Attuned: A Spring Playlist
Introducing a new series & soundtrack for spring from Michael A. Muller
This month, we’re pleased to introduce Attuned, a new playlist series created in collaboration with an evolving roster of artists & musicians we admire.
As winemakers, we work in choreography with seasonal cycles—guided not necessarily by dates on the calendar but an awareness of the subtle sensorial shifts that prompt us toward times of action, pause, or pivot.
With each chapter of winemaking, there are palpable themes that come to the surface, be it the possibilities of planting seeds, the steadfast patience of winter, or the immediate call-to-action (aka: gleeful panic!) of harvest…these times each offer us their own palpable character and tone.
Thus, a series of soundtracks that foremost are guiding our own work at Antica Terra—what we’re literally streaming throughout the winery, both accompanying our team as we work on-site, as we sit down at the table with our guests, and now, as we extend the gesture into the conversations we share with you here in this special sliver of the Internet.
Each playlist will reflect the winemaking season we’re entering…as interpreted by curators we’re so lucky to have in our world.
To begin, a playlist for the present moment: early blooms, emergence, possibility, and anticipation afoot, as curated by Los Angeles composer and producer Michael A. Muller and inspired by “clear, bright days filled with vibrancy and a little mystery.”
Michael is best known for his almost 20-year career as co-founder and multi-instrumentalist in the ensemble Balmorhea. As a solo artist & film composer, his work references a range of influences, from 50s jazz to 90s experimental minimalism to 19th century classical compositions—embodying a dynamic range of warm nostalgia, ethereal dream states, and the spartan contemporary. Most recently, he released a solo album Mirror Music, his debut for the historic Deutsche Grammophon label.
Stream Michael’s playlist here—and read on to learn more about the ideas that informed it.
In Conversation with Michael A. Muller
Can you share some of your formative acoustic experiences?
The first thing I think about is specific experiences in nature: breaking surf, standing near a waterfall, being in a forest with heavy winds whipping. When I come out of these intense experiences outside and back into silence, I can often still hear these sounds ringing in my ears.
I also think about how silence (or small details) magnifies sound, i.e being overwhelmed with an 80-piece orchestra playing in unison and filling a massive concert hall…then hearing one of the players turn their sheet music, or clear their voice, or a door closing in the back of the auditorium.
To me, these moments are so visceral. They’re reminders of humanness, of the logic-evading richness that can be a byproduct of listening.
The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard wrote that "[in silence] we are seized with the sensation of something vast and deep and boundless.” Does the expression of emergence (or springtime) resonate more with the presence of sound, or the absence of it?
On this playlist I was thinking about the idea of generative newness. Tones and melodies that felt like a breaking ray of light…the emergence of something new that wasn’t there before (and the ways it can arrive mysteriously and without preamble).
A song, or even a small series of notes in a melody, can stay with us for a lifetime —catapulting us back to specific times and places. In my life, music is the most important art form: it enhances and propels everything.
“[…] Deep bass paired with a shrill high and the interplay between the two. It holds some magic. It feels to me like the equivalent of the sun shining while a storm is brewing—you can see both contrasts equally and at once.”
Do you have any inspiration or guidance for bettering our abilities to listen for the unknown?
Sound and music are literally everywhere. All around us, all the time. I’ve been getting in the habit of opting in to silence more often: intentionally leaving my headphones at home when going on a walk. Leaving the radio off on a long drive.
Listening, like anything, is made sharper when we pay attention to it…and by allowing more silence and negative space in, the sounds that come through are more discernible, more visceral.
I’m trying to be better at parsing through the noise rather than being in a state of constant bombardment—to find richness in the accumulation of singular, small, simple sensorial moments.
Which frequencies, notes, noises epitomize the theme of emergence for you? What comes to mind (or ear)?
The word polyphony in music theory means when two or more tones or notes are played at the same time (i.e., a chord). I really enjoy this balance as a listener and composer; deep bass paired with a shrill high and the interplay between the two. It holds some magic, like the equivalent of the sun shining while a storm is brewing—you can see both contrasts equally.
Is there a particular sonic character that emerges as a pattern among the songs you've selected for this playlist?
Simplicity could be the common thread in all of this music. It’s an interesting practice to focus on the notes that aren’t played—the space between the notes. The most can sometimes be said with the fewest words.
I love bookmarking songs and albums throughout my days, both of music I have researched or discovered myself, and things recommended by friends or referenced in a podcast, etc. I comb through these with a mental filter of pace, energy, or the metaphorical ‘color’ of a song and assemble them in an order that makes sense through this lens.
What is your definition of what it means to listen? Or can you describe the variations of the places you go when you listen?
There is listening and there is hearing. The latter being a passive, background activity with the former being an engaged and active process.
A lot of outside factors influence which of these modes I’m in. I have a hard time listening to quiet and contemplative music when it’s the heat of the summer and the sun is shining 14 hours a day. The lighting, my mood, the occasion, the time of day—all of these elements play a role. For a ‘springtime’ playlist, I was thinking about clear, bright days filled with vibrancy and a little mystery.