"A few years ago, I ruined my Spotify algorithm for good. Under a deadline and ready to try anything that might give my harder-working self an edge over my everyday, avoidant one, I started dabbling in playlists designed to promote elusive states like “focus,” “concentration,” and “flow.” I acquired a taste for the hard stuff pretty quick: It was a short hop from gentle piano suites with blushes of calm, oceanic whooshing to jacked-up, Scandi EDM that seemed laced with nootropics. Pretty soon, the math used to predict my desires was delivering me into psychedelic soundscapes that promised to “hack” my mind and reconfigure my brainwaves with sonic illusions and “binaural beats.” It felt like filling my brain with a robot’s fantasies. I kind of hated it. I definitely kept listening."