34/16 - The Simple Way You Fold Your Grace

Merry Christmas! I was going to post a distinctly non-seasonal list, but then I listened to Nils Frahm's excellent christmas mix, and it softened my heart. So, inspired by that, here's my post-Christmas mix:

Philip Glass - Six Etudes For Piano: Etude No. 2

It feels like none of the versions I find on Spotify of this is as perfect as what I heard on radio the other week, but nevertheless, there's plenty of beauty here.

Maria Callas - Norma: Casta Diva

Lifted directly from Nils' mix. The moment when the choir comes in kills me.

Ariel Ramírez - Gloria (Carnavalito-Yaravi)

An old parental favourite that was ever so familiar to me, without me ever having looked up what it was. Dad fished out the vinyl from the shelf though and we listened to the whole, amazing, recording.

People Like Us - Driving Flying Rising Falling

All the christmas merriment at once. This is what the unwrapping of gifts was like, with four kids in a mountain of presents.

Ian William Craig - A Single Hope

I've started the project of listening to all the 'best of 2016' albums that I missed during the year, and this is my first gorgeous discovery, as Christmas fades into that grey crackly static of the last few days of the year...

RTJ3 was surprise-released yesterday. I've only listened once yet, but I dare say – with the exception of the birth of my nephew Sigge – it's probably the best thing that happened in 2016:

33/16 - Open Up The Parachute!

The year, and other things, are coming to an end. The London family disperses.

Midlake - Rulers, Ruling All Things

Thinking the world was mine to get lost in
I ran with freedom and sank in between

Neil Young - I Believe In You

For Francis, Zbong, Manuel, Zhen, Tamar and all the other lovelies leaving London to spread out across the world. 

The Shins - It's Only Life

You've been talking for hours
You say time will wash every tower to the sea
Now you've got this worry in your heart
Well I guess it's only life, it's only natural

Geraint Watkins - Only A Rose

Hoarse breathing makes everything heartfelt.

Sigur Rós - Stormur

The storm sweeps in. Wipes the slate clean. I am waiting for the calm after. Winter can be beautiful with an Icelandic soundtrack.

32/16 - Tired Are Your Splendid Soldiers

Finally I've got a job. Before then, in the grip of anxiety and growing hopelessness, I started composing this portentous atmosphere of a list.

Miles Davis - Tout de Suite (alternate take)

I'm not generally prone to having songs on repeat, but with the preposterous care I put into compiling these lists I do end up listening to the top 5 candidates quite a few times in a short period. Sometimes, like with this track, they're even on the waiting list for a couple of weeks before getting included, and through getting to know them over time they suddenly reveal their full splendour. This might at first listen strike one as a decent but longish outtake. Give it time though, and there's a magisterial austerity that creeps under your skin. The moment Miles comes in on the second beat at 3:17 for example; it's just so... clean. Restrained and perfectly balanced, like a gleaming ore running through granite.

Kaada + Patton - Viens, Les Gazons Sont Verts

Old favourite obscure record. Mike Patton teams up with Norwegian soundtrack composer John Erik Kaada to create ghostly non-verbal incantations.

Mercury Rev - Love Is Pure

More cinematic music, here from a band that started out improvising unofficial scores to nature documentaries. But this piece is darker than the most harrowing scenes from Planet Earth (racer snakes!!!!).

Alev Lenz - Fall Into Me

Finished watching the latest season of Black Mirror. Surely one of the most poignantly scary/dystopic TV shows ever created. Painfully good. And at the darkest moment of all, this amazing combination of frail gorgeous vocals and ominous drones fades in and chills. me. to. the. bone.

Daniel Johnston - Poor You

A song that works on two levels. As a sincere and beautiful admission of depression, and as an ironically send-up of self-pity. Both can be needed at times.

31/16 - You're Dreaming of Arcadia, You're Feeling Like a Baby Tooth

Overload to try and blow the cobwebs out. Words words words to protect me from anxiety. Beats to invoke a forward movement. Here's hoping it will work.

John Carpenter - Dark Blues

A widescreen vision of dystopia. Cinematic headbanging.

