Let's face it, sometimes we need an "escape" from reality, and what couldn't be more assistive and innocuous than an album that reaches higher places.
I am currently listening to Hvarf-Heim, Sigur Ros's new release of alternate versions of previous recordings and B-sides. I have been enjoying this two-disc set at times after work when I need to unwind, as backround music when I'm reading a good book, and as my audio-backdrop when I'm engaging in one of my newest hobbies, painting. It has proven to be a very engaging, stimulating, and curious album. It invokes thoughtfulness, creativity, peacefulness.... it's album that "takes you somewhere else". A very limited number of albums can do this, but for many, that's not its purpose. Listening to a Strokes album might just make you just "feel cool", and even make you want to smoke a cigarette or where your coolest shades or something. I am on a constant quest for music that can do what Sigur Ros can do: give you a short vacation from reality, in hopes that when you return, you will be in better form.
Here's a short list of albums that have provided escape, inspiration, a one-hour vacation:
Sigur Ros - Hvarf-Heim and Ágætis Byrjun
R.E.M. - Reveal
Joseph Arthur - Nuclear Daydream
Appleseed Cast - Two Conversations
Death Cab For Cutie - Plans and Transatlanticism
Iron and Wine - The Shepard's Dog
Neil Finn - One All
