Shuffle: congruences and contrasts

I’ve resisted the occasional urge to listen on shuffle to the part of my music collection that will fit on my laptop’s hard drive, but a month or so ago I gave in. iTunes helpfully informs me at a glance that my library is currently made up of 20 genres, 269 artists, 574 albums, 6671 songs, equivalent to 22 days 5 hours 18 minutes and 37 seconds of playing time.

I’d never been that interested in listening in shuffle mode because I’m a fan of albums. I love the sense of the organisation, the flow and contrast that the format offers up. I’d noted with mild irritation the seemingly endless declarations about the death of the form in light of digital sale of individual MP3 tracks. However, as a result of struggling to find something I wanted to listen to, I began to listen to individual genres (techno, vocal, world, etc) on shuffle and from there it was but a short hop to re-enabling the unpleasantly named ‘Party Shuffle’ in the sidebar. I’ve been enjoying the resulting contrasts and congruences of the title of this post no end. I’ve noted where there have been enjoyable and unexpected musical transitions and here’s a sample of them:

• Kraftwerk: Neon Lights
• Burial: You Hurt Me

• Erik Satie: Danse Gothique No 6
• Toshimitsu Ishikawa: Haruno Sugata

• Basic Channel: Radiance II Edit
• Wackies: Always Dubbing

• Ornette Coleman: Humpty Dumpty
• Penguin Cafe Orchestra: Humpty Dumpty On The Line

• Bach: Brandenburg No 5
• Alva Noto: 10-19 Astoria

• Shackleton: Hamas Rule
• Sussan Deyhim: Meykhaneh

• Witch Doctor Ceremony, Kenya: Akamba Witch Doctor
• John Fahey: Planaria

• Bach: No 2 in C Minor, The Well-Tempered Klavier
• Ralf and Florian: Kristallo

• Bill Laswell: Upright Man
• Vex’d: Venus

• King Tubby: African Roots
• .O.Rang: Forest

• Paul Simon: Graceland
• Robert Johnson: Preaching Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)

• Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri Rainforest: Leaf
• Ornette Coleman: To Us

Funnily enough, the other reason I’d been reluctant to listen this way was the suspicion that the contrasts would make for an uncomfortable experience and the sequence that’s played while I write this has had just this effect – a track by Gary Clail and the On-U Sound System followed by one of Prokofiev’s Vision Fugitives for solo piano and then Dock Bogg’s Sugar Baby. Then again my dissatisfaction is probably the result of the slightly depressive effect of a late night beer and the prospect of having to fill out job applications today…