Out Like a Lamb (II)
ISSUE #99
[A bathtub filled with smoky water. JEFF rises through the bubbles like it's the river in Apocalypse Now]
Today, I am pleased to deliver our second annual dispatch of the softest music I know. Here you'll find a soundtrack for warm baths, for jigsaw puzzles, for balconies, for open windows, for big headphones to drown out your roommates. These are songs to cool you down, to zone you out, to get you to sleep, to help you relax whatever ways you can—boy, do we ever need them this year.
[Sinks back through the water as bubbles spell "With love, Jeff"]
Irv Teibel, who released the influential Environments records over ten years from 1969–79, was a pioneer in putting field recordings (i.e., nature sounds) into the hands of stressed-out college students and, eventually, anyone who needed to drown out all the noise. Turns out that was a lot of people.