Daily Dose: Local Natives, “Desert Snow”

Some music triggers recall. And thank goodness, because some memories (the simple ones) don’t always like to surface.

Songs by Local Natives always take me back to my last few years of undergrad at San Francisco State, where I had nothing but time to read and absorb music and stumble forward. Even their new tracks, which do feel fresh but still feature the band’s signature harmonies, are transportive. Here I am again, skin pulling warmth from brutalist concrete benches in the quad, rummaging through my Green Apple Books tote bag for a pencil I’d lost somewhere in the halls of the social sciences building they demolished this year.

There’s so much I wanna tell ya about my time there, more than you could ever know.

Daily Dose: Fiona Apple, “I Want You To Love Me”

I have a deep and abiding love for Fiona Apple.

Fiona’s been with me since before I knew who I was and has most definitely had a heavy hand in who I am. Learning to play her songs on piano as a teen. Screaming her lyrics while driving North on the I-5 in my twenties. And, most recently, listening silently to entire albums while lying on the floor of the home I somehow purchased to root myself in San Francisco–back on bare hardwood, her notes ricocheting off lathe-and-plaster walls.

I, this person that I am, love you, Fiona Apple.