Busta Rhymes & Q-Tip - Thank You

See the real hip hop shit is returning

Aesop Rock - Shrunk

Danny Brown - Radio Song

XXX is the dirtiest, funniest mixtape of the 2010s, and this is an irony masterpiece.

Kanye West - Gone

I miss the old Kanye.
Anyone on the Kanye backlash who spices up their lament with 'he has no talent', should listen to stuff like this. He's a megalomaniac, a buffoon and an egotist. He's not the greatest rock star alive. But he is one of the best producers around.

30/16 - I Feel So Close To Everything That We Lost

Last week was too heavy for top 5. One of my favourite persons in the world, ever, died. One of my least favourite persons in the world, ever, was elected US president. Now the first reaction of 'fuck this world' has resided enough for me to put up some kind of defiant celebration of Leonard. Leonard who's been with me since my teens. Leonard who's one of the very very few artists that never ever mis-stepped as far as I'm concerned. Leonard who's the one out of all my idols whom I would've most liked to meet, talk to, confide in, joke with...

Leonard Cohen - Recitation w/ N.L.

Leonard Cohen - The Future

Sums up the feeling quite well, doesn't it?

Things are going to slide in all directions 
Won't be nothing you can measure anymore 
The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold 
And it has overturned the order of the soul

Leonard Cohen - Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On

For all his mastery of gorgeous songs about love and death, the man did quite well with tongue-in-cheek romps about squalid sex as well. Having Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg on backup vocals can't hurt.

Leonard Cohen - Sisters of Mercy

Like he said, earlier: Love's the only engine of survival...

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem

Leonard Cohen - Sing Another Song, Boys

Yes. Let's. Let's not grow old and bitter. Sadness and anger, sure. But no fucking wallowing!

Leonard Cohen - Tower of Song

;)

Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally...

29/16 - Now, Quick The Night Draws Near

These are totems against an upsetting political world.

Susanne Sundfør - White Foxes

This week's real obsession is those last seconds, when she jumps up an octave to repeat the final line:

My eye
is my
sanctuary

The eye of the storm. Crystal clear. Blissful.

Dirty Projectors - Gun Has No Trigger

The tension. The tension is almost unbearable. But so perfectly orchestrated and harmonised, building to that final dreadful moment when even suicide is impossible.

Solange - Cranes In The Sky

So beautiful. So sensual. So sorrowful. Who else does music like this today?

Moondog - Marimba Mondo 2

Love how this starts out sounding like an almost quaint bit of exotica, but then it just persists and persists, and then those weird beats and fills start interjecting and bringing it to something more akin to a folktronica/minimalism fusion.

Jess Sah Bi & Peter One - Our Garden Needs Its Flowers

Never a bad idea to round up with some laconic, Ivorian country music melodies.

28/16 - We Kill The Flame

I turned a year older, we got the radio back in the kitchen, and the Freak Zone has never been so good.

Mala ft. Asociacion Juvenil Puno - Kotos

I love it when it happens. The radio is on, a book is in my lap, music drifts by – good music, great music even – and then suddenly there is a sound that goes straight to my spine. The book drops, the ears perk, the mind goes yyeeEEES. A brand new discovery, and that first swooshing of actual peruvian pan flutes at 30 seconds in remains absolutely fucking amazing after any number of listens.

Yo La Tengo - Autumn Sweater

Chillout lounge music with killer basslines – a genre Yo La Tengo basically made up.

CAN - Sunday Jam

CAN can be so lush and groovy when they want to. If you focus on the hi hat throughout this track you may start to feel really weird. In a good way.

Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker

What. A. Fucking. Album! Leonard you've done it again! You're the greatest Leonard. The greatest. And this might be your greatest late career record. And that is no easy spot to claim.

Mica Levi - Love

Spooky glissandos to round off in halloween fashion. Strings almost as spine-tingling as the flutes that began the list.

27/16 - I Got This Rig That Runs On Memories

What a week for music! New Leonard Cohen album, new Joanna Newsom track, and new Run The Jewels track! But instead of any of that, I'm putting together an old folky top 5, cause I'm stubborn, me.

Jarvis Cocker - I Can't Forget

So I haven't yet listened to You Want It Darker, because I'm waiting until I have the CD in my hand, but from the couple of tracks I heard on Jarvis' Sunday Service it's going to be just as good or better than I expected. Meanwhile, what can sit better than said Jarvis covering one of Leonard's many best tracks?

