Seasonal Soundtrack: Ongaku

Seasonal Soundtrack:  Ongaku

By V. Rose

What is the soundtrack to a winter without snow?  As I stare at the sea of red washing over the map declaring the warmest winter on record “Unit” by Logic System begins playing unbidden in my mind.  Vaguely sinister synths dance as my thoughts wander.  

Portland will become California, my friends insist.  But what will California become?  

When I was growing up in Southern California I would thrill at the storms stirred up by El Niño.  Curled up next to my grandmother and her fluffy cat Beauregard we would watch musicals while waves crashed into the aluminum storm panels on her mobile home.  Sometimes I would ask her to play Rachmaninoff on the piano, her hands flying over the keys despite her arthritis.   

I am still waiting for the temperature to drop.  Meanwhile, I make friends with my neighbors the elder millennial way, triangulating our proximity through dating apps.  “Look at this weird seed I found!”  I message the botanist dressed as a Greek goddess overseeing a Dionysian display of fruit in her profile picture.  “Those trees only grow in two parts of town, and one of them is on my street.” She replies.  One picnic later and we are organizing the neighborhood coven.

Weeks later she invites me over for shepard’s pie, my favorite dish from childhood.  As she cooks a song comes on that I recognize from the dusty recesses of 2018 Oakland kitchens.  “Is this Solid, Liquid, Gas by Eartheater?” “Yes!  It’s like me,” She says, “Moving through phases of matter.” 

One day I take a wildly eclectic stack of records to Little Axe to trade.  A tiny record store next to Hollywood Theater, they have a whole section devoted to my current obsession, Yellow Magic Orchestra.  I was in search of Solid State Survivor but was given Naughty Boys, an album I had never heard.  I toss it in my record box at home waiting for the right moment.

Deep in an Over the Garden Wall marathon my friend and I take a break to eat pizza.  “What is good pizza eating music?” I ask.  They shrug and I throw on “Naughty Boys.” We grin at each other through marinara.  

I play it again on Valentine’s Day, 3 times in a row like a normal person.  I’m home alone and dancing in my living room, texting a long-distance crush.  On the back of the record the three bandmates are holding hands, one on top of another.  

The forecast for the future is unknown but I suggest you find three hands to hold.    

Also in heavy rotation this winter:  Sceneries Not Songs by Larry Heard or as I like to call it: Dolphin Lounge Music.