It was a year ago that I set off on the road trip of a lifetime. Lots of time spent in the van, jamming out to my favourite tunes from last May and June. Many of those songs (as well as some of the bigger radio hits of the summer like "Am I Wrong", "Latch", "Fancy", "Problem", "Rude" and "Stay With Me") will always remind me of driving out to the ocean with the family. Sigh. On to the current month's picks!
10 - "Huarache Lights", Hot Chip
This list starts out a bit electronic so apologies if this isn't really your thing. I've been interested in Hot Chip on and off since "The Warning". I say on and off because it looks like I've never heard their big hit, "Ready for the Floor". Oh, now I have. Not my jam. "Huarache Lights" is the lead-off from their latest album and I love that little callout - reminiscent of Groove Armada's "I See You Baby". Classic.
9 - "Bloodstream", Ed Sheeran & Rudimental
My wife just saw Ed Sheeran in concert and said it was a great show. She was most impressed that he played alone, looping his own vocals and music to layer everything into a complete piece. Ed Sheeran impresses me a great deal too and I don't think he's done with being Grammy darling. As for Rudimental, they are a drum and bass band from the U.K. who actually have writing credits on Sheeran's album version of "Bloodstream" (along with two members of Snow Patrol). The remixed version was released at the end of March and hit #2 on the British charts. Not a bad piece of work. And Ray Liotta's in the video. What more could you want?
8 - "Julia", Jungle
Jeez Soundcloud...you're letting me down this week. I suppose the tracks I'm highlighting are just too mainstream for you:(. I dropped "Busy Earnin'" on last week's list. This is yet another interesting piece of choreography (krumpoeira?) so I suppose it's just as well I'm including the video.
7 - "Gold Dust", Galantis
With "Help", Galantis definitely hit a double with me. "Gold Dust" might just pump that up to a triple. Their album just got released last week and I'm getting into it. In case you're wondering what that animal is on all of their artwork, they apparently call it a Seafox. I've also just learned via wikipedia that Galantis was voted "Best Dance Moment" at Coachella 2014 - pretty impressive considering some of the artists on hand that year (Calvin Harris, Disclosure, Girl Talk and Flume).
6 - "What Kind of Man", Florence and the Machine
This video features dialogue, wild flailing, big hats, too many guys, nudity, symbolism, emoting, blatant lack of seatbelt use and a lot of water. Feel free to watch it more than once.
5 - "Leaf Off / The Cave", Jose Gonzalez; "After All is Said and Done", Junip
Yeah, that's right, I'm doing it! A Jose Gonzalez DOUBLE SHOT. I try to keep it to one release per artist, but I'm cheating a bit here, including some new solo material as well as a strong track from his second album recorded with Junip (from back in 2013). Jose's cover of The Knife's "Heartbeats" (Wiki reports that the original was ranked #15 song of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media.) is one of my favourite songs of all time so pretty much any time he puts something new out, I'll give it a listen.
4 - "Fool for Love", Lord Huron
In case it's not obvious, we have now moved on from the electronic portion of the tunes list. "Fool For Love" is off Lord Huron's sophomore album Strange Trails, released back in April. I'm still getting into Lord Huron (not my typical fare), but I suppose I've heard this song enough times to get a feel for the vocals...I heard a song on the HBO show Togetherness whose vocals sounded familiar and it turned out to be the title track from Lord Huron's first album, Lonesome Dreams. Cool.
3 - "My Silver Lining", First Aid Kit
First Aid Kit is our third and final Swedish artist on the list this month. I would have slipped this in a double shot last month with "America", but they don't have Gonzalez-level cred quite yet. This is a relatively old song, released early in 2014. The two sisters performed it on Letterman, Conan and Ellen last year and Billboard named it one of the best songs of the first half of 2014. Regardless, it's on my list for 2015. Take that, chronology!
2 - "Ohio (Filous Remix)", Damien Jurado
I know nothing about Damien Jurado. Apparently, he is from Seattle and is label mates with The War on Drugs. "Ohio" is from Damien's 2nd album, released in 1999 (!). Austrian DJ Filous has been all over the Internet lately, remixing all sorts of music. This is probably the track that he is best known for, but that might not last long. If you're interested in what's hot in electronic music in Vienna, Filous has created the following playlist
In case you want to hear the original version of "Ohio", here it is:
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1 - "Breathe Again", The Kickdrums
When I hit up Soundcloud and see that a song I really like has racked up 1M listens, I'm not terribly surprised. However, when I see that the song in question is more around the 100k mark, that's when I wonder "how did I stumble onto this song?" "What do I see in it that others don't?". I'm not really sure on either count for "Breathe Again", though I think I've figured out the tiniest part of "Breathe Again" that hooks me...it's where it feels like the chorus should be. There's something about those simple sung notes around 1:04 that make me happy. Nothing special. Maybe it hearkens back to some other song I loved a long time ago...I can't place it. Regardless, it's my favourite song right now that I have yet to share with the masses.
Happy listening!