Yeah the summer's gone
But a lot goes on forever

Bert Jansch - One To A Hundred

Sitting on my bed, watching the foxes nose around in the withering, wet backyard, I roll a childhood memory around in my head, comparing its intensity of feeling with this lethargic dullness. I can still sense the taste of excitement in some of the late raspberries and the intense yellow of certain leaves. Close your eyes... count to a hundred.

The Weather Station - Way It Is, Way It Could Be

“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come. There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite the word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.” - Milan Kundera

Brian Protheroe - Pinball

I send out letters. I get automatic replies. I go to openings. I feel closed off. I watch too much television. I've lost my visions. I read. I don't write. I turn on the radio, and there is a guy I've never heard of before singing about exactly this feeling of pointlessness. And then he sings over himself, while saxophones flutter by, and maybe there is some kind of energy to extract from these random moments still. I've not quite at a standstill yet.

William Tyler - A Portrait of Sarah

I've rejected it from the last couple of weeks' lists, because it felt too long at the time. Now however, it has matured in me and its melody echoes long after the last intricate fingerpicking has rung out.

Okay, well I have to leave these here as well. I'm sure I'll have reason to come back to them, because well, there are few other music acts out there that can excite me as much as these.

26/16 - I'm Still Waiting

Revisits and reappraisals as time is not moving forward at all this week.

Talking Heads - Crosseyed and Painless

Because Andrew made me watch this excellent bit of TV history:


Skip to 1:00:00 for a sweaty, rowdy live version of this banger, this week dedicated to Donald Trump:

Facts don't do what I want them to!

The Dead Weather - I Can't Hear You

Because it's been on my running soundtrack for a while. A tip top tip-toe-ing guitar riff.

Phosphorescent - Hej, Me I'm Light

Because Eli got me hooked on Song For Zula, and then I discovered I had some other Phosphorescent tracks on my iTunes, including this melancholic but blissed out mantra.

Bat For Lashes - Daniel

Because it's still such a stunning song.

Kathryn Williams - Spit On A Stranger

Just because. Sometimes a gentle Pavement-cover is exactly what you need.

25/16 - I'm Travelling With No Destination

Songs for the October sun and for keeping busy with little jobs and little hopes.

Frank Ocean - Self Control

Ok, I'm late on the ball here, but yes, Frank Ocean's album is truly gorgeous once you give it your full attention. Fleeting, fragmentary, conversational, and then, suddenly, blooming like an indian summer. Around 3:18 the sun breaks through with full power.

Matias Aguayo - Ay Ay Ay

The slowest song of its eponymous album shuffles and chugs along in sighs, whizzes and tropical bird imitations. The perfect tempo for my current mood. Carefully starting up my engine again and keeping it going, and going, and losing myself...

Chance the Rapper ft. Ty Dolla Sign, Anderson .Paak, BJ the Chicago Kid, Raury - Blessings

A song of sincere and fantastic aspirations.

Call me Mr Mufasa, I had to master stampedes

The Beach Boys - Our Prayer

OK, the list took a bit of a religious turn here. Sometimes even agnostics must feel their spirits rise.

Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Funny Time of Year

The sun sinks at the end of the list. The temperature drops. The world slows to a standstill. It's a funny time of year. And then that wobbly bass solo summons the wind and the rain and the frost and the autumn storms and the night. The loud, rumbling night.

24/16 - Some Do Magic and Some Do Harm

The cold is seeping through the window. I walk outside of it. Inside the dark kitchen ghostly voices rattle like dead leaves. It is the season for feeling and filling voids.

Viktor Vaughn ft. M. Sayyid - Never Dead

M. Sayyid from Anti Pop Consortium sharing a track with Doom? Two of my favourite flows ever converging in a flood. Yes please!

OutKast - Knowing

Every action has a positive and equal reaction
Therefore everything that goes around comes around in that fashion

Alton Ellis - Black Man's World

Those who've been to 'The Infinite Mix' exhibition in London know how infectious that chorus is. "Ooooo-uuuuh-ooooooh! I was born a loser!" is repeated over and over again in Cyprien Gallard's mesmerising video work, and afterwards you just have to find the source, and keep listening to that perfect ghostly falsetto lift forever-ever.

