This is gonna be one of those things that works for no one, but the author.

Since I cannot stop thinking, I meditate to music. (Thank the gods for Walkman / Diskplayers / MD players / the iPod!)

I figured that out in 1997 while on a trip to better mental health. Back then I was reading the Tao Te Ching and mostly listening to “Trip Hop”, Goth and Metal on an Aiwa Walkman (cheap) with AKG headphones (not cheap) usually recorded to 120 minutes tapes. The sound quality was really bad and with good ear and good cans even worse, but just like records, it had its own charm.

As I discovered, trying to clam to be able to meditate, the biggest success came with Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar and Tricky’s Pre Millennium Tension

Since then, my tastes have changed, things got different.

Nowadays these albums can calm me, both in meditation sessions and whenever I read shitty code, racist shit or when sexism is thrown around as if it was normal.

Here is a little list of things that relax me. It’s also a bunch of (partly maligned) great music.

• Tricky is still top
• Pre Millennium Tension.
• Nearly God
• Zeal & Ardor Devil is Fine (Avantgarde Black Metal / Blues / Gang Chain Chants, just buy it!)
• Deafheaven Sunbather (Avantgarde Metal)
• Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto Insen (electronic)
• Daphne Oram / Andrea Parker and Daz Quayle Private Dreams and Public Nightmares (Avantgarde, Musique concrète, Electronic)
• Opeth Morning rise (Avantgarde Death Metal)
• DJ Krush The Message at the Depth (Avantgarde HipHop)
• Cappablack Façades & Skeletons