Deep Voices 118: A New Year's Playlist

Two thousand twenty vibe

Deep Voices 118 on Spotify
Deep Voices 188 on Apple Music

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This is the third Deep Voices New Year’s playlist. They’re geared towards a redemptive listen. Here is the 2024 edition, and 2023 (I like this one—it has Pat Metheny and submarine noises). Also, the 100 song best of 2024 playlist is here, in case you missed that one.

Consider funding Deep Voices with a paid subscription. You get access to the exclusive weekend posts of music recommendations and general flotsam. Mostly you support this project of looking for music and meaning in places other people aren’t. Who knows what you might find.

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This past June, after serving 50 years in a federal prison, Veronza Bowers Jr. was released. Bowers, now 78, is a former Black Panther who was convicted of a murder of a park ranger based on the accounts of two government informants who received reduced sentences for their testimony. He maintains his innocence.

While in prison, Bowers was introduced to the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute, which he has now played for decades. Bowers dedicated himself to the instrument as well as to introducing other prisoners to the meditative qualities of music. In an essay about the instrument, he preempted any incredulity. “For those of you who have never been inside a maximum security penitentiary, it might be difficult, if not impossible, to imagine it as a place where the plaintive sounds of shakuhachi can be heard. Ah! But it is true.”

In a 1998 letter he wrote to be read to participants at the World Shakuhachi Festival, Bowers spoke of moving to a new facility where he could no longer play loudly. Instead, he learned to play the shakuhachi silently. “My blowing is purposeful blowing with no sound except an occasional whisper of breath sliding across ebony and silver and bamboo. Each blow fills me so deeply in my soul. It is a feeling of the songs in my heart being sung to my very soul.”

You can now hear Bowers’ music outside of prison walls. He recently released his debut album, finding peace in the chaos. It’s a dusky, serene collection of songs, featuring vocals from Rev. Love, an unimposing vocalist who narrates quiet requests for “all beings” to “be safe.” Bowers has a stream of consciousness approach, which reflects the heaviness of his situation and the lightness he brought to it. I have found the album to be a powerful listen

I’ve always been reflective around New Year’s Eve, but these days I think so much more about the passage of time. Lately I’ve been fixed on the idea that “time heals all wounds,” because I don’t think it’s true. Time can allow—or force—you to forget. That can dull the edges of the past, but it doesn’t erase it. What happened happened, whether you remember it or not. What you do with the wounds is up to you. The third anniversary of my son’s death was Christmas Eve. My daughters’ second birthday was two weeks before. Those small numbers feel so big it feels very difficult to imagine 50 years of anything. I’m inspired by Bowers’ patience and dedication. Different situations, same clock.

This New Year’s playlist is, as usual with Deep Voices, one hour long. It’s 60 minutes of redemptive music. It leads off with a song by Bowers, “we exists outside of time.” Whatever you are counting down, I hope its arrival brings you peace.