Category: Music

Sensory Share: Good Vibrations and Happy Floods

Brian Wilson’s “Good Vibrations” has been called a pocket symphony. For this fellow autistic, it is also a sensory symphony that speaks to my wiring: “Good Vibrations, Bad Vibrations, Overwhelm, and Meltdown“.

Here are twelve pocket sensory symphonies, starting with the version of “Good Vibrations” from the “Smile Sessions”, that flood my neurology in a good way. This sequence really works for me.

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/sensory-share-good-vibrations-and-happy-floods/pl.u-MDAWv0qsW4G2qR

I don’t know if Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females is also autistic, but I identify with her music, history, and interviews as a disabled, queer, neurodivergent and claim her as a neurosibling in my headcanon. She has two towering, monumental, tidal wave songs on here that fill the immensity of a near-field sound stage and give me bumps and shivers. I listen to these in the sweet spot of a near-field listening setup with that Rickenbacker thumping against my legs through a subwoofer port. Your tingle levels may vary.

Stevie Ray Vaughan is another who many suspect to have been autistic. His biographies and the stories from those who knew him certainly resonate with my autistic experience. Texas Flood Live at the El Mocambo is soul channeling.

Leah Wellbaum of Sloth Rust is openly neurodivergent. I love every moment on their album “Parallel Timeline” and include several songs from it.

I love how AURORA stims when she sings. She welcomes us aliens and weirdos in her lyrics and fandom.She has several songs on here.

Behold the depth and breadth of autistic flow.

Flow

For more music from chronic, neurodivergent, depressed, queer punks:

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/chronic-neurodivergent-depressed-queer-punk/pl.u-yZyVVjZtYzXDqW

Connecting to the fabric of the species with Sylvan Esso

Music. By listening to it you feel heard.

If you have this experience or this emotional state that you’re in and then you listen to a piece of music that describes that back to you, you feel connected, you feel connected to the fabric of our species.

— Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso

The drum beat is as close to the heart beat as you can get, and when you are all listening to a song together your bodies slow down in the same way. It’s a great community builder.

— Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso

Source:

I love these two and the music they make together. They’ve been a source of buoyancy during these times we’re in.

Here’s Sylvan Esso connecting us to the fabric of the species with a sublime version of Gillian Welch’s “Everything Is Free”. Two great musical partnerships come together in this song.