After six seasons as Glenn on the record-breakingly popular zombie drama “The Walking Dead,” Steven Yeun has used his Hollywood clout for good over the last couple of years. The 34-year-old scored roles in the award-winning films Okja and Sorry to Bother You, and now he stars in Burning, the latest critical darling from South Korean auteur Lee Chang-Dong. In the film, Yeun plays an aloof, Gatsby-esque figure with a penchant for arson. The movie could very well garner South Korea its first-ever Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

As the father of an energetic 18-month-old, Yeun currently uses music as a balm. “We’re listening to Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’ every day,” Yeun tells me over the phone, chuckling. “The world looks incredibly scary, and it’s just a call to bring a little peace into your life, take each day as it comes, and not to worry.” This same logic comes into play when he’s forced to deal with L.A. traffic: “You’re in cars the entire time, so you’re just trying to focus, relax, and not lose your fucking mind,” he says. Here are the songs that Steven Yeun is zoning out to at this very moment.

King Krule: “Lonely Blue”

We were filming Burning when King Krule’s latest album came out, so I listened to that a lot on location in South Korea. “Lonely Blue” was the anthem of that film for me. Burning has a mood that a lot of the younger generation, including myself, are going through: a little bit of isolation. And isolation is so much more stark when you’re constantly surrounded by images and people. So to be in Korea—where there are like 50 million people in one city—and to feel this loneliness of being by yourself is a pretty intense feeling. That was the thing we were trying to capture.

Cool Calm Pete: “Lost”

The people who know Cool Calm Pete know, but not a lot of people got to hear what he is making. He has a lot of craftsmanship in his work, a lot of intention. He has that talent of being able to compile sonically pleasing things while having a deep soul. There’s a conscious purposefulness to what he’s trying to do without being overtly on a soap box about anything.

Weldon Irvine: “Morning Sunrise”

“Morning Sunrise” is great, and the entire album it’s from [The Sisters] is a whole mood. It’s music that you don’t get to hear these days: pure horns and funk. I’m no purist, but the feeling of that you get from a less sampled version of music, of actual real skill coming off a track—there’s a humanity to it, a soul, or a heart. There’s always going to be a crazy machine that will continue to make things more abstract, or computerized, or digitized, or sampled—and there’s nothing wrong with that—but there’s also something really beautiful about just feeling another human being play something.