Results for “ritual/meditative sound”

Songs

The Sound of Silence

Paul Simon

A young man addresses an abstraction—darkness, silence—as a companion, then walks through a hallucinatory cityscape where…

alienation failure of communication modernity and technology as false idol

Bowls

Caribou

An instrumental built around the ringing, resonant tone of struck bowls, this track from Swim uses percussive, pitched hits and…

texture over narrative repetition and accumulation fluidity

Watch the Stars

Bert Jansch

A late Bert Jansch piece built almost entirely from repetition and simple natural imagery — stars, wind, moon — cycling through…

natural cycles impermanence meditation/ritual

Give Life Back to Music

Daft Punk

This opening track of Random Access Memories functions less as a song with a narrative than as a mission statement, repeating a…

renewal through music ritual and invocation nostalgia for analog/live sound

Pockets

Four Tet

"Pockets" is an instrumental Four Tet track from a 2006 single, working in the electronic-organic hybrid style Hebden developed…

texture and accumulation organic vs. electronic sound repetition as structure

Red Guitar

Cassandra Wilson

This is a meditative, almost devotional song built around a simple ritual: each day's mundane and sensory acts are catalogued by…

impermanence ritual and routine art as anchor

Hands

Four Tet

"Hands" is an instrumental piece built from folktronica textures — plucked strings, hand percussion, and looping samples — that…

craft and manual labor repetition as meditation organic vs. electronic texture

Right In Time

Lucinda Williams

A slow-building meditation on desire built from small domestic gestures rather than declarations. Williams narrates a private…

longing memory and its physical trace solitary desire

Feel Flows

The Beach Boys

A near-abstract meditation by Carl Wilson that trades narrative for texture, using dense alliteration and impressionistic…

dissolution of self memory and time transcendence

The Eternal

Joy Division

A slow-motion funeral procession becomes the occasion for a meditation on grief, estrangement, and the passage of time as seen…

death and mourning isolation from community childhood and incomprehension

Get Ur Freak On

Missy Elliott

A pure sound-and-swagger track built around a hypnotic, bindi-and-bhangra-inflected beat, where Missy Elliott spends most of the…

self-assertion dominance and rivalry sound over sense

Turn On Some Music

Marvin Gaye

A late-career Marvin Gaye track that fuses seduction and sound into one continuous metaphor, using the ritual of playing records…

sex as ritual music as therapy/escape longing and reunion

Suspirium

Thom Yorke

A hushed, waltz-time overture that sets the tone for a horror film without narrating any plot: it's a meditation on bodies,…

bodily surrender ritual and dance as danger maternal/matriarchal power

Wolf

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

A brief, incantatory song that uses the wolf as a figure for a hunger that is both predatory and vulnerable. Karen O's narrator…

desire as predation vulnerability disguised as ferocity spiritual longing

Heads Will Roll

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

A dancefloor incantation built on a beheading command, this track turns a nightclub into a site of ecstatic dissolution. Karen O…

ecstatic dissolution surveillance/spectacle of the body ritual and repetition

Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)

Maxwell

A love song built almost entirely on reassurance, where the narrator repeats a single vow of devotion until it becomes…

romantic devotion reassurance and doubt idealization of a partner

Nattura

Björk

A short, chant-like hymn in Icelandic built almost entirely from repeated fragments rather than sentences, centering on the word…

nature and stewardship surrender/acceptance language as ritual

Night

Bill Callahan

A short, incantatory piece built around a single image—a door that both conceals and contains someone or something unknowable.…

mystery of death or absence the limits of knowledge ritual and repetition

Clarksdale Moan

Son House

This is a plainspoken Delta blues meditation on home -- specifically Clarksdale, Mississippi -- rendered through the traditional…

place and belonging poverty endured with dignity memory and habit

Come All Ye

Fairport Convention

An opening invocation that doubles as a band introduction, this track functions as a ceremonial curtain-raiser for Fairport…

