Soft

I live in San Diego but I hail from Boston. San Diego has been my home for the last 11 years but at heart, I'm a New Englander. As much as San Diego is a paradise to live in, it will never quite feel like home to me like Massachusetts does. After all this time I'm still amazed to see big, cowboy skies and palm trees every day.

I don't think I'll ever get used to it because I'll forever be comparing it and contrasting it to New England. It's just something that's been imprinted on me.

With winter fast approaching I feel even more bewildered. I'm used to gloomy, biting cold and endless days of snow, not going about in t-shirts, shorts and sandals. And while I don't miss any of that I do miss other things about winter, like how snowfall seems to mute sound, while sub zero temperatures seems to crystallize it. And I miss the way winter can bring on a kind of bittersweet frame of mind.

Living in sunny San Diego I have to really go out of my way to tap into that state of mind and today's show is a sonic touchstone to that place, in only that magical way that music can reach.

When I was gathering the songs for today's show over the last couple of months I didn't have any of that in mind. Quite honestly, I was just setting aside songs in a folder in iTunes that just seemed to fit together well. It wasn't until I began working on the mix for today's show that it became apparent what the show actually wanted to be.

I remember one winter night when I was a boy. I was an angry and unhappy kid because my parent's marriage was falling apart. I had all these intense emotions and conflicts that I didn't know what to do with. But I remember one night where I left the house after a terrible argument with my mom. I walked around for a while and then found myself at a local pond that was frozen over and covered with snow. It calmed me. So I walked to the center of the pond, lay down and watched the snow fall from sky.

It was late, and I was far away from any roads. It was quiet and I was completely alone and all the confusion and anger just melted away.

And that's what today's show wants to be: a touchstone to that moment.

At least, that's what it is for me. It will be something entirely different for you. And that's part of the magic of today's show.

Join us again next week when we'll showcase music from Immigrant Breast Nest. Dan Abatemarco is one of the founder's of Immigrant Breast Nest and he also performs under the name of Speak Onion. Speak Onion is an experiment in noise and you can experience Speak Onion's live set here.

See you next week!

01. Stateless "Red Ocean"

02. Taylor Deupree "Live: Brisbane" [FREE DOWNLOAD]

03. Landcrash "Verbena reaches for the sky" [FREE DOWNLOAD]

04. Chihei Hatakeyama "Renitency"

05. Piiptsjilling "Utsakke Bui"

06. Pimmon "Passing, Never To Be Held"

07. Steinbruchel "n-variations-05"

08. Anonymeye "Minarchism"

09 Zvuku "Woodpile" [FREE DOWNLOAD]

10. Minamo "Paperweight"

11. Rafael Anton Irisarri "Moments Descend On My Windowpane"