Only one month until we leave Seattle, and that's spooky. Here's some music.

Having completed my UK trip blog posts, it seems time for a palate cleanser — some music! A relatively timely October playlist, no less!

Spooktoobre: https://itunes.apple.com/us/playlist/spooktoobre/pl.u-WabZod7SdEkBL08

We start this one off, as we should when new Anderson .Paak music is released, with new Anderson .Paak music. It may be a silly tune about needing your car windows darkened, but let us not forget it has Pulitzer prize winning musician, Kendrick Lamar on it. That makes this masterpiece. No doubt the rest of Anderson .Paak’s new album will be just as acclaimed when it’s released this upcoming month. And even if it isn’t, I’m sure it’ll have plenty of bops which’ll be on my playlist — the Lloyd equivalent of a Pulitzer.

I can’t say I was into Ella Mai from her debut single, Boo’d Up, but her collab on her new album with H.E.R. is a total groove I could get behind. Nao also finally released her new album this month, with some tracks reminiscent of the ones I fell in love with ahead of her debut. I stuck Curiosity on here because the beat drop is singeing.

I’ve been visiting my favorite donut shop / cafe in Seattle fairly frequently recently, and their music is always on point. So there’s a few tracks I’ve overheard — inevitably while writing other blog posts — on here, like SiR’s Summer in November — which seemed apt for this time of year — as well as a throwback Sampha song, Happens. There’s another Sampha number on here too, the credits song from Beautiful Boy, which Lia and I had been eagerly anticipating, and went and saw the other week. As if being welled up for the entire movie wasn't enough, they hit you with a Sampha track as the credits roll — the man whose wretched voice is the aural equivalent of welling up.

I finally discovered Tank and the Bangas this month, just in time to seem really hip when a customer at Glasswing mentioned she was going to their show in town. Their song Spaceships gets pretty hype, and I’m excited to go back through some more of their work.

Lia and I went to two concerts in the span of two weeks in October. The first we saw the Arctic Monkeys as part of my birthday present with our friends Meg, who I work with at Glasswing, and her British husband, Gavin — more on them to come in another post. It was fun having another fan to scream along with, and while I wished they’d kept the set list a little more upbeat (it’s hard to stay hyped for slow shoegaze at 10pm on a Tuesday, rapidly sobering) I did appreciate rediscovering some deeper cuts from older albums. Library Pictures, From the Ritz to the Rubble, and Do Me A Favour all stuck with me. I then played pretty much solid Alex Turner the entire day I was painting at Glasswing’s new plant shop a few weeks later. On the speaker. Everyone else there indulged me / listened to their own headphones.

The next week we went to see Mitski, who was a lot of fun, despite playing on Halloween and typically being the saddest girl. I got pretty into a lot of her stuff around the concert, and definitely have a new appreciation for her discography.

I had a sudden craving at one point for the warm sounds of Elton John’s Rocket Man, so that’s on there, along with a song by Young Thug which is fine, but samples Rocket Man. What a sample. I also threw a Harry Styles song on there, and not that I need an excuse, but he did dress up fantastically as Elton for Halloween, so. He also interviewed Timmy Chalamet in the most beautiful boy collab for i-D.

I threw a Willow Smith song on as well, because we listened to her album a couple of times during our road trip up to Vancouver. I then threw a song by her brother, Jaden, on as well, because it references Dragon Ball Z, and also goes hard.

The entire playlist started with Tyler the Creator’s Boredom, which I struggled to shake from my head for about 2 weeks, only to have it re-implanted when it was in the season finale of Insecure about 6 separate times. I also learned that Billy Eilish idolized Tyler in an interview she did with Vanity Fair, which is fitting as she released a new song which I also added in. New stuff from Daniel Caesar, Khalid, and DRAM also made the cut.

Contrasting nicely with Tyler’s slurry ennui was Seattle-based rapper ParisAlexa’s Dandelion, which I put on the list to perk me back up after finishing Boredom. Sets my day off on a better note.

Lastly, I got really into Bon Over this past month. I think it was something to do with the changing seasons, shortening days, and the book on cozy cabins I’d been reading making me crave cozy isolation in all my forms of media I consumed. But through my Bon Ever binge I found Volcano Choir, a Justin Vernon side project which was exactly what I needed. Something new and fresh and comfortingly familiar. So that rounds out, and spookifies, my Spooktoobre playlist.

I began the month so uninspired musically, and finished it with one of my favourite playlists I’ve made in a while. Give it a listen if you like. It’s not that scary, promise.