“Third Hour” from Gave in Rest (2018) by Sarah Davachi
Even though I live in Florida, winter is a time for plants to take a holiday; the grass gets scrubby and brown, and you are able to take a breath of stillness before the suffocatingly verdant heat returns. Sarah Davachi’s music takes close harmonies, layering and stretching them across long durations until they bring you to a luminous place… sort of in the same way that winters in Tallahassee are about imperceptible changes — a very slow growth that you don’t think about until you see those first buds of spring.
NPR Tiny Desk Concert (July 15, 2022) by Ludovico Einaudi
I wouldn’t presume that I was introducing anyone to the already world-famous Einaudi or Tiny Desk concerts, but this particular concert — sparse, beautiful, elegiac, and filled with promise — has been one of my favorites this winter. I especially love hearing Einaudi’s piano supported by violin, cello, and percussion.
“The Whole of the Moon” from This Is the Sea (1985) by The Waterboys
“The Whole of the Moon” has made it into my yearly winter listening repertoire after hearing it in the 2019 Netflix Christmas-ish special Let It Snow — though my reasons for continuing to find it relevant to my winters have nothing to do with that movie. Winter in Illinois can be grueling with its cold winds, snow and ice, and long darkness. Hard on bodies and bank accounts when cold, and existentially distressing when warmer than it should be. This song takes as its premise the idea that our particular perception of things is just that: particular. With a little more imagination and hope, we might yet move from seeing just the crescent and move toward seeing the whole of the moon.
