© 2024
NPR News, Colorado Stories
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

What Are You Listening To?

A self-portrait by Gloria DeArcangelis.
/
A self-portrait by Gloria DeArcangelis.

From time to time on All Things Considered, we ask what kind of music you're listening to -- what turns your turntable or spins your hard drive. Recently, we've spoken to a postal worker, a construction worker, an aerospace employee and a 13-year-old junior high school student. This time it's Gloria DeArcangelis, a painter from Seattle, Washington.

DeArcangelis spends a lot of time listening to music while she creates her art, a painstaking layered style of painting where the brushstrokes are not clearly visible. She likes to work late at night, while listening to moody, thoughtful music.

Her first selection is "One Way Street" by Mark Lanegan. Lanegan is also from Seattle, and used to front the grunge band Screaming Trees. But his solo music is dark and lyrical. The sound of his voice is plaintive, with a sense of longing. DeArcangelis says longing might be thought of as a driving force for living; the urgency in Mark Lanegan's music appeals to her.

The theme of longing is also evident in her second choice, "Dyed in the Wool" -- the title track from Shannon Wright's album of the same name. Wright's sound could be called southern gothic. DeArcangelis read about Wright's music in a local paper. She says she thought "there's a terrible beauty in this woman's work, and I want to hear it."

Finally, DeArcangelis chooses the soundtrack to the Wong Kar-Wai film In the Mood for Love. The movie tells the story of unrequited love between two Hong Kong neighbors in the 1960s. The soundtrack combines popular music such Nat King Cole's Spanish ballad "Aquellos Ojos Verdes" along with several original songs, including the haunting and waltz-like "Yumeji's Theme."

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.