2025-12 / LISTENING JOURNAL
LISTENING JOURNAL is a collection of playlists as journal entries, curated through embodied listening.1 Each entry offers a way to tap into a combination of my music taste, sounds I’m momentarily interested in, and different ways I’m building awareness of my participation in media culture through music.
The playlist for December (2025-12) is now updated in the are.na page for my [listening journal], which is where these entries rotate. You can listen to the current playlist, as well as check out any of the songs’ music videos.
Below are the tracks from the previous journal entry.
2025-11:
Flora Matos. “Piloto.” Flora Matos, 2018.
Mamman Sani. “Samari Da Yan Matan.” Unreleased Tapes 1981-1984, Sahel Sounds, 2015.
Abstract Rude. “Keep it True ft. Aceyalone.” Making Tracks, Keep The Feel Ent., 2002.
SML. “Herbie for Commercials.” Small Medium Large. International Anthem Recording Company, 2024.
Hope you encounter something that resonates with you.
- Paris ★
Jenny Odell is a writer and artist who has theorized about doing or making ’nothing’ as a creative, resistive act. In her 2020 speech to Harvard School of Design graduate students (later published in print as Inhabiting the Negative Space), she gave the most accurate description I’ve heard thus far of the particular ‘listening’ that i’ve been journaling: “…being surprised by a song I liked for reasons I can’t actually explain… [When] something I don’t know feels like it’s talking to something else I don’t know, through me.” She mentions noticing this particular feeling while listening as a contrast to algorithmic music curation that uses data to constrict a person to a stable, marketable ‘brand’ of listener. ↩