Playlist Picks: John Robins

Welcome to Rolling Stone UK’s Playlist Picks. In the ever-growing and all-consuming world of music streaming, it’s increasingly hard to find something that really stands out from the noise and might just become your new favourite. So here’s where we step in.

We’ve decided to recruit noted tastemakers and familiar faces to tell us the songs they’re really vibing with at the moment. In turn, we hope that you’ll find something in those songs too. You’ll be able to listen to all the picks on our new Playlist Picks playlist on Spotify.

The latest Playlist Picks come from comedian, podcaster and author John Robins. This week (May 7), Robins releases his memoir Thirst: Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life, largely about his alcoholism and ongoing journey of sobriety. In his Playlist Picks, he discusses the changing role of music in his life since he stopped drinking, and what he now needs – and doesn’t need – from the soundtrack to his life.

“I have to be very careful with music now,” Robins tells Rolling Stone UK, “because so much of what I listened to when I drank was so melancholic. That would be one of my activities, to sit where I am right now, listening to music and getting hammered. I have to really limit the amount of melancholy in the music I listen to.”

One coping mechanism he outlines is to listen to no music with lyrics after 8pm, opting instead for ambient music and jazz. “It’s just [having] the awareness, really, of what music does to me,” he says.

Dive into Robins’ Playlist Picks and listen to them, along with all our other contributors so far, via our Spotify playlist below.

Frank Zappa – ‘Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy – Live’

I’ve been feasting on the Frank Zappa deluxe box set re-releases. It’s like two or three a year, and they do box sets like no one else does box sets. They’ve just done Bongo Fury, which is one of my favourite Frank Zappa albums featuring Captain Beefheart. It’s live shows from 1976, and every time I listen to Frank Zappa, I get so sad that he died so young, and then I’m just grateful for how much he recorded every single thing he ever did. There’s this incredible mine of stuff that they can release, whereas I think some bands struggle when they’re no longer performing, or when members have died, to work out how to resell the same stuff again and again. From Bongo Fury, a song that really drew me into him when I was a teenager is ‘Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy’.

Okonski – ‘Vista’

In my book, there’s a chapter where I talk about listening to Keith Jarrett, and it’s my favourite chapter of the book because I’m trying to describe something about alcohol which I’ve not been able to articulate before. I’m not always trying to use alcohol to escape – sometimes I’m trying to use it to return to something. I liken it to a Keith Jarrett improvisation, where he’s never quite playing the note you’re expecting to hear, which makes that chord even more present in your head. I describe his music as like remembering the present, because you’re experiencing this thing that isn’t actually there. In some ways, alcohol does the same thing. It allows you access to memories in a very present way.

The song I’ve picked isn’t actually Keith Jarrett, but it’s a song from a jazz musician who’s who’s just released, I think, the best album of last year. It’s called ‘Vista’ by Okonski, from an album called Entrance Music, and he does exactly what Keith Jarrett does, which is to suggest notes through his playing that aren’t necessarily always played. I think it’s a superb album, and I think it’s better than the Geese album, which is saying something!

Twain – ‘Little Dog Mind (New Miami v.)’

Number three is a song and an artist I’ve only discovered recently called Twain, who I think has worked with Big Thief and Buck Meek. I’ve been doing a lot of work around meditation and mindfulness and exploring certain Buddhist principles. He has a song called ‘Little Dog Mind’, but it’s the new version from the album New Miami Sound. It’s really one of the best descriptions of mindfulness practice I’ve heard, when he talks about his mind being like a dog that keeps running away to look over the edge of the ridge on this walk. He keeps saying, ‘Come on, little dog, what do you think you’re going to find over that next ridge?’

That’s how I try to treat my thoughts, and I talk towards the end of the book about how you can actually have some influence over your thinking and your emotional experience by not identifying with thoughts. To see your thoughts as a dog that keep running away thinking, ‘There’s some satisfaction over here, there’s something exciting over there’. And just to keep going, ‘Yeah, what do you think you’re going to find over there?’ in a gentle and caring way. I really love that song.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy – ‘Werner’s Last Blues to Blokbuster’

I do a whole chapter [in Thirst] inspired by something Bonnie “Prince” Billy said on an interview I did for my podcast How Do You Cope?. [He was] talking about technology and streaming and expanding that out to ask the question, ‘When is technology convenient, and when is it actually removing quite essential parts of the human experience?’ That led me to make connections about how alcohol is a form of technology for removing inconvenient emotions and inconvenient feelings like anxiety or shame or dread or resentment or whatever.

I’m so lucky to have spent time in Will Oldham’s company, because he’s been a huge part of my life for 27 years now, and his music means an enormous amount to me. I went to see him recently perform a show in St Giles’ Church and it was an album launch for We Are Together Again, his new album. I’ve seen him, I don’t know, over 20 times, and he opened with an old song of his, which I adore, called ‘Werner’s Last Blues to Blokbuster’. I remember listening to it at university, so to hear him play it as the opening track was very, very special.

36, zakè –‘Stasis Sounds for Long-Distance Space Travel (Stage 1)’

I’m going to go for track called ‘Stasis Sounds for Long-Distance Space Travel (Stage 1)’ by two artists, one called 36 and the other called zakè. One thing I have to thank Spotify for is introducing me to ambient music and drone music. For quite a long time after stopping drinking, I couldn’t listen to anything with lyrics in – it was just too overwhelming. I lost track of a lot of old music, but what I found was kora music, Malian music, and classical and jazz. Via The Disintegration Loops, which is a William Basinski piece, I got into ambient music, things like Brian Eno and Aphex Twin.

I just discovered this album, Stasis Sounds for Long-Distance Space Travel, which is the most relaxing thing I have ever heard – it’s like being in a friendly spaceship. It’s just this background noise of a friendly spaceship, so that’s what I listen to in the evenings.

Neko Case – ‘Star Witness’

For the last one, I’m gonna go for ‘Star Witness’ by Neko Case, who I go back to again and again. There’s very few of my heroes that I haven’t met or managed to wangle meeting in some way, and the two big ones left are Neko Case and Ronnie O’Sullivan. Should make for quite an interesting dinner party if both of them showed up!

I discovered her when I was at university, and I just find that the contrast of vulnerability and power in her music, which is first and foremost in her in her vocal, because her voice is so, so powerful, but yet can be very understated. Her writing, her lyrics, are just exceptional. I live a little American escapism when I listen to [her] singing about the landscape there. I love her Substack too!

‘Thirst: Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life’ is released on May 7. Pre-order a copy here.