From Cat Power to Bjork via Grimes, here are the songs that inspired the short stories in Helen Phillips’s new collection, unpacked by the author
By Helen Phillips for Literary Mixtapes by Electric Literature, part of the Guardian Books Network
The art critic Walter Pater’s famous claim that “all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music” has long resonated with me (who wouldn’t take being a rock star over being a fiction writer?). His words were on my mind as I put together this playlist for you. In writing each of the stories in Some Possible Solutions, I labored to make the words conjure a particular mood; a song can achieve mood with a single chord.
Because each story in Some Possible Solutions takes place in a different reality, from a faraway planet to a nursing home to a post-apocalyptic farmhouse, I wanted a wide variety of songs that could evoke a series of distinct worlds and keep pace with the leaps in time and space.
Continue reading...
No comments:
Post a Comment