Radio LBB: Soundtracking the Flashbacks

I turn 40 this year. 15 years in audio post production come May. Nostalgia has become my favourite indulgence. A guiltless pleasure.

Music has become my time machine. As a teenager it was Taking Back Sunday, Atreyu, Millencolin. My 10 hour playlist is basically my diary with distortion pedals. By the time I hit uni in 2007, the guitars started giving way to electronic discoveries. Boards of Canada, Autechre, Telefon Tel Aviv. I indulged in introspection. These were not just artists, they were portals. Intimate, cerebral and alien. Music that felt like it was stitched together from dreams and computer code.

By 2011 I had joined the industry, green and eager, stretching myself. Fast forward to Field Day 2015, a glorious blur of Clark, Caribou, FKA twigs and countless others. I went with fellow String and Tinner Culum Simpson and a squad of industry friends I still see today. The playlist we built for that festival still transports me there.

Now with a family and less time to disappear into musical rabbit holes, I still get joy from digging up tracks that tickle my pickle. A playlist does not just play songs. It collapses time, drops you back into a moment, and reminds you of the person you were becoming.

Read more from String and Tins here.