Crucial Interview 010: Halsted

Welcome back to the Crucial Tracks interview series! I know it’s been awhile, but with folks sharing 100s of tracks on the Crucial Tracks app, there’s been no shortage of stories. I do have some more formal interviews in the pipeline, so I am excited to share those as well! So, if you enjoy the premise of this interview and aren’t on the app yet, head over and sign up… it’s free and not like any social site going today.

Today’s guest is someone I met on the OMG.lol Mastodon instance or maybe it was on Micro.blog (geez, time is weird now), but regardless Halsted has been someone I’ve enjoyed following whether it’s her posts on the Crucial Tracks app, blog, podcast with Keenan, or anything she shares online. I love the combination of being able to relate to whatever is being shared and the calm sense of reason and thoughtfulness she provides to that corner of the internet. I’m a big fan.

With that all being said, I present to you Halsted aka cygnoir… enjoy!

🖥️ To start out, can you tell us a little about yourself and where people can follow your work?

Hello there! I’m Halsted, a/k/a cygnoir, and I’m absolutely not three melodramatic opossums in a trenchcoat, how very dare you. Some might even call me a “human” but you really can’t trust “Some” these days.

This iteration of my online existence is marked by good-natured chaos along with an utter refusal to capitulate to the forces of mediocrity and ignorance. I try things and fail often at cygnoir.net. And I’m having a total blast making a podcast with my friend Keenan called Friendship Material which is about our friendship and how many times can I say “friend” in this sentence, friend!

🎧 How do you listen to music? (albums, playlists, radio?)

My favorite way to listen to music is in my car. I don’t have a particularly good sound system in it, but the interior is my own domain, and I get to sing along (loudly, off-key) with whatever I want. Including and perhaps most especially soundtracks to musicals.

Playlists can be fun, and I rely on a few of them to introduce me to new music, like James Harris’ ScrobbleRadio Mix. I also have a shared playlist with a friend that we add to whenever we want to share new or old favorites with each other, and it’s like sonic postcards!

If it’s a new-to-me artist, I try to listen to the entire album in order first. Special care went into selecting the order of tracks, and despite being a contrarian who hates being told what to do, I appreciate order.

The rest of my listening can be described as They Might Be Giants.

💿 Digital or physical releases? What service or media (vinyl, CD, tapes, etc)?

Digital. I appreciate physical releases, but I enjoy the flexibility of digital so I can listen wherever I happen to be. I use Marvis to interact with my music library because I can be a bit of a UI snob.

❤️ In terms of picking music, do you stick to your favorites or search for new music or is it a mix?

It’s a mix, completely dependent on my mood. When I’m yearning for comfort or kindness, I rely heavily on decades of carefully constructed playlists I’ve accumulated in Apple Music. (Shoutout to this Lifehacker comment 12 years ago that changed my music-listening life. [Shoutout to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.])

When I’m trying to process the world around me and grapple with its ever-accelerating pace of change, I look for new music. And I’ll listen to anything!

🔍 If you try to find new music, how do you go about finding new artists or albums?

Right now I’m in a ScrobbleRadio phase because I enjoy selecting a radio station and just going wherever it takes me. Ages ago, my husband FunkyPlaid introduced me to Gorilla vs Bear, which is usually where I start for new music discovery, as well as Hype Machine, Bandcamp, and of course Crucial Tracks: the place to go when you want your tracks to be crucial™.

Halsted’s Crucial Tracks

What’s your earliest song/music memory?

Get ready for the most ’70s response you can possibly imagine: Harry Nilsson’s sixth studio album was an acid-trip-inspired fable called “The Point!”. Listening to “Me and My Arrow” is the first time I can remember singing along to a song I loved.

Fun fact: The album was accompanied by an animated film adaptation that aired on network television. I don’t remember watching it, but I must have.

What is an important song from your childhood?

It has to be Willie Nelson’s cover of ”Stardust” because it is so specific and nuanced and personal to my childhood, and I wrote about why in my Crucial Tracks journal.

What’s one song that’s important to your teenage years?

Ah, my teenage years, those halcyon days of always fitting in, never feeling misunderstood, and being the most popular swan in school. 😑

One of my (few) friends put “Blister in the Sun” by Violent Femmes on a mixtape for me and I have never been the same.

What’s one song that stands out from your college years (or early adulthood)?

This was excruciating to choose, because I knew it had to be a They Might Be Giants song, but which one?! I finally settled on “Narrow Your Eyes” from their “Apollo 18” album. Whenever I listen to it, I feel the same frustrated loneliness that imbued my heartbreaks of that time.

What’s a song that stands out from your current/most recent relationship?

Our song is “Oceanwide” by Halou because of the ocean that separated us for a time, the poignancy of the lyrics, the gorgeous melody, and everything really. It’s a brilliant song, made ever more brilliant because Rebecca and Ryan are dear friends. We had the incredible experience of Halou performing this live at our wedding reception.

What’s your favorite song from the last year?

“Bittersweet” by Cliffords goes so hard. Iona Lynch’s vocals are impeccable. And the lyrics. And the everything!

BONUS: Which song haunts you?

I set myself up by suggesting this bonus question, because plenty of songs haunt me — in ear-worm form, or in cherished memories — but there is one that’s haunting me right now… “crooked the road” by Mon Rovîa. This song is like a tiny bubble universe that I can sink into and simply exist for a few minutes.

That’s the magic of music: Not only can it make us think, feel, remember, anticipate, break apart, and slowly heal, music allows us to exist in someone else’s imagination.

Listen to this issue of Crucial Tracks

Find this issue’s playlist on Apple Music.

Thanks

Many thanks to Halsted for taking the time to share her music story! Once again, Halsted can be found at cygnoir.net and on the Friendship Material podcast. Do give her a follow.