The Listening Room: A home for Deep Listening
Where music isn't the destination. It's how you find yourself, and each other.
Welcome to
The Listening Room
For the music lovers who feel it in their bones, listen like they mean it, and find deeper connections because of it.
Press play - I made this one for you
You didn't stop loving music.
You stopped having someone to share it with.
Remember making a mixtape or burned CD?
Not a playlist. An actual tape, or a burned CD with a Sharpie'd title, handed to someone in person.
You'd agonize over the first song, because the first song was everything. It had to hook them in the first ten seconds or the whole thing fell flat.
You'd drop it off, or slide it across a table, and then just... wait. Hope they popped it in the CD player that night. Hope you saw their face light up when that opening track hit.
That's not just nostalgia.
That was two people being vulnerable with each other.
You knew them well enough to guess what would move them, and you were exposed the second they hit play.
Your taste was on that tape, and so were you.
That's what got automated, algorithmed, and AI'd out of the equation. Not the music. But the person brave enough to hand it to you.
The people still making you a mixtape exist.
I'm that friend.
An algorithm is deciding what plays next based on what kept you listening last time. Not what will actually move you, and definitely not because it thought of you specifically.
It doesn't know your favorite bridge, or the song that helped you through a bad year.
It just knows what performed well for someone else.
I'm A Depth Maker, Not a Tastemaker
I've been the person that 88 people trusted enough to sign a handmade yearbook at a festival even though I'd never met most of them before.
I'm the person who created song recommendation cards to share more music in the world.
I've hand-written thank-you notes and recorded video messages to strangers because a moment we shared mattered enough to follow up on.
That's the kind of listener I am, and it's the kind of room I'm building — one where the connection doesn't end when the song does.
I'm not here to tell you what's trending. I'm here because I've spent enough nights on dance floors and enough mornings coming down from them to know where the real magic happens — and it's not always in the peak moment.
It's after.
In the comedown, the car ride home, the next morning when you're still turning a song over in your head. I call that Cultivating the Afters, and it's the whole reason The Listening Room exists.
What do you do after the song ends?
Do you share it, add it to a playlist, dance to it, workout to it, or simply enjoy it.
I set out to create, curate, listen, and connect with music lovers with intention.
The Listening Room isn't a playlist. It's not a brand.
It's a living, breathing invitation from one person who takes music seriously enough to sit down, get honest, and actually listen.
Music is my excuse for us to connect.
TLR SESSIONS: 5 Songs. 1 Album. Every Week.
Every week TLR Sessions lands in your inbox with five intentionally curated tracks.
Sometimes there's a theme. Sometimes it's sorted by genre. Sometimes it's just whatever got stuck on repeat this week. But most importantly, they spoke to my soul.
Not algorithmically adjacent, not trending, just true.
Every song comes with a painted scene it belongs to: why it caught me, what it's doing, where it might catch you too. Think like a voice memo with actual human thought.
It closes with an album. One full record worth your undivided attention, with TLR liner notes and everything.
A taste of what's inside TLR Sessions...
This will grow into TLR Music Club
TLR Sessions is how The Listening Room exists today.
Trust, when I say the future is bright. As it grows into TLR Music Club, there will be more voices, more ways to listen together, and you'll already be a founding Roomie.
Think of it as a book club, but dedicated to discussing, dissecting, and disseminating an album and how it makes us feel.
And soon we'll be hosting listening parties, curated music & art nights, and so much more.
The door's open. Come in when you're ready.
This room isn't going anywhere, and neither is the standard I'm building it to. If you're tired of being force-fed music by AI and an algorithm, and ready to intentionally listen to it again — join TLR Sessions.
You can also follow me on Instagram: @thelisteningroomsessions @talk_nashty2me
I'll see you in your inbox on Thursdays.
Let's be Roomies <3