Friday, January 22, 2021

Curate This - Midnight Insomnia



If there weren't already enough curated mixes strewn about the Internet, Dozens Of Donuts is here to add more. Rather than analyze a burgeoning genre, herald the best of a past one, or merely formulate background music for study sessions, road trips, or midday snoozes, Curate This aims to immerse listeners in a niche aesthetic that enraptures and vitalizes. With written accompaniment to provide the expository backdrop, these songs flow - errantly or harmoniously - around particular moods, sensory emotions, and pertinent tones. A monthly series with plans in place to become a years-long endeavor, Curate This is here to not only help listeners discover new music, but also provide accents to specific, idiomatic experiences one wouldn't soon forget. January's harsh climate, especially in the dead of night, offers us our first iteration: Midnight Insomnia.

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The ceiling fan blurs into formation like a flying saucer hovering in perpetuity. An itch gambols derisively across every skin-clad surface. A dim flicker and muffled static crawl under the adjacent doorway, beaconing restless souls like a moth to the flame. Informercials bleat their latest wears, restless and bug-eyed, obnoxious and caffeine-addicted. The insomniac lies, awaiting admission to the dreamscape from an unknown source for an indeterminate spell. It doesn't arrive. It never arrives. Perhaps a walk will clear the mind.

City streets, once bustling and full of life, now inherited by wisps of wind and the occasional grocery cart rattling off its inharmonious wheel. Floodlights green, yellow, and red switch intermittently, indifferent to who awaits below. Sirens and music, never close, always echoes, rattle off obstinate skyscrapers gathering debris at their feet. Underground tremors from ricocheting trams move rashly like mail through pneumatic tubes, sending vagrants and drunks to destinations unseen and unknown.

Whether in slumber or in darkness, the night is where one goes to negotiate peace. It's ephemeral respite for those content and impervious. But not the insomniac, who appreciates - or endures - what twilight's solace brings. One moment lonesome and introspective, the next unnerving and suspicious. All forged through a fault of humanity's eyesight. This is the sound to accompany that moment. This is Midnight Insomnia.
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ACT  I  -  RESTLESSNESS


D.J. Shadow - Transmission 2 | 1:29
Entroducing..... | 1996 | Plunderphonics

New Dreams LTD. Initiation Tape - Forever? | 2:05
Part One | 2011 | Vaporwave

Rainer Veil - Slow Beaming | 2:38
Struck | 2013 | Future Garage

Radiohead - Pull Pulk Revolving Doors | 4:07
Amnesiac | 2001 | Experimental Rock

Oneohtrix Point Never - Cross Talk III | 0:12
Magic Oneohtrix Point Never | 2020 | Progressive Electronic

Zebra Katz - ZAD DRUMZ | 2:59
LESS IS MOOR | 2020 | Industrial Hip-Hop
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ACT  II  -  AWAKE  SOMEWHERE


Brian Eno - The Secret Place | 3:30
Apollo | 1983 | Space Ambient

Frank Ocean - In Here Somewhere | 1:47
Endless | 2016 | Alternative R&B

Nmesh - Tiny Classified Ads | 1:53
Pharma | 2017 | Vaporwave

King Krule - Comet Face | 3:14
Man Alive! | 2020 | Art Rock

D.J. Shadow - Midnight In A Perfect World | 4:58
Entroducing..... | 1996 | Plunderphonics

Michael Brook & Pieter Nooten - Suddenly I | 2:36
Sleeps With The Fishes | 1987 | Ambient Pop
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ACT  III  -  MUTE  REFLECTION


Röyksopp - Sparks | 5:24
Melody A.M. | 2001 | Downtempo

Prizes Roses Rosa - Fallen Human | 0:42
The Kinspiral | 2020 | Sound Collage

Machine Girl - Post Rave Maximalist | 2:27
WLFGRL | 2014 | Hardcore Breaks

Andy Stott - Sleepless | 5:50
Luxury Problems | 2012 | Dub Techno

Tim Hecker - Kaito | 3:08
Mirages | 2004 | Ambient

Sand Circles - Innercity Haze | 2:53
Motor City | 2012 | Progressive Electronic
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ACT  IV  -  REACHING  SERENITY


Nicolas Jaar - Rubble | 3:01
Cenizas | 2020 | Electroacoustic

Grouper - Moon Is Sharp | 6:49
A I A: Alien Observer | 2011 | Ambient Pop

The KLF - Trancentral Lost In My Mind | 1:16
Chill Out | 1990 | Field Recordings

M83 - Train To Pluton | 1:17
Hurry Up, We're Dreaming | 2011 | Dream Pop

Burial - In McDonalds | 2:11
Untrue | 2007 | Ambient
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