09/09/24 - Hello all, as it does year after year, summer seems to have sped by, just as I started to hear it coming behind me I could see it fading away in the distance, but some nice times were had and I'm hoping you had some nice times too.

As you may have noticed, I've sporadically added items to the shop as I've had the time to. The time passages Instagram account (@timepassagesshop) continues to be the best resource for 'what's new', alternatively, sorting the 'shop all product' menu by newest works too.

In "News" news, Recently Time Passages was featured amongst some fantastic artists and creators in a Toronto Star article on Textiles. I was happy to share a few quick thoughts on the importance of tactile, real items and the weight their history might hold. You can view a scan of it by clicking here and also a close up version if your eyesight isn't the best over here. Thanks to Caitlin Agnew and the Toronto Star for the publicity.

06/05/24 - As you may notice while browsing the site, each piece of wall décor is paired with the song that it 'evoked' to me, usually and ideally at first sight. Adding this suggestion to the description field on each listing is the closest I can get with the current available-to-me technology to place you, yourself, in a retailer (in this case my hypothetical brick and mortar shop) browsing the aisle, feeling just about ready to go catch that train or bus or movie and then locking eyes on a item (here, a piece of wall décor) while hearing a specific song play-out over the public address. Often you attach that piece of the music to the item, at least I do, and I figure consciously or not most others do as well.

Going Out Soundtrack, Party Jams 2001, a mixtape for a crush, RUNNING PLAYLIST, etc etc etc

Be it on analog tape, sharpie scribbled CD-R's or the million ways streaming services can generate a playlist for you (and your pet) we've always soundtracked the things we do. Why wouldn't we with commerce? Is this just not long form, low-level advertising?

I think often about music placement in places of public consumption. I vividly remember a trip visiting IKEA when I first moved away from home, back in 2003. I had turned through the passageway that divides the kitchen accessories with the home textiles and while I did I noticed the song that was playing above me on the public address. It was Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division.

This was not significant for Joy Division being a new or breaking group, they'd been New Order for 20 years at that point. But significant because it was one of the first times I noticed that a shops music was curated and flowed, with intention. It fit a mood. It wasn't shitty. This was prior to my understanding a few years later that brands had tastemakers and curators for this very reason, that or they had subscription services to licensed playlists, also curated by someone with the vibe set to S H O P.

I still have all the ear-worms in my head from the mid aughts period music from HOTJAMZ, the pop R+B station the more favourable management team of H+M Eaton Centre preferred. I will always associate those horizontal striped long sleeve shirts that were popular at the time with Ne-Yo's So Sick, even though they were decidedly more LCD Soundsystem associating attire. It's just the way my brain has stored that information.

It had not hit me until that IKEA visit at 18 that most of the experiences of listening to music in shops I had while growing up, specifically in the town of Powassan, was simply just soundtracked by the local radio. You would move from the car to inside the retailer and they would have the same song on. When the Saturday jockey had to go to the car dealership for on location promos, by proxy you were educated on the current leasing deals for a brand new 1994 Ford Taurus while waiting in line to rent a video. I've thought about what you hear when you're shopping differently since I had that realization at IKEA, over twenty years ago.

Since then, I've made playlists for retailers I've worked for in the past, very little beyond a 'pass the aux' style mix of songs I felt fit the mood for the shop. Nothing formal, but nonetheless an exercise in choosing and setting a vibe and frankly, choosing "familiar good" and not just "obscure stuff that in this setting, I and only I will enjoy" type of good.

Once I was selected to make a 4 hour dinner service mix that played every evening for a month straight at the restaurant celeb-chef Matty Matheson came to prominence upon, Parts and Labour in Toronto's Parkdale neighborhood. I was nervous knowing that entire meals would be ordered, waited on, enjoyed and discussed to a soundtrack of whatever I had pre-emptively decided would suit that part of the night, an entire month earlier when I recorded it. I stressed over that mix and not the technicals or quality of the mix but the context of where It was heading. I've stressed over "djing" to a room of 60 people in real life before but a room of 60 people eating and talking amongst themselves is a whole different stress. I am constantly ingesting what music is being played if I am with someone and we are both eating. Like, how else am I supposed to drown out the sound of myself chewing?

I thought, "I can do the math quickly in my head". 5 nights a week x 4 weeks = 20 nights @ XXX seatings/resos @ x per table = a whole bunch of people listening to this, probably passively, but passive consumption is a whole different thing and I'm not going to veer into. The payout for soundtracking all those dinner services was primarily clout, which I've never been able to successfully cash in on, but secondly a hamburger. I do not eat meat so I gifted it to my partner. It was a bizarre thrill. I would take that opportunity to curate someone else's dinning experience over and over again, sans burger.

While creating this website for the shop, I knew I wanted to somehow work in the music I select as 🎵 INSPO with the browsing experience. I'm not there yet, I have ideas, but for the time being the band-aid solution is that I've collected all the songs from the item descriptions and made one big 😈Spotify😈 playlist out of them. I suggest you hit shuffle and just let it ride, it takes a few playful turns, admittingly not to taste that I would have picked based only upon what I like, but a turn for what suits the piece of art best. Its located with the other media near the bottom of this page and will grow with every new piece added to the shop.

06/01/24 - This is where I'll share information or happenings. Maybe new scores, changes to shipping rates, things like that. Maybe I make a mix and link it here. This is kinda a home for those sorts of things because I'm not sure if a webshop should have a 'NEWS' section. But this feels justified. Below is a video I made for the launch of the website. All of the footage was shot on hi8mm footage with a Sony Handycam.