“Sound” as the word “music” attaches a personal taste, a subjective view, a reason to judge. Throughout my life songs have been able to put me back into a place, a time. I am not alone when I say that I can resort to music during my happiest, darkest or most sombre moments. My love for music has seen me keep vinyl/cassette collections, which turned into CD collections, which moved to iTunes mp3 playlists and now a curated streaming collection. Roll with the times I guess. The playlists I have curated on Spotify are grouped into phases and moods. It should be pretty self explanatory, but one section is grouped into periods of my life while the other is for a distinct feeling. Curating this list has been an interesting endevaour in that there are songs which I would not call my “favourite” or something I “like”, but can be typical of the period it represents and is not something I will skip these days when it starts playing (differentiating it from songs which remind me of a period but I will still always skip - which are not on my lists). Feel free to listen if you’re interested knowing that each track is special to me in some way - whether evoking a memory or tickling my aural senses to bop my head, dance, grind, headbang, whatever…

Phases

–> skool dayz <– click for Spotify

Our family migrated from Fiji to Australia in 1985 when I was 8yo. My pre-teen era is filled with music my father listened to in his 30s, what was on the radio during breakfast before primary school, and the beginnings of acquiring a taste for bands and sounds during my high school years. This period combines the beginnings of my love for metal and hip-hop during my teens after the first time I listened to “Number of the Beast” and “Fear of a Black Planet” on vinyl.

–> hazy shade of uni <– click for Spotify

While my love for Brit-pop, jangly shoegaze and grunge had started in high school, university life solidified it. This was a time of new friends, new influences, meeting people from different walks of life and subcultures. It also started years of socialising at clubs, all different types, all with different social circles of friends.

–> dazed and confused <– click for Spotify

More dazed than confused really. These were heady days of outdoor parties, raves in the bush, genre-bending all day festivals and all the trappings they entail. A rennaisance of club culture and a period of electro-rock and synth-pop revival also sprinkled into my consciousness during these fond years.

–> grow up will ya <– click for Spotify

This is the present. Refining sounds that I like by revisiting bands from yesteryear to either validate first impressions or change my opinion. This is the now, a period of streaming music, recommendations of new music and bands based on collections and listening history.

Moods

–> hearty chunks <– click for Spotify

More a romantic in the New Romantic sense of the word, the idea of falling in love more than being in love itself. This is my collection for that very feeling.

–> immortal beloved <– click for Spotify

In keeping with the Romantic ideals, this is a set of songs curated for death - whether played at funerals I have attended, or what I would like played at my funeral. Not morbid if you celebrate the idea of life, and some of these songs put me right back into my time with a friend who is no longer with me - as the song happened to be played at their consignment to the grave.

–> goanna down under midnight to inxs land <– click for Spotify

The last 10yrs have seen me travel A LOT. There are no words to describe the feeling when the plane is hovering above Melbourne Airport ready to land and I hear “Solid Rock” or “Great Southern Land”. Patriotism is not about following your country in sporting matches, its about identification with the social and cultural norms in your city or country of choice (politics notwithstanding). Nothing and no-one defines what it is to be Australian to me like this playlist.

–> every story tells a picture <– click for Spotify

For those times when I need to feel like I am once again on a dancefloor, out in the forest and fire twirling.