The Playlist

Music has always been really important to me, even if I'm actually not very musically talented. Can't really sing or play but I love music. I listen to it a lot. Sometimes at home I dance in the dark and pretend I'm a dancer. Music is often pretty important for my process too; I get a lot of ideas from songs and like to name my photos after songs or lyrics that influenced me. So I made a playlist for my Greenland trip! It's here.

It has a lot of folksy stuff, especially darker, almost Southern Gothic -type, except in this case it would have to be Northern Gothic. Which should definitely be a genre and I mean, it is, it's just not really coined yet. Except by me! I coin it now! I'm trying to make Finnish Gothic a thing but I'm not sure it's gonna happen.

Also, I think guitar and story driven folk music is something Greenland and Finland have in common. I would have expected darker music here, somehow (because we're really dark in Finland), but it's actually quite upbeat. They also have a cool drumdancing thing here but more about that some other time.

The playlist also has ambient and more, hmm, computer-driven music? Why do I not know words for things. To me, north, ice and snow sound like that kind of ambient music. The mountains, the endless white, the silence and then that feeling of dread and death, too, in a way? Melancholia? There's also a darkness in my playlist because this country, like Finland, can be really harsh. The weather and the circumstances are ruthless and in nature, very small things separate life and death. There are also dark features in the Greenlandic culture, the traditional as well as the modern, just like there are in every culture.

I've also been listening to a lot of Ghost in the Shell -themed music because the movie just came out and I love the music in it. The movie might have issues but the music is great. Plus it feels relevant for my project, what with agency, body issues, feeling isolated and like a stanger etc. I saw the movie a few weeks ago. But more about that later too.

And then I have capped off the playlist with a few New York -themed songs just because I love listening to them when I climb up stairs or a hill and it feels like I'm on the top of the world. It might seem weird but coming here was a big deal for me, like going to New York can be a big deal. Like the place where you never thought you'd get; the place that's almost mythical, you know? Also you can make a maybe not so impressive pun of calling this city Nuuk York City. I'm actually not the only one doing that! If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere. I hope I'll get a New York residency one day.

This has been my favorite song this week:


So what are you waiting for? Go and listen to the playlist!