Wintry Mix:

Fifteen Albums to Perfectly Soundtrack Your Snowy Sojourn

When the weather outside is frightful, the sounds can be so delightful.

Was winter always this...meh?  I honestly can't remember.

As one who has lived in temperate climates for the better part of the past decade, I was apprehensive about experiencing an actual winter again.  It hasn’t been as dramatic as I had imagined it would be (I say that now, but it is only mid-January…so we’ll see), but the winter storm struggle is REAL.  This past weekend we in the Western North Carolina mountains saw the second winter storm of the season.  This one brought a lot of ice to the area (as pictured above), though interestingly enough, Asheville proper was mostly spared, as most of the affected area was a bit south of here.  The first storm, however, dumped a ton of snow, sleet, and freezing rain on our little city, and residing in a big old building at the end of a windy road on the top of a hill meant one thing – we were stuck there.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a fireplace, but luckily enough we always have blankets, heat (until the power goes off), games, and surround sound system flanked by hundreds of records.

So I thought I’d share with y’all some of my favorite wintry albums – perfect for listening to (in full, no cheating!) when you’ve got no responsibilities except to hunker down, eat a ton of food, and warm your feet by the fire (or fire facsimile, i.e. the radiator).

The Beatles - The Beatles [The "White Album"] (1968)

Ok, so I kind of hit it on the nose with this one, the color of the album being the same as snow (not to mention the album celebrated its 50^th birthday just a few weeks ago…timing!), but I have other reasons for selecting this colorful hodgepodge of songs.  It has elements of the bizarre, of the heartbroken, of the comical, and of the altogether absurd, and can be quite an undertaking as a full uninterrupted listen, due to its length as well as its harder-to-swallow tracks…of which there are several.  Those more eccentric moments can seem quite cold and disjointed (it took me many years to fully appreciate both the one-minute cacophony of “Wild Honey Pie” as well as the uncomfortable sonic odyssey that is “Revolution 9”), but there are some real warm and tender moments on the white album too.  The last two tracks of Disc 1 – “I Will” and “Julia” – are both intimate snapshots of men in love, the first being a gentle promise of longevity with the latter portraying a more defeated confession trickling from the profound loneliness that only unrequited love can offer.  Sweet upbeat ballads “Martha My Dear” and “Honey Pie” tickle our eardrums (and the ivories, mind you) almost as much as the first flakes of snow flurry do, with their jaunty tempos and saccharine lyrics.  And the best part?  “Martha My Dear” is about Paul McCartney’s DOG.  So, this winter snuggle up with your fur baby (or babies) for a good long trip down memory lane and give ‘em an extra smooch when you hear Paul sing ‘You have always been my inspiration’ (…because let’s be honest, they – along with The Beatles, probably have been).

Edgar Winter - Entrance (1970)

Oh man, I thought I was being too obvious with the White Album? Well this guy’s name literally is the word winter, not to mention the album cover is white, it has a song on it called “Fire and Ice,” AND – here’s the kicker – he’s an albino, so his already pale album cover is the same color as his skin and hair (well, almost).  Heavily-bruised dead horse aside, this album is pretty epic in its own sense of the word.  Winter is better known for his eponymous rock “Group” – responsible for hits like “Free Ride” and “Frankenstein” – but before he hit it big with 1973’s They All Come Out At Night he was a solo jazzy singer-songwriter type, and Entrance was his aptly-titled 1970 debut.  It’s one of those album’s the grows and evolves as it progresses, kind of like one long song (think Abbey Road, except that in this case it’s the first half of the album instead of the conclusion).  As we are carried along on Winter’s journey, hanging on to his uniquely timbred (and sometimes stratospheric) voice, we are tossed around in gusts of saxophone and rolled around in cool guitar riffs.  It’s a tumbling, drifting album that is at the same time both energetic and reserved, perfect as background noise for a board game or a quiet round of solitaire.

Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978)

Most people (i.e., people with brains) would not be comfortable with any correlations being made between air travel an d inclement winter weather, and that’s valid.  I speak from experience, having had a terrifying encounter as a kid involving a jet engine, a neglectful plane deicer, loud noises, fire, and the words “emergency landing” trembling over a PA system.  Hell, any kind of travel coinciding with precipitation during the colder months is usually unpleasant, capable of striking fear in the hearts of even the bravest individuals faster than you can say “wintry mix.”  But fear not, Travelers, for I have not come to lead you astray.  This album provides the sonic antithesis to such chaos, and was designed as such to provide a tranquil, almost numbing experience for air travelers.  Bored by Muzak and disenchanted by the superficial glimmer of Top 40, Eno – fresh off his stint as solo glam rocker following his departure from Roxy Music – embarked on a journey of his own into the realm of ambient music.  Eno would come to be a pioneer of the genre (that he helped create) over the next several decades, and Music for Airports was his first foray into the medium.  Spanning four tracks that total just barely under an hour, Airports is quite literally one of the most captivatingly unflustered albums ever made, and thus is sure to aid in quelling some moments of panic and uncertainty (at least a little) that may come up during your winter travels.  Better yet, its haunting serenity might just be what you need to say Screw it and just stay home and watch the snow fall.

