It can be safe to say that many artists work to music. The influences run back and forth; visual artists put their ideas into tangible viewability, musical artists paint an abstract soundscape. Music plays a heavy influence into my life and work as well. I have a pretty wide rotation of sounds that I use to buffer out reality while I work or plan.

I listen to a large amount of netlabel minimal music, music labels mainly out of Europe or Canada that are listener-supported, releasing Creative Commons licensed works that tend to be of superior quality over the domestic crap on the market.

Thinner is a fantastic outpost for some of the best minimal house sounds my ears have ever been seduced by. Check out Nulleins, Rktic, and Laura Palmer. All three artists create fierce rooms of sonic depth, weaving back and forth in between cycles of samples and beats, integrating elements of dub, techno, and ambiance. I score my life with these tracks whether I’m in action in the studio or taking a nap on the bed in the sunshine striking through a window.

Moving backwards, two of my favorite artists are Brian Eno and Talking Heads. What better then the union of the two? My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was their collaboration from 1981, crossing all continents, fusing rock with samples and trance, and really set the bar with which much future electro-inspired music can be measured to. Referencing this album would be The Orb, The KLF, Aphex Twin, and the thousands of artists that followed after in the electronic rush of the early 1990s. The album is an adventure of it’s own, much like Eno’s work Ambient 1: Music for Airports, perhaps the most emotional piece of ambient electronic music ever created. The ethereal quality of ambient noise one experiences while in airport terminals comes through solid in Eno’s album and really captures the feeling of comings and goings as experiences and images come in, through, and exit our lives. The album Eno and Byrne do together takes in much of the same emotion but with the experience of life and frustration away from our own inner circles.

Finally, if you’re in San Francisco, you should take a walk to the corner of Grove and Van Ness across from City Hall and take a look at Paul Hayes‘ work in the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery window. He uses simple materials: generic copy paper, wire, and wood to create extra-dimensional landscapes in confined space, really challenging our perception of area and fluidity.

Enjoy the exploration of the above while I go off into the forest for a few days to nail out work.