Welcome to the second installment of the Pablum Playlist....
TITLE: "Chase"
ARTIST: Giorgio Moroder
ALBUM: Midnight Express: Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
RELEASE DATE: 1978
After another crazed day of work at the Job, I emerge from the Viacom tower this evening around 6:15 pm, set my iPod to shuffle and enter the bustling mosh pit that is Times Square, weaving through reckless taxi cabs and clusters of wobbling tourists with mouths agape. The first track to come on is this pulsing opening instrumental from Giorgio Moroder's soundtrack to "Midnight Express." Though inarguably dated-sounding, Moroder's signature disco synthesizers emanate from my headhones like a hypnotic sonic fractal, anchored by a simple melody that is simultaneously melancholy and menacing. With robotic intensity, it drives my pace ever quicker out of the busy square, down into the subway and swiftly back out at Union Square with fittingly Teutonic efficiency (well, despite being Italian, Moroder composed his most well-known work in Munich). 
The track almost encapsulates my entire commute, its waves of chirping keyboards and plangent washes of electronic haze delivering me like Brad Davis' character in the film, Billy, back home from the horrors of his ordeal (this is by no means to suggest that my office is anything akin to a squalid Turkish prison, but you get the idea). If you can listen to this without wanting to break into a sprint, check your pulse.
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