Aural therapy

Rest Proof Clockwork is one of the most beautiful albums evah. Beats BoC / Autechre etc. hands down.

If you can still listen to music at all, you're not too badly depressed. When it's really bad, you get the anhedonia thing, and you can't even derive pleasure from music or even anything that you normally love.

Portishead? You might as well pick Joni M's Blue. Both didn't get me through it, they made sure I wallowed more in my depression. Sonick companionsick.

When depressed, I either listen to The First Day by Sylvian/Fripp, or Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales. Both of these cd's got me through my lowest points during 1993. When my grandmother from complications dealing with alzheimer's,I was angry at everything and everyone. I had givenupon believing in any idea of God while she was suffering from the disease, so I wasn't mad at her or him. Sting put out the most upbeat and interesting album of his career and that seemed like the best therapy for my psyche. Later on in the year, The First Day also helped to inject me with a newfound interest in playing the drums again (my grandmother had first introduced me to the drums) and I am thankful for Jerry Marotta's groove oriented playing for getting me back on the set again.

the Pistols are the only thing that can revive me when I'm tired of life, but wallowing music is much easier to come by and has its own pleasures, which is probably why I've constructed a great big Scott 1- 4 theme park in my head.

i guess we're not talking about wallowing music here right? because i spent an unhealthy amount of time mastering THAT genre. but if we're talking about more redemptive stuff then:

the boo radleys' "giant steps" saw me through my breakdown when i started university. when everything was crashing down around me, i clung to every word of that album like a raft

then big star's "sister lovers" - still melancholy and a tad wallowing, but self knowing and with a sardonic sense of humour in the sadness. "night time" is so beautiful and the chorus "i hate it here/ get me out of here" was sung many a time...

then on to the blue nile's "hats" which is downbeat but absolutely glisteningly beautiful and made me much less introverted

and then finally for full on cathartic kick ths blues away "white music" by xtc. something about the raggedness and energy of it just pulls me up TO THIS DAY and enervates me. no album has as much energy and glorious madness in it than that - listening to it now i hear it as andy partridge, not the world's most confident man - raging against his demons and not letting go for the whole album. never FAILS to at least stop me feeling sorry for myself...

So Tough - St. Etienne...right from the second you put the needle on!

When I'm depressed (though as has been said, not so depressed that I don't want to listen to anything), I find the best thing is Louis Prima from the period in the late '50s when he decided he had to compete with rock 'n' roll for energy.