Star contributor Callie is back with this week’s playlist, perfect for those zone-out moods. Music that is best heard through over-the-ear headphones; music to get lost in; music that makes you feel like you’re either floating or sinking, and sometimes both.

  1. “Me and Your Mama” – Childish Gambino. “Redbone” got all the attention when Childish Gambino released his best and most ambitious album to date, Awaken, My Love! — but while that song is obviously impeccable, “Me and Your Mama” is unmatched as an out-of-body listening experience. This experimental track served as the album’s lead single — but, more accurately, as a portal into Donald Glover’s weird, cosmic, funky, rock-n-roll-infused spiritual realm.
  2. “Love Out Of Lust” – Lykke Li. In this song, Lykke Li’s smooth vocals feel as if they’re floating down a glossy river. The subtle, echoing harmonies give the track a calming depth and fluidity. Listening to this song feels like sitting at the bottom of a pool and looking up at the sun-dappled, rippling surface — but only if that experience was enhanced by an ability to breathe water instead of air.
  3. “Nights” – Frank Ocean. It’s difficult to describe such a masterful, multi-faceted song without feeling hopelessly inadequate, so I won’t try much — except to say that, despite landing where most songs would end and move on, the transition at 3:28 is the future of music.
  4. “Loving Someone” – The 1975. The 1975 specializes in pop music that is futuristic and glacial — that, as Pitchfork writes, both draws from and rejects the “effervescent, percolating polish of early ’80s Hot 100 pop.” I like it when you sleep…, their ambitious sophomore effort, is the result of a band who takes themselves too seriously as musicians but also manages to radiate irresistible boy band potential. The result is magnificent — and peaks with “Loving Someone,” a synthetic, luscious trip inside the mind of a self-questioning, self-obsessed genius.
  5. “Timmy’s Prayer” – Sampha. Sampha’s luring voice alone is enough to take you out of your own self, to lull you under the influence of his very welcome spell. But “Timmy’s Prayer” is particularly special in its embrace of Sampha himself. He is an endlessly complex musician, an undoubtedly self-questioning man, but the production of this track practically oozes confidence and snake-charming charisma.
  6. “Holocene” – Bon Iver. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know who Bon Iver is and what he does. He creates music that brings you to another dimension. He creates a swirling pit of nostalgia, grief, hope, and yearning inside your essential core of being. “Holocene” epitomizes this feeling: it’s named after a bar in Portland, but also our current geologic time period. As Bon Iver (aka Justin Vernon) told NPR: “Our lives feel like these epochs, but really we are dust in the wind. But I think there’s a significance in that insignificance that I was trying to look at in that song.” This is not light listening, but it does allow you to float outside your mortal body for five minutes.
  7. “I’ve Never Felt So Good” – Mura Masa. As an artist who produces largely instrumental music, Mura Masa (aka Alex Crossan) is a no-brainer for this kind of playlist. Producers are puppet-masters who allow lyrics and vocals to play secondary roles, who can manipulate mood fluctuations and keep you on their hook without interesting words. For example, in this impossibly peaceful and melancholic track, the fullness and density of the composition itself easily settles over you like a blanket.
  8. “Retrograde” – James Blake. For me, the idea of a song that completely overtakes your mind and soul is embodied in “Retrograde.” It doesn’t even feel like a song; it feels like a particularly emotional memory, or a place from which you cannot escape. Particularly when heard through over-the-ear headphones — in an atmosphere that allows its layers to be completely experienced — this song kidnaps your senses and gently, sinisterly worms its way into your reptilian brain. 
  9. “Two Weeks” – FKA Twigs. FKA Twigs is some kind of alien, banshee, vixen, human hybrid who creates distant, menacing fantasies with a digital gloss and unrivaled ease. She creates the kinds of songs (and visuals and dances and concert experiences, for that matter) that demand your attention. It’s easy to get lost in this song because you can’t focus on anything else.
  10. “Ultralight Beam” – Kanye West, The-Dream, Kelly Price, Kirk Franklin, Chance The Rapper. For such an egomaniac, Kanye West’s collaborative skills remain unparalleled. It says a lot, I think, that in the midst of crafting his best production quality ever, he decided to hand the mic to Chance. And Chance, already a formidable rapper in his own right, handed back a career-making verse that paid direct homage to Kanye’s influence. This move illustrates why I have never wanted give up on Kanye’s potential for redemption. For each moment of absolute mind-boggling selfishness, Kanye has a Chance moment. The Life of Pablo is Kanye’s Tale of Two Personas: the father and the philanderer, the artist and the maniac, the devoted disciple and the fallen angel. For better or worse, “Ultralight Beam” is his halo.