Music for the in-between week

The week between Christmas and New Year is its own small island. The shops are quiet, the news goes thin, and most things you would normally do are off until further notice. Music for that week is different from music for either side of it.

The brief is slow but not sleepy, reflective but not maudlin, festive only by accident. The wellness room mostly works. The reading room works if there's a long afternoon to fill. The sleep room works for the evenings, which start at four. Lo-fi is too active; focus is for work that nobody is doing.

What I tend to put on, given the choice, is older music. Records that have been with you for years rather than the new ones from October. The week has a way of asking what's lasted, and music made for the rooms here tends to be the kind of music that does last. It's worth playing the older versions.

By the second of January the brief snaps back. Lo-fi at the kitchen counter, focus at the desk. But the in-between week is one of the few hours in the year where time is genuinely soft. The playlists treat it that way.