Lapis Lazuli (A Hard Blue Rock)

For the last few months I had been on a steady musical diet of lo-fi beattapes, jazz hop, and meditative ambient music. During this time I felt relaxed, unburdened, and at peace with myself. But one day, as I sat at my computer listening to yet another compilation of piano tracks set to a hiphop beats, I felt a familiar itch in the back of my brain. The elongated progression of this genre was soothing no longer; I needed something with a little more teeth. What I needed was the savage beast of blues rock to settle my inner dive-bar spirit. 

I set to work in a fervor, shuffling through a maelstrom of reverb-filled riffs, drum lines imbued with latent anger directed at step-fathers, and vocals that strained with longing for toxic exes. After what felt like days but more realistically took a few hours I came out of my fugue with this fresh list. My itch had abated, and I sat bask in the glow of this masterwork.

As a music lover, and now a music curator, I’m obligated to follow the rule of a fair parent and love all of my playlists equally. Most of the time I’m fairly good at not playing favorites and allowing my playlist children to impress me with their myriad specialties and genres. But, there are times when a playlist is a true labor of love and the finished product does something for me that other playlists haven’t been able to.

Lapis Lazuli is one of these favorites. It has everything that a self-respecting blues-rock lover needs. With help from the tremendous guitar skills of Black Pistol Fire, the raw hellish vocals of Black Diamond Heavies, and old-school gritty composition of the Soledad Brothers, this playlist will be sure to have you feeling like you ought invest in a new (or old) leather jacket and to jump a boxcar train headed west.