Kate Tempest - Europe Is Lost

BBC6 has ground down my resistance and finally sold me on Kate Tempest. This beat sounds like it could have been on Pusha T's latest release, and the lyrics sum up all of the zeitgeist you don't want to think about, but can't help picking, like a scab.

Fever Ray - I'm Not Done

October has arrived and it's time to take out the true autumn albums. Now that The Knife is over, can we hope for a new Fever Ray album at some future point? She says she's not done...

Do you laugh while screaming:'Is it cold outside?'

23/16 - Like a Breeze Between His Hands, A Dream On Wings

Things take a stranger turn:

Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke - Pilgrimage of Lost Children

I don't know where this came from. Suddenly it was just there, with its perfect drums, its tingles of bells and its visions of a slow march into the unknown.

David Holmes, Jon Hopkins, Stephen Rea - Elsewhere Anchises

A reading of Virgil set to ambient electronica. Feels like I've been waiting for this since I discovered Soft Rains a bit back. I like my Sunday night music literary and theatrical please.

Björk - Notget

The best VR bit of the Björk Digital exhibition. I stepped into a bigger than life light-node version of Björk. And as she reached the line "...our love kept me safe from DEATH!" she spread her arms and grew a pair of horns. Heart-stopping stuff.

Gil Scott-Heron - Work For Peace

A whole other side of Gil from last week's joyful soul. What a way with words. I could listen to him rasp "the military industrial complex" any number of times.

The Military and the Monetary
From thousands of miles away in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary
Had us all scrambling for our dictionaries
Cause we couldn’t understand the fuckin vocabulary

Marionette - Black Hand

My old friend Axel with his signature screech of a voice, leading the way to a wonderful hammering break at 2:11.

22/16 - There Are Places To Come From and Places To Go

I'm still doing good. Five songs brimful with positive energy:

Jónsi - Go Do

Walk down the street. Look at the cute humans. Smile. Notice tokens of love. This is your mission. Go do.

Gil Scott-Heron - When You Are Who You Are

How's that for a feel good song? Peaking in Gil shouting "Get it!" an almost ridiculous, but yet perfect, amount of times. I get it.

Joni Mitchell - Night In the City

Starting to make my way out into London again. Daily excursions at my own leisure. Joni in a pop mood is a rare but fantastic treat. That jaunty piano sets the scene for an indelible call back chorus.

Nina Simone - I Loves You Porgy

Finally got around to watch the documentary 'What Happened Miss Simone?' the other night. Fists were clenched. Tears rolled. Shivers ran. The most powerful thing I've seen in a while. She'll always be one of the greatest. And this, her breakthrough, is pure bliss. Her piano notes alone transport me somewhere heavenly. I wanna stay here, with you forever...

Bon Iver - 22 (Over S∞∞N)

The exact feeling of nostalgia for the present, captured in the most mesmerisingly moment-defining way.

It might be over soon

Finally, I also visited the Björk Digital exhibition at Somerset House, which I highly recommend every Björk fan to do. The Virtual Reality experience of the new album is powerful, but the 'Björk Cinema' room with a continuous roll of all her earlier videos is an almost bigger treat. Revisiting irresistible pills of joy like the bell choir version of Who Is It on a big screen can lift any day to euphoric heights.

21/16 - By the Foot of Yon' Mountain Lays a Clear Flowing Fountain

I am not doing an awful lot these days. And I'm enjoying it royally. Reading books, pottering in the garden, napping frequently, catching up on TV – I am surprisingly content with staying away from production for a bit. Five soothing songs to reinforce my self-imposed inertia:

Juana Molina - Vive Solo

I do not live alone. Luckily. Having housemates around to cook dinner and watch Stranger Things with is, I suspect, what stops these lazy days from tipping into depressing lethargy.

John Martyn - Spencer the Rover

An absolutely delicious song about the bliss of returning to a hearth and sooth one's restlessness for a while after confused roaming and rambling. But "contented he'll remain and not ramble away"...? I have reason to doubt it.

