We’re back with the fourth installment of our latest feature, The Soul Curator, and this time we’re taking a trip through the wilderness. Back in 2011 I hiked the entire Camino De Santiago in Spain over the course of five weeks, and it almost goes without saying that I was obsessively listening to music throughout the duration of the path’s 550 miles. Though I haven’t done anything nearly that lengthy since then, I can’t help but take a pair of headphones with me any time I’ve decided to go walking through the woods in North Carolina. Most of the day’s going to be demanding and brutal like most of the music in this playlist, but there’s also plenty of time to take in all of the beauty that nature can offer. Be warned, most songs contained below are well over the ten-minute mark!
For those who have ever hiked extensively, the first five or ten miles during the sunrise is unquestionably the most pleasurable part of the day, and for that reason, let’s kick this playlist off with something a bit more subdued, Devin Townsend Project’s “Terminal” and Bon Iver’s staggeringly beautiful “Holocene.” I’ve also always found that Pink Floyd’s expansive epics of the 70s really can help enhance any journey spanning over one day. And hey where would a playlist about the woods be without the epic and expansive nature of bands like Wolves in the Throne Room and a handful of excellent post-rock tracks? There’s almost nothing that can replace the feeling of being in solitude with a bunch of epic guitar swells filling in the background. But hey, endorphins are going to kick in, the sun’s going to start beating down on you, and you’re going to need all the adrenaline-boosting riffage you can get! I’ve always found that groove-heavy bands have always helped me focus on going for distances you didn’t think you could do, so these bangers from Meshuggah, Tesseract and Gojira should do the trick. Let’s top it off with some classic metal singalongs to help pass the rest of the time by and call it a day, shall we?