George Winston - December (1982)

Another one that’s a little on-the-nose with the title, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!  I have been listening to George Winston for as long as I can remember, for as cool as my parents were with their music tastes, they were not ones to shy away from the Windham Hill section at Tower Records…which I guess was still cool back in the 80s and 90s.  Winston is a brilliant pianist as it is – his albums reworking & reimagining songs from the Doors and Vince Guaraldi are wonderful too – but throw him a seasonal theme and you’re in for a treat.  The thing is about the songs on December are delicate and simple, and it’s just him playing on a piano (there might be some looping in there for the three “Night” tracks, but I’m not sure)…and they are freakin’ BRILLIANT.  I have never heard a collection of solo acoustic piano like December and I am not sure I ever will.  There is something both warm and chilling, comforting yet achy, joyous and altogether melancholy about these pieces, and again the notion of this nostalgia of isolation is a complex and most human emotion that overcomes me whenever I hear “Thanksgiving.”  And it just isn’t the same without the snow coming down in silent heaps.  It is cinematic and simple and just plain gorgeous.

Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes (1992)

It might seem a little odd to include this Tori Amos album out of the fifteen she’s released – especially since she has one aptly titled Midwinter’s Graces – but this one, her first full solo LP, has so many songs on it that both ache like cold sore feet and pop like an air pocket on a smoking log.  It does include “Winter” – appropriate for inclusion by the title alone – featuring Amos’ signature coo laced in gorgeous piano progressions, offering a static perspective on the passage of time (as does “Silent All These Years”), the sort of inertia that occurs as one stares at snowflakes falling under a streetlight.  “China” relates to the sort of calm isolation we feel trapped inside – when even the grocery store seems oceans away – while also counteracting that through the more chaotic nature of “Precious Things” – a perfect soundtrack for passing notions of restlessness.

Massive Attack - Protection (1994)

As the transitional sophomore album between the trip-hop beginnings (Blue Lines) and signature hypnotizing electronica (Mezzanine and beyond), Massive Attack’s 1994 effort Protection is truly unique, even among the brilliant (yet noticeably few) jewels in the crown of their own catalog.  The album shows an impressive range stylistically, which makes its music appropriate for many occasions.  I knew at least one Massive Attack album would have to be selected for this list, and I selected this one due to its many nuances that swell up unexpectedly as the LP’s 49 minutes slink by, all underscored by the band’s signature sultry instrumental murk – which perfectly mimics the nature of a snowstorm.  Placid moments, such as in the jazzy instrumental “Weather Storm” or in the warm, gooey vocals of Tracey Thorn on the opening/title track, are often met abruptly with moments of uneasy discomfort, like in the punctuated pounding and hissing of the backing track of “Karmacoma” or Horace Andy’s bizarrely affected vocals in “Spying Glass” that border on dissonance.  Being snowed in can often offer these contradictory feelings, and on Protection Massive Attack makes you realize that you are not alone, and feeling both safe and trapped at the same time is totally natural.  Embrace it!

Orbital - The Middle of Nowhere (1999)

For the most part, as I was compiling this list I was mostly trying to think of albums that would invoke feelings of deep reflection in isolation; an intersection of warmth and comfort with a tacitly thrilling notion of being totally unreachable.  Kind of like being stranded on a beautiful tropical island, but knowing that help is on the way…and also there just so happens to be a fully stocked yet abandoned cabana bungalow to offer unlimited shade, shelter, and Singapore Slings.  Being confined during a snowstorm is different (obviously), but similarly allows for the same temporary ‘sabbatical’ if you will.  No one expects you to accomplish anything responsible because it’s too cold and too dangerous to drive.  Thus, I envisioned lots of dulcet melodies and delicate vocal arrangements wielded by music’s many modern warrior-poets being hummed along with over cocoa and nostalgia.  Or hours of pensive, mind-opening ambient music soundtracking the dawning of life-changing epiphanies given only in this time of great significance when the digital nightmare that is the modern world is bound by a vast and reverent silence… And for the most part, I think I filled those roles in spades.   But this album—heh heh—is a horse of a much different color, and probably the only one on here that can be categorized—sonically, that is—as truly “epic.”  And what a perfect title, too!  This is Orbital’s (the fraternal duo partly responsible for the sounds of an era and beyond) fifth album, which at present also represents the exact middle of their studio LP discography, as their ninth LP Monsters Exist was released last summer, following a six-year drought since their previous album (which was, in turn, preceded by an eight-year gap between albums).  This is unlike any other Orbital album (which is fair to say about any Orbital album, actually) because it is the duo at their most exuberant, their most boisterous, their most vibrant.  Eight songs spanning one hour, the shortest of the bunch just shy of six minutes (the others hover around eight to ten minutes long), employing everything from a full horn section in opener “Way Out -->” (which also features someone called Brother Sun Sister Moon) to the dizzying chaos of follow-up second track “Spare Parts Express”, to twin Alison Goldfrapp collaborations at the album’s tail end…it’s just a masterpiece.  And perhaps one of the few high-energy electronic LPs that truly captures that manic sensation of confinement one can only feel behind an endless, growing wall of frozen moisture.