Emilie Simon - Baby Penguins

Peak decompressing time. I'm building a nest. I don't need the rest of London. All is homely and cute and assuring. Baby penguins tiptoe past.

Julianna Barwick - Someway

Breakfast in the sun. What more do you need?

Sophie Rimheden - Touch

Slight notes of dissonance enter. Obviously I should get out do stuff... meet people...

20/16 - They Keep Erasing All The Streets We Grew Up In

This is a send-off to my final essay. Now I am free... to enjoy economic despondency.

L.A. Salami - The City Nowadays

This feels a little bit like one of those 'promising new artists' the industry promotes heavily with only a couple of songs, gets to play Jools Holland, and rotates on BBC6 for a couple of months and then fades from view. However, I'm enjoying it before the novelty wears off, and my essay was called 'Post-Urban Space', so....

Arcade Fire - Suburban War

This one has not faded away. Revisited the album the other day and was once again awed by how solid it is from beginning to end. So many great songs about post-urban space. Plus a great Dark City-reference:

This town’s so strange, they built it to change
And while we sleep we know the streets get rearranged

PJ Harvey - Reeling

This is what happens when you're cooped up in a room with 15 books for 10 days straight.

I can't sleep for thinking
Set my head a-reeling

Iggy & The Stooges - Gimme Danger

A great song for escaping that room and going out running in the early morning hours. This album is definitely a case of getting what it says on the tin.

Refused - Rather Be Dead

Rather be alive 

Rather be alive 

Rather be alive 

Rather be alive 

Rather be alive

19/16 - Dirt of Seven Continents Going Round and Round

Five classic tunes with super-solid rhythm tracks.

Björk - Army of Me (live)

Having a Björk Live Box revival to make up for her sold out London gig. The drums!! And that voice...

Grizzly Bear - Cheerleader

Still an absolutely magic album. Details that bloom with every listen. Cryptic lines that somehow seem to mean everything in the moment you hear them. Every song on it makes my heart swell.

Jefferson Airplane - She Has Funny Cars

What a way to open a record! The sheer sonic space of this track is astounding. And then the second track is Somebody To Love and Grace Slick & Co have pretty much won on knock-out.

R.E.M. - Can't Get There From Here

Was listening to this while on a bus in Edinburgh. Should always be listened to in transport, while dreaming about other places, other cities where one has left a piece or two of oneself. And in addition to the sweet sweet interplay between the guitar riff and the straight-played drums, I really, really love Stipe's voice in this one.

Led Zeppelin - Misty Mountain Hop

Bonzo and John Paul Jones relentlessly driving home their excellence. 

...and baby, baby, baby, do you like it?

18/16 - We'll Run Along The Empty Highways

OK, here some frantic rhythms to represent the last couple of weeks of madness. Degree show,  degree show party, degree show deinstall, and then straight up to Edinburgh for another install. Now, perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm ill in bed and recuperating.

Matmos - Steam and Sequins for Larry Levan

Amazing album I hadn't listened to in a long while.

Marc Moulin - Balek

A hypnotic track from Caribou's 1000 Song Mixtape. Full disclosure: all songs on this list except that one above ^ are discoveries from his excellent playlist. The meeting of those waveform synthesizers and those live brass stabs is right deadly.

Silver Apples - Seagreen Serenades

Sooo good. I don't know why I haven't properly explored Silver Apples earlier. I've just known and loved Oscillations as a groundbreaking track, but didn't even consider there was a whole album to go with it...

Thomas Mapfumo - Gwindingew Rine Shumba

Let me call your attention to the bass. It sounds... otherworldly. Quite simple in a way, but if you focus on it... it's like something piped in from deep beneath the earth, or from outer space.

Aphrodite's Child - Loud, Loud, Loud

And this is me, now. Slowly resurfacing in a post-feverish world.

17/16 - And Time Can Do So Much

Degree show install DONE!

Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong (live)

First a song that captures the frenzy and the onslaught of doubt that has characterised the last two weeks at the top of the Ben Pimlott building. Also, one of the best live songs in the world.

The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody

Then a keening song for those exhausted but hopeful evenings in front of the London skyline in sunset. Also, one of the best songs ever, period.

Frank Sinatra - My Way

Then the obvious choice for just after the deadline.

