From Nate:
When I was a freshmen in college, Justin Rutzen called me out for joke stealing. One night during his and Josh Gilbert's turn to play Halo, I sat at Rutzen's computer reading a joke site he had open in a browser. When I got back to my laptop, I posted to Facebook one of the jokes I'd read on Rutzen's computer about a real-life Mario Kart scenario and dropping a banana peel on the freeway. A couple hours later, Rutzen wrote, "I know you didn't write this" on my status. I saw my flaw right away—it was less like reposting a meme and more like claiming someone else's work. I grew up in this moment because I learned the value and rules of crediting. Even bigger, it helped me see that I wanted to make things that I could put my own name on, a desire I didn't know lived in me before then.
That's not all Rutzen gave me. He gave me the demon slayer, a schizophrenic fit that he calls a dance. He gave me acknowledgment that my head is too small for my body, something I came to terms with long before and hoped no one else recognized. And he funneled into my appreciation of music, a process he shared in common with the rest of my college floor, knowingly and unknowingly. It was these guys that introduced me to bands that practiced an extra shade of nuance and subtly that the bands I listened to in high school didn't. Rutzen showed me Tame Impala, Neon Indian, The Knife. I even think the first time I heard Sufjan was through Rutzen when Age of Adz came out. All good and great things.
Check out Rutzen's double-feature playlist and image below!
Photo by Justin Rutzen in Atlanta, GA shot on Polaroid Sun 660 w Impossible Project Film
By Justin Rutzen:
Sometimes a band will release a song to build anticipation for an upcoming release. Occasionally the preview song ends up being the best song on the album and the rest of it is a disappointment. Other times, that song is only a small taste of what is to come and you are already arrested by the entirety of the album upon release.
This is a playlist to celebrate that feeling of anticipation. Most of these songs are early teasers off upcoming releases or otherwise stand outs off recent albums that I love. Enjoy.
Tracks:
- Slip Away - Perfume Genius
- Generation Why - Weyes Blood
- Up In Hudson - Dirty Projectors
- Pleasure - Feist
- Saturn - Bryce Dessner, James McAlister, Nico Muhly, Sufjan Stevens
- Fontaine de lait - Camille
- Third of May / Ōdaigahara - Fleet Foxes
- Liability - Lorde
- Make Music - David Bazan
- Love - Lana Del Rey
- Ballad of the Dying Man - Father John Misty
- Distant Solar Systems - Julien Baker
Apple playlist here.