soothing the savage breast

I write listening to a particular kind of ambient music. What separates it from other, inferior kinds of ambient music is hard to tell sometimes, but I know the right stuff when I hear it. Mostly I source my fix from emusic (which I strongly recommend), while some comes from artist sites. The search goes on, and on.

Here are the top five most-played albums I downloaded this year, just in case anyone else happens to like my kind of sound:

Arc of Passion, Steve Roach
Glaciation, Patrick O'Hearn
Silver, Thom Brennan
Music for 18 Musicians, Steve Reich
Mysterious Skin, Harold Budd & Robin Guthrie

(Altus and Deepspace were also recurring favourite artists.)

Like laughter, music turns out to be good for the heart, hence the title of this post (from the other Bill Congreve). I really doubt, though, that anything called "Ode to the Misunderstood Potato" would be of much benefit (from the ongoing nightmare of nostalgia).

And speaking of nightmares, last night's dream was spookily appropriate.