High notes - Thoughts on music and weed
I’ve been running weed as a regular background process for about seven years now.
One persistent bug I kept hitting: the Lyrics Loop.
Whenever I queued up songs I knew by heart, my brain would auto-execute the lyrics as a primal, unstoppable kernel-level task — zero user control, no kill signal available.
That background thread eats massive CPU when all I want is to idle in peace after hitting some quality zaza and melt into the couch.
The workaround became obvious: switch to instrumental-only tracks.
Strip out the vocals → drop the cognitive load to near zero.
No more lyric parser spiking usage; just pure textures, frequencies, and vibe ingestion.
Below is one of my favorite instrumental pieces by Pink Floyd
Phonk
I first got into phonk back around 2018 when I stumbled on this YouTube channel called Rare Phonk — they were dropping all these obscure tracks that felt like hidden gems from another dimension. IMPORTANT - i do NOT mean the shitty drift phonk stuff that's everywhere now with those over-the-top cowbells and racing vibes that just scream TikTok algorithm bait. Nah, I'm talking OG phonk: that gritty, lo-fi Memphis rap inspired sound from the early 2010s, slowed down, chopped, with heavy vaporwave haze and those deep, murky samples. It's mostly instrumental at its core, but the best ones layer in some chopped vocal snippets way in the back — like faint echoes or ghosts in the mix. Just enough presence to make it more interesting than pure beats, but buried so low it never hijacks your brain or triggers that Lyrics Loop bug when you're zaza'd out. It lets the atmosphere and the textures do the heavy lifting while your mind just floats.
Some of my go-to producers for that perfect balance are Soudiere (his stuff always feels cloudy and introspective, like drifting through fog), Kloudbug (those collabs with Soudiere hit different), Mythic [RIP — man, the scene lost a legend way too early], and Sway55. Their tracks are the ultimate high companion: no aggressive drops, no distracting hooks, just pure immersion that melts you deeper into the couch without any mental CPU spikes. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Barberbeats
Then there's barberbeats, which scratches a totally different itch but still fits that "low cognitive load, maximum vibe" requirement. It's basically taking these super obscure, forgotten lounge-ish tracks — think smooth 80s/90s elevator music, forgotten Japanese city pop B-sides, or random retro smooth jazz — slapping on some light effects like reverb, tape hiss, slow-downs, and maybe a gentle vinyl crackle, then curating them into these dreamy "albums" or playlists.
The real magic isn't even the production tricks; it's the curation and the whole thematic package they wrap around it. A lot of these releases come with heavy Japanese vibes, retro internet culture nostalgia, late-night Windows 98 aesthetics, or just pure melancholy serenity.
Track number 5 in my favorite in this one: