Time of the Season: A selection of albums for nature

ARTS | WHENUA | TOUCHING GRASS

Written by Jed Scott (he/him) | @jed__scott | Contributing Writer

Edited by Stella Roper (they/she) | @dodofrenzy | Arts Editor

Illustration by Sophia Lee | Contributing Artist

A stroll through Myers Park, the Auckland Domain, or the sands of Takapuna Beach is never complete without a set of headphones sitting comfortably on my head.  

I guarantee you’ve had that experience of scrolling through your Spotify playlists, trying to figure out what songs will perfectly capture the mood. After all, music grounds you and reinforces what you feel, see, smell, and hear. The sensory experience of putting on one of your favourite songs and observing your surroundings can be incredibly therapeutic. It can be something that puts life on pause for a moment, allowing you to let go and appreciate just how spectacular nature is. I'm always searching for great music that gives me those moments of appreciation for our environment. Music from any genre can resonate with nature, be it jazz, reggae, or even screamo! No matter the tune, every piece of music has its place in the scenery you may find yourself exploring. 

I'm sure by now you've thought of a song or album that brings you back to a specific environment. One album that brings me to a particular place is Mid-Air Thief's Crumbling (2018). The album's lush guitar picks and hushed vocals remind me of looking up at the Northland stars speckled across the night sky of Mimiwhangata Bay. But if you haven't thought of any music that gives you that kind of experience yet, that's okay! 

Fortunately for you, I've selected four albums to provide soundtracks for your next outing, each thoughtfully paired with a particular location in mind within Tāmaki Makaurau. I strongly believe that all of these albums are perfect for enhancing a specific time or surrounding environment, allowing you to truly soak up all the sites the city has to offer. 

1. Songs, Adrianne Lenker (2020) & Cornwall Park

Songs is an album that feels completely indebted towards the natural world, almost as if Adrianne wrote these songs to be played in front of a wall of pine instead of a crowd. I feel similarly towards much of her other music, be it her work in the band Big Thief or her various collaborations with Tucker Zimmerman and Buck Meek. Still, Songs is the only album that feels inappropriate to listen to in any environment other than one consisting of singing blackbirds and beech trees. This album serenades you with homely acoustic guitar and passionate metaphors, flowing through Adrianne's whistful vocals. It teems with the sounds of the natural world, be it the soft tapping of raindrops heard on come or the use of shakers throughout the album, serving as a whistling breeze that follows you wherever you go. It's all so warm and inviting, and the song, anything, has become a staple for me whenever the autumn season rolls around. Even on tracks tinged with sorrow, such as half return, Adrianne turns to the natural world to vent her woes. She writes: "The house is white and the lawn is dead / The lawn is dead, the lawn is dead". I would recommend Cornwall Park as the perfect spot for this album.

2. Ágætis byrjun, Sigur Rós (1999) & Churchill Park

Throughout the Icelandic group's sophomore album, beauty gleams like shards of ice even in its most frost-bitten moments. Listening to a song like its opener, Svefn-g-englar (“SVEHP-n geng-lahr”), encompasses the feeling of the nippy winter air chapping your lips as you walk past lumbering, skeletal trees. Ágætis byrjun (“OW-guy-tis BIR-yun”) breathes romance into conditions that can otherwise be quite dour, depressing, even. I'm sure there will be days when the walk to uni is enveloped by the unsavoury greyness of Auckland winter, making the prospect of studying that much more grim. When that time comes, I recommend digging for that scarf buried deep in your closet and putting on a song like Starálfur or the self-titled track. Hearing these string-kissed, intimate carols as you pass through frost-coated grass brings you a moment of connection to what may be, for me at least, an otherwise unforgiving season. While it may not salvage a rainy day in Auckland (What can?), Sigur Rós still brings so much affection to the winter environment. I'd suggest chucking this album on in Churchill Park. 

3. Odessey & Oracle, The Zombies (1968) & Albert Park

Released six months after the summer of love, Odessey & Oracle by The Zombies transports you to the most picturesque, blue-skied meadow dotted with daisies and sunflowers - exceptionally ideal for frolicking. While that may sound cliched, this album holds some of that acid-dipped magic of the psychedelic '60s that makes you want to ditch your shoes and hug some damn trees. Beachwood Park translates the sensation perfectly, with muses about how "the breeze would touch your hair / Kiss your face and make you care / About your world, your summer world". Odessey & Oracle packs in such romance and exuberance throughout its runtime that it becomes difficult not to get swept up in the nostalgia. I specifically recall listening to the record in Albert Park on a summer's day, watching the sunlight leak through the oak trees as people went about their afternoon. This album feels like the soundtrack to the greenest summer day you can imagine, one that you want to immediately experience again once the organ solo fades out on its closer, Time Of The Season. Though I might be biased here, I can say Albert Park is absolutely the spot for this album. 

4. Mother Earth's Plantasia, Morth Garson (1976) & Domain Wintergardens

The most overt pick of the bunch, Morth Garson's Plantasia is the type of album that thrives by focusing on a singular theme. The album, made only using a Moog synthesizer, was created to help your houseplants grow and flourish. To hammer in the objective, Planstasia was given out for free in garden centres back when it was released, only furthering its legacy as the go-to record to play while you water your monsteras. Hearing the theatrical, dreamy synth arrangements on tunes like Concerto for Philodendron and Pothos makes you feel like you're in a science class about to watch the coolest time-lapse of fungi growing. Plantasia fulfils its job of making you feel like the music is made for plants rather than humans. So even if you aren't all that into what Morth Garson's putting down, chuck it on anyway for your plants' sake. I suggest you visit the Domain Wintergardens for this one and give the foliage a favour.

Armed with some quality tunes, there’s now no excuse to get inspired, get outside and get to explore some of the greenery in the city. Hopefully, next time you find yourself in one of the non-concrete floored spaces of Tāmaki Makaurau, you’ll consider how the right album could transform a simple walk into something much more immersive, turning an ordinary stroll to your bus stop into a scene straight out of a film.