labels - help or hinder

I've nearly completed the sift, sort and dispose sequence in the my CD collection there are over 120 CD in the dispose. Just people I'm never really going to listen to yet in my keep boxes are close to 300 CDs, excluding the 100 or so still on shelves. I started trying to make up playlists so that I can categorize them for playing and reasons for playing. Trying work out what category to file some of my stuff is really difficult. I got scared when I found some of my stuff was described as shoegaze! Is that a musical style? I'm happier with the label of postrock but what does it really mean.

I have bands such as Sigur Rós, Labradford, Japancakes, Channel Light Vessel etc. They are a rock version (or postrock version) of Philip Glass a classical minimalist composer. The music is extremely repetitive with slight variation and modulations. It is these changes which create the interest as the patterns change and morph. Add to the fact the speeds are slower and there is a lot of reverb to create a huge ambiance, we are talking about a genre nesting between chill, minimalism and meditation.

The Bible talks about vain repetition in praying and perhaps this also applies to worship but the issue is this. Whether the nuanced changes and variations create something which rather than being vain is a gentle route lifting us to the ecstatic moment where everything disappears and God is God. The liturgical chants of the Orthodox churches and liturgical monasticism especially made popular in Taizé provides this. I remember a teenager saying once of her first Taizé worship experience, who needs drugs, when there is this experience.

But there is a dark side. Friday I was reading about the Danger Mouse/SparkleHorse project Dark Night of The Soul. I've been aware of Danger Mouse in looking at concepts of copyright in the remix culture and the "Grey Album" a remix of the Beatles White Album and the Jay-Z's Black Album. He is part of the better known Gnarls Barkley.

Well Dark Night was first delayed by legal wrangles but deeply marred by the suicides of co-creator Mark Linkous/Sparklehorse and contributor Vic Chesnutt. This recent album carries some heavy baggage which I hope to listen to soon. I wonder about whether a heavenward moment and a hellish moment are possible. Of course I think yes. In my sorting I had to decide whether to keep The Tear Garden's To Be An Angel Blind, The Crippled Soul Divide. I kept it because it is an authentic reflection of one side of human emotions, the darker side.