Music for housesitting

Housesitting is a particular listening environment because the room isn't yours, but you have to live in it like it is for a few days. The speakers are someone else's; the routines are slightly off; the room sounds you'd ignore in your own place are unfamiliar enough that you'll notice every one.

What I bring, mentally, is the lighter end of the rooms here. Lo-fi at low volume works because it makes the kitchen feel like a kitchen. The reading room works because most of housesitting is, in practice, reading or scrolling at a slower pace than you would at home. The sleep room works at night, with familiarity doing the work of the room not being yours.

What I avoid is anything that would change the room. Loud music in someone else's living room is a small breach of the trust the place was lent under. The music I'd play in my own kitchen at full volume on a Saturday morning doesn't belong in someone else's. The room is on loan; the music should be quiet enough not to leave marks.

By the third day the room has begun to feel like yours, which is the point at which the music could relax. Most housesits don't last that long. The whole stay tends to live in the lighter end of the rooms here, which is fine — the borrowed room doesn't owe you a full setting.