As 2025 goes by (Steve T.‘s special moments)

2025’s music:  I work occasional weekend evening shifts as a nurse in a care facility.  By 8:30 PM just about everyone is in bed except for one or two residents who have difficulty sleeping.  The aides bring them over in their wheelchairs and park them by my station. This year, while I wrote my shift notes, we listened to Eno and Wolfe’s „Luminal“ until 11 PM.  Most of the time.  One man often insisted on Sinatra.  He and I would sing to „The Summer Wind“ over and over.  

2025’s album:  Sunday night seems to belong to ECM.  In the 80s if I needed to call the Munich office I would stay up very late with an ECM mix tape on, and make the phone call in my Minnesota night, their German morning.  Someone would always pick up the phone, surprised.  This year my Sunday night music was Anouar Brahen’s „After the Last Sky.“  It is an ECM classic in every respect:  it is like a painting come to life.

2025’s song:  „Sunblind“ by Fleet Foxes.  Someone I cared for very much died a few years ago.  She made a playlist that begins with that song.  I only play that at work when nobody is around because I know what will happen.