One of the sad secrets of adulthood is that it’s hard to meet people. Once you’re out of school, where socializing is pretty much an inescapable part of the lifestyle, your social circle shrinks significantly. Eventually, it becomes as small as your workplace, which may contain people you have no interest in seeing on the weekend.
Actually, let’s forget about meeting NEW people and take it one step further: it’s hard to even stay in touch with people you already know.
If this describes your situation, here’s my unsolicited advice: start a club.
Seriously.
The club’s goal is up to you: watching bad movies, conducting blind taste-tests of potato chips, full-contact games of “Battleship”, holding massive hide-and-seek competitions in shopping malls, anything.
It can be a great way to strengthen ties with friends who you feel like you don’t see enough anymore, and a good way to discover unknown overlaps with potential new friends. Who knows- maybe Heather from accounting has a complete set of MASK toys that she’s never told anyone about. How else will you find out?
I’m not sure if the stage name Dirty Art Club comes from an actual club (were the original band members appreciators of nude paintings, or did they get together to build sculptures out of dirt?) but their music could provide a soundtrack for any number of activities. Their albums, often compilations of 20+ tracks, combine the obscure sample depth of Neat Beats and the smooth grooves of Vanilla.
2013’s Vermillion, however, is much shorter, and perhaps their most perfect release. This song is the jewel in its sample-encrusted crown.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The unusual two-part, two-tempo structure. The opening half-minute makes you think it’s going to be a dark, dreamy wander through a haunted forest, but that’s followed by two minutes of skipping along a beach in the Caribbean. The change took me by surprise on first listen. It was like accidentally discovering Heather-from-accounting’s secret stash of toys.
2. The sample in the aforementioned “Caribbean romp” section is (I think) a guitar instrumental version of “You Go To My Head” – a beautiful song in itself. We featured the Billie Holiday version here in week 195.
3. Genre expectations would dictate that the percussion in this track should be really heavy and fully forward in the mix. But that’s not the case. Instead of big booming kicks and compression-heavy snares, we get muted thumps and polite finger-snaps.
Recommended listening activity:
Sketching out the logo for your club’s t-shirts.