Noise at work

Open-plan offices are one of those modern ideas that probably sounded brilliant on someone’s PowerPoint slide. In reality they are an endless symphony of annoying ringtones, loud keyboard warriors, pointless meetings held three meters away, and that one colleague who somehow manages to eat an entire bag of crisps before lunch.

On days like that, a good pair of headphones isn’t a luxury. It’s survival equipment.

So what’s going on inside the headphones? I guess it is a wide spectrum. Some people prefer soothing music to get in the right mood, others need something upbeat to stay awake. A few might even need complete silence (I suspect they’re either monks or serial killers).

Hocico live, also known as Chihuahua-body.

My own soundtrack changes with the weather inside my head. One day my trusty iPod Nano plays the controlled aggression of Suicide Commando, Rammstein or Hocico, blasting away every distraction until my brain reaches something resembling hyperspace. The next day it can be the haunting landscapes of Dead Can Dance or some obscure ambient record that sounds like it was recorded inside an abandoned Soviet submarine.

So what about you? What do you put on when it’s time to disappear into the creative zone?