Pandemic Playlist: Quarantunes for a Global Outbreak

Devorah curated our weekly playlist this week with your energy needs in mind, whether you're dancing in your room, attempting an in-home workout, or doing absolutely nothing at all.

As the saga of self-isolation drags on, you might be starting to tire of your old playlists, exhausting your Netflix queue, or steadily crossing off a list of reality TV shows you swore you'd never watch. I've been doing all three.

This period of social distancing--or as I like to think of it, an involuntary slowdown--thrusts us into inertia. The particular slowness of this moment is foreign to most of us, so accustomed we are to rushing from place to place, in sprinting like mad between tasks. It's refreshing to reframe this as an opportunity to collectively rejuvenate; to turn down the dial, raincheck the to-do lists, and get in touch with what we really enjoy. And in the midst of it, a little escapism doesn't hurt.

This playlist, an eclectic stringing together of mostly upbeat tracks, is made to be shuffled. Lately, I've been craving novelty and itching for sounds that keep me on my toes. The mood oscillates between ecstatic and pensive, with plenty of danceable tracks for an in-home workout.

It's also not strictly Anglophone. There's plenty of foreign-language artists woven throughout, including the '70s Senegalese band Etoile De Dakar, Brazilian singer Xenia França, and the Colombian electronic-futurist group CERO39. The effect I wanted was fluidity, breaking down borders between Afrobeat, mambo, new wave, soul, and California folk-rock.

It doesn't look like any of us will be going anywhere for a while, but at least you can still travel through sound.