, and music curator whose food project, Bad Taste, is committed to exploring new ways of thinking about food and consumption, approaching food as fantasy and as a transportive medium. She writes the music blog Listen To This, which focuses on rare and out of print ambient, new age, and Japanese pop records. She also hosts the monthly series Getting Warmer on NTS Radio.
"I took Shaina Mote’s clothing as an initial jumping off point for this playlist. My experience with her pieces is that they’re quite understated and seemingly simple, but upon closer inspection they’re made with extreme care and are very elegant. I’d call them “quietly beautiful,” which is how I think about many of these songs. I started with a few more minimal favorites, songs that have very high impact with relatively few gestures, and then built it out from there."
"Last I thought about what the life of somebody who wears Shaina Mote might look like these days. It’s hard to visualize it clearly, since everybody is living such discrete lives right now, but I imagine the Shaina Mote wearer spending time in very tastefully decorated minimalist interiors and going for walks in Central Park, I tried to soundtrack those spaces. I’ve always loved music that suggests autumn, I wanted to accompany the seasonal change with songs that feel golden, warm but dry, tinged with a bit of bittersweetness for the end of summer.
This is a mix that I think is largely content to exist in the background: it doesn’t need to be a focal point but is happy to complement its surroundings. I hope you enjoy it."