So I really like to cook. And I really like to listen to music. The two together just might be my favorite way to spend my free time. And usually when I cook I listen to stuff like Marconi Notaro or Lucinda Williams or the Clean or Prestige-era Miles Davis or Nara Leao. Preferably something that I don’t have to concentrate too much on, that I’ve heard many times before, not terribly noisy, something that is hummable, and that won’t offend my roving 2 year-old with gratuitious curse words (pretty much nixing all hip hop). What do you like to cook to, ilm sandboxers?
I’m sure there’s a ‘real’ ilm thread on this but I don’t remember seeing it.
Great White
the oldies station OR the classic country station on the radio
Juvenile—400 Degrees (LP)
Ride—Nowhere (LP)
My housemates and I all love to cook. My tastes lean towards techno and more experimental stuff, they’re a bit more conventional. So I’ll usually compromise with something like the Durutti Column, John Fahey, Caetano Veloso, or seventies funk and soul, they’ll usually go for something like the Magnetic Fields or some Bartok or Schumann. However, one of them loves to sing along to opera and showtunes while he cooks and it drives me nuts.
I thought about starting this thread the other day, but I figured everyone would make fun of me for it.
I was going to suggest making bread Miles Davis’ On the Corner for making bread (using a breadmaker). Cooking is really stressful for me, and On the Corner has this insistent groove that sort of matches my anxiety.
MAKING BREAD!
Let’s Cook: Mental As Anything
All-time favorite cooking album is Miles Davis Pangea. When cooking is going well it feels just like that music.
Stereolab was once described to me as “music for hipsters to put on in the background while they cook.”
So there’s that.
And it’s Agharta for my money.
haha unintentional xpost?
Get your Northern Soul out, you get to groove around the kitchen and pretend to be a beautiful person in an advert for chicken curry.
plone
Never occurred to me to do Agharta/Pangea but I think I’ll try it! I love both of those albums.
Also, along these lines Ornette Coleman’s Dancing in Your Head.
I usually listen to the news on NPR if it’s the afternoon, but I also like something I can sing/howl along with like the Smiths’ “Singles” or Buzzcocks “Operators Manual.”
’60-’63 Trane. I pretty much always put this on when cooking.
In general:
late Trane = MDMA music
80s hip-hop/punk = drinking music
news/traffic radio = shower noise
indie pop & new-to-me tunes = driving to work music
ambient = coding music
All Things Considered = exhausted, driving home from work listening
bucks fizz’s “if you can’t stand the heat (get out of the kitchen)”?
Pink Floyd—Gastronomy Domine
Booker T & The MGs
ambient stuff is good for chopping and mashing. you don’t want any bm or thrash or hip hop, the sped up beats could make you chop off your fingers due to unrestrained headbanging or bopping of your heads to the phat beats yo!