communal ritual music as invocation self-referential performance

Shadowplay

Joy Division

A tense, dreamlike monologue in which the speaker searches an urban and psychic landscape for someone he seems to have already…

guilt and complicity urban alienation performance of identity

Tour de France 2003

Kraftwerk

This is Kraftwerk's minimalist tribute to the world's most famous bicycle race, built almost entirely from a litany of French…

endurance and the body technology and human effort geography as narrative

Silent Spring

Massive Attack

This is a fragmentary, almost liturgical piece built around a single stammered command—obedience—repeated until it dissolves…

power and submission ritual/liturgy loss of individual voice

Death Letter

Cassandra Wilson

Cassandra Wilson's reworking of Son House's Delta blues turns a stark, percussive country-blues confession into a slow,…

grief and mourning delayed love/regret death and ritual

Surfin' Bird

Ramones

A cover of a novelty doo-wop hit turned into a blunt-force punk exercise, this track strips a already-nonsensical 1963 single…

nonsense as content repetition and ritual pop history as raw material

Planet Queen

T. Rex

A glam-rock incantation that fuses science-fiction imagery with erotic obsession, built almost entirely from repeated, dreamlike…

cosmic eroticism obsession and surrender dream logic

For the Widows In Paradise, for the Fatherless In Ypsilanti

Sufjan Stevens

A quiet, hymn-like meditation that speaks in the voice of a paternal or divine figure addressing a child, community, or…

fatherlessness and inherited grief divine or paternal devotion obligation and sacrifice

Soon the New Day

Talib Kweli

A club-and-nightlife narrative that follows the mating rituals of a night out, mapping the performance, pretense, and…

casual sex and disposability performance and masquerade gender dynamics and predation

Fun House

The Stooges

Fun House is less a song than a physical event: a repetitive, chant-driven invocation that builds through call-and-response…

bodily release performance as ritual invitation and seduction

Two Thousand and Seventeen

Four Tet

Two Thousand and Seventeen is an instrumental centerpiece from Four Tet's New Energy, built around a looping, bell-like melodic…

cyclical time meditative repetition organic vs electronic texture

Thunder and Lightning

Thin Lizzy

This is Thin Lizzy in full riff-driven bravado mode, a Saturday-night anthem that fuses schoolyard aggression, romantic…

masculine bravado violence as ritual working-class nightlife

This Christmas

The Temptations

A warm, low-stakes holiday song built around domestic ritual and romantic anticipation rather than religious or narrative…

holiday intimacy domestic warmth romantic anticipation

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

Magazine

Magazine's version of the Sly and the Family Stone song strips the original's funk exuberance down to something clipped and…

identity and self-possession violence and threat alienation from social gathering

A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"

De La Soul

A radio-skit framed jam that turns Saturday roller-rink culture into a loose celebration of release after the work week,…

leisure and release community ritual casual romance and its double standards

Gold Lion

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

A folk-tinged incantation built around a mythic animal-guide figure, the song trades narrative clarity for mood and repetition,…

loss of control seeking guidance/protection transformation and rebirth

My Babe

Spoon

A song about staying put — emotionally and literally — inside a routine that has worn thin, and choosing devotion anyway. The…

endurance of routine devotion as choice stasis versus escape

Earth Intruders

Björk

A relentless, drum-heavy chant that casts a collective 'we' as an invading army of natural forces, half-tribal ritual and…

collective identity vs. individual doubt militarism and ritual violence nature reclaiming or overwhelming order

Spoonman

Soundgarden

A tribute to a real Seattle street performer becomes a compressed meditation on rhythm as communal salvation, with the song's…

music as ritual/salvation street performance and urban folklore community through rhythm

Home

LCD Soundsystem

Home closes This Is Happening as a slow-building comedown song, one that treats the title word as both destination and evasion.…

escape versus arrival fear of vulnerability nightlife as ritual and anesthetic

Walkin' After Midnight

Patsy Cline

A woman turns nightly solitary walks into a ritual of longing, hoping that the same restlessness that drives her out into the…

unrequited longing loneliness nocturnal wandering as ritual