Radiohead - Amnesiac (2001)

Ok, so Radiohead’s music can pretty much perfect for any setting, because, well, most of their music is damn near perfect, especially if melancholy eeriness is your goal.  This collection of songs is signature Radiohead at its spookiest…a few years after the explosive OK Computer set them apart as more than “just another band”, and just one year following the release of their technical masterwork Kid A, yet before the politically charged art rock that would come about a few years later in Hail to the Thief.  Amnesiac showcases a vulnerable, almost ghostly side of Radiohead of which many people admit to not being a fan – though I think it’s genius (except track 3, wtf is that??).  The sinister swirl of songs like “Knives Out” and “Like Spinning Plates” is matched with aching beauty in “Pyramid Song” and “Life in a Glass House,” and such divisive material is always a good conversation starter as the embers crackle and the board game choices dwindle.

Sigur Rós - (  ) (2002)

I mean, c’mon.  An Icelandic baroque/post-rock outfit that features an eccentric frontman who plays guitar with a cello bow and sings in a made-up language over the course of eight “untitled” songs – two of which are between ten and fifteen minutes long – on an album with an unpronounceable title?  You’re welcome.

Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)

Canada is famous for only a handful of things: Alex Trebek, hockey, being “America’s Hat,” Cobie Smulders’ character on How I Met Your Mother, bagged milk, their hottie-with-a-body PM Justin Trudeau, non-American MLB teams…that’s about half of them.  The other half is Arcade Fire.  Seriously, there are sooooo many people in that band.  It’s like half the total population (nah, it’s not that many).  But what you might not know about 2011 Grammy Album of the Year winners The Suburbs Arcade Fire is that they started out with this one album back in 2004.  It’s called Funeral, and it’s beautiful.  Though the album has many dirge-like moments (as well as an overall melancholy presence in general), it also features a lot of vibrancy, as indicated through songs like “Neighborhood #3: Power Out,” “Rebellion (Lies),” “Wake Up,” and “Haiti.”  In terms of being an album perfect for a snowy afternoon, it’s almost as if this was written for snow, in snow, even at times, by snow.  The beginning of “Neighborhood #1: Tunnels”—which is also the beginning of the album—there’s a gentle tickle of piano that precedes the main melody that is as close to a perfect sonic representation of a passing flurry as I think we will ever get in our lifetime.  And it’s like six seconds long.  From there, the album drifts along through the aforementioned “Tunnels” (about digging tunnels through the snow to get from house to house—oh, Canada), and meanders through moments of tranquility, of sorrow, of dramatic declaration, and climaxes four or five times.  The final track, the quaint requiem “In The Backseat” is perhaps the rawest of the bunch, featuring Regine Chassagne’s vocals painting a vividly beautiful and unassuming portrait of one getting lost both in their surroundings as well as in one self’s own thoughts—a common dichotomy faced by many ensnared in the ruthless grasp of a snowy window.

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love (2009)

The wave Pacific Northwest folky yarn-weavers-turned-indie-Americana darlings The Decemberists were surfing on was beginning to crest around 2009.  Their major label debut in 2006 had catapulted them to a level of familiarity that eventually brought them to the Hollywood Bowl, Millennium Park in Chicago, and Conan O’ Brien’s Late Night set.  They sought out to do something purely outside the box with their next project, so naturally, inspired by an old EP that had no track named for its title, front man Colin Meloy wrote a musical.  And not just any musical.  This had shape shifters, ice queens, choirs of ghost children, sentient bodies of water…you name it, it was probably included in The Hazards of Love.   Alas, the elements of the story proved to be too fantastical to realistically put on the stage, so they made an album – that sounds like a musical cast recording – and played it in its entirety on the corresponding tour that followed.  My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Nova, and Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark guest star on the record, which tells a great story with some really beautiful music (“Annan Water” is gorgeous).  So if you want to be entertained, shook, spooked, and shivered, listen to this bristly winter’s tale as you count the snowflakes on the trees.  Seriously, “Annan Water,” you guys.

Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver (2011)

This album basically was January 2012 for me.  It is winter translated into music.  Just looking at the cover makes me want to put on a sweater.  It is a gentler, more despondent collection compared to some on this list (as it also is to Bon Iver’s 2016 LP 22 A Million), finding solace in Justin Vernon’s brusque yet inviting songwriting that continues to echo through time like a tireless wind sweeping across the northern plains.  I’ll always remember listening to the creeping drumroll and somersaulting guitar in the first minute of the album’s opener “Perth” on a plane in Salt Lake City.  It was just seconds before we were about to take off, and I was using the soothing tones of Bon Iver to calm myself, as I was hyperventilating because we were about to take off in the middle of a $%&*ing snowstorm (I hate to fly, if you couldn’t tell).  But once we were in the air, soaring over the glorious snow-painted Uinta Mountains, I felt at peace.  So even if you aren’t trapped at home, and find yourself staring death in the face as the metal tube you’ve strapped to hurdles through space and snow and blinding white light, Bon Iver, Bon Iver is the perfect album for your snowy day.

Jon Hopkins - Immunity (2013)

Jon Hopkins is my favorite accidental discovery, and Immunity is by far his best work.  I found out about Hopkins on a hot summer day because he popped up on a search I was doing on celebrities that shared my birthday.  Right around the time I noticed that I had actually typed in the wrong date – the day after my birthday – did I notice that this Jon Hopkins had just released an album that day.  That album was Immunity.  I saw it as a message from the universe, and boy am I glad I tuned in on that one.  This album is so rich with nuance and texture and beautiful beautiful intelligent noise…I dare you to just play it as loud as you can while the blizzard swallows your house up.  A true artist, you can tell he is so in tune with everything around him, because he goes from chaotic, jagged waves of sound to the delicate creaking of a chair as percussion (in the closing/title track “Immunity”).  He’s worked with Eno and King Creosote, played piano for Imogen Heap and Bonobo, and now, he’s coming to your house for a snow day.  Also: check out his Asleep Versions EP: it’s a half-hour suite consisting of reworked & mellowed out versions of four Immunity tracks with the beats removed and vocals added from special guests Raphaelle Standell and the aforementioned King Creosote.

Röyksopp - The Inevitable End (2014)

The end of Rökysopp’s career of putting out complete albums (their words; we’ll see if that holds up in the future—hopefully it doesn’t) is also the end of your it’s-snowing-balls-and-I-have-no-cool-tunes-to-rock-out-to blues.  The whole album feels desolate and intense, much like the Nordic landscape these dudes hail from (or at least what I imagine it to be like in the dead of winter), and is filled with premonitions of untimely death, haunting digital nocturnes, and beautiful sweeping ballads reflecting heartache and loss.  It covers a vast sonic landscape, navigating snowy emotional peaks and deep frigid oceans of pain and suffering, and does so with the elegant blend of evocative imagery and bizarre exquisiteness for which they are well-known.  This album will provide you with all the emotions you need for an entire year of being a human, but for the occasion of being snowed in, try to focus more on the music (dulling your senses with some hot toddies doesn’t hurt either).

Bing & Ruth - No Home of the Mind

A beautiful album written for a five-piece piano ensemble.  Written on seventeen pianos across the United States and recorded in just two days in an abandoned church in New York State (to “capture the immediacy”) – many of the songs in one take.  It’s such a gorgeous album, inside of which it is a pleasure for a listener to get lost.  That’s really all I can say about it; I suggest listening to it and seeing where it brings you, mentally and emotionally.

And there you have it:

fifteen albums for epic snowy weather.  Escape the cold and drown yourself in musical warmth (and some Bailey’s, if you have it) with these timeless picks.  And if that’s not enough, try giving these guys a spin too:

• Portishead – Portishead (1998)
• Björk – Vespertine (2001)
• Sufjan Stevens – Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State (2003)
• The Knife – Silent Shout (2006)
• Tegan & Sara – The Con (2007)
• The Chemical Brothers – Further (2010)
• St. Vincent – Strange Mercy (2011)
• The Field – Cupid’s Head (2013)
• James Blake ­– The Colour in Anything (2016)
• Bonobo – Migration (2017)

Anything I left out that you feel should’ve made my snowy shortlist?  Well, then gimme a holler in the comments, my babies! 

The Journey Continues Tomorrow ... Stay Tuned.