Beck - Wow

Now, giddy-up! On Thursday, 6-9pm, the degree show opens, and you are welcome to be wowed.

José Gonzalez - Open Book

And after that... Well...

A drifting vessel in the storm 

Pushed around from shore to shore 

I know there's so much left to see 

I know I have so much left to give

16/16 - Late Last Night I Heard The Screen Door Slam

After two years in the basement of the Laurie Grove Baths I moved out of my studio last week. Can't help but feel a bit melancholic. And then UK went and screwed up royally just a few days later. So here I am, with an amazing view of London during an intense install week and feeling pangs of sadness and desperation as soon as my energy drains...

Alexis Taylor - In the Light of the Room

To my classmates from the top of the Ben Pimlott building.

In the light of the room
Through a window dappled
I was dreaming of you
and of all that's happened

Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone?

Britain on the morning after Brexit...

Natalie Prass - My Baby Don't Understand Me

Our love is a long goodbye...

Erykah Badu - ...& On

Anyway. Gotta keep on. And on. And on. Water in your cereal, Badu in your stereo, degree show coming up!

Papa Lightfoot - When the Saints Go Marchin' In

15/16 - Let Me Sleep Til Great Dawn Is Breaking

The timeless ones.

Count Basie ft. Jimmy Rushing - Evenin'

I'd almost forgotten about Jimmy Rushing. He was one of the house saints of my first flat after moving out of my parents' flat. We used to listen to his amazing recordings with Duke Ellington at least once every party. One of the most likeably voices ever. He was the man, and I'm glad he's come back to visit me again.

Louis Armstrong - A Monday Date

Yeeas.... that sounds pretty goood...

I wish I lived among people who could use the phrase 'C'mon Pops' in a non-corny way. But maybe Louis was the only one.

Miles Davis - Freddie Freeloader

Kind of Blue in the speakers in the metal workshop, and suddenly all your messing around seems kind of noble, and you're proud to be a creative.

Duke Ellington - A Little Max (Parfait)

One of those tunes that remain hidden in between other tracks until suddenly random iTunes throws it at you in lone majesty and you're awestruck by all its little details.

Freddie Wadling - Ensam På Havet

So, last week Freddie died. Major profile in my hometown and a timeless, unique voice. Often when you were at some other band's gig or just a clandestine party somewhere, he would sit there on a chair in a corner, leaning on his cane, and you would gaze with veneration, knowing what power his body contained.  It feels like Gothenburg won't be the same town next time I go home. Here he is, on his last record, singing one of my favourite Swedish tunes, by another of my favourite Swedish oddballs; Stina Nordenstam. 2016 is a sad year for music. One by one the lights go out...

Inatt går vi utan lanternor

14/16 - My Thoughts Are Misguided And A Little Naïve

Time for some fuzz on top 5. Not been enough distortion lately.

Radiohead - Myxomatosis

First off, I went to see Radiohead live for the 11th time last week. As so often before, this rant about rabbit-plague was an absolute highlight. Not made worse by being followed by a top notch rendition of Idioteque of course. If you've never seen Radiohead live, well... there's no way to describe it. And there's nothing to top it.

Kyuss - Gardenia

This is the kind of guitar sound that propels me forward in the workshops, among PVA, flexiply and vermiculite.

The Smashing Pumpkins - Silverfuck

Remembering a time when one used to be able to respect Billy Corgan. When that vicious guitar tone was a mainstay of our teenage house parties.

Rage Against the Machine - Revolver

Once on a teenage revival kick, why not go all the way and revisit one of the bestest of all guitar riff albums? And it's aged well. 4:52 never ceases to slay.

Rage Against the Machine - Microphone Fiend

I kinda got stuck on RATM this week. Their covers are pretty ace too.

13/16 - Slip Like Freudian; Your First And Last Step To Playing Yourself Like An Accordion

Taking advantage of the Goldsmiths Staff Strike to stay home and put together another top 5.

DJ Shadow ft. Run The Jewels - Nobody Speak

It'll come to no surprise to anyone who's checked in with this blog or my general music taste that I adore anything Run The Jewels touch, and this is one of their best collaborations yet. Infectious one-liners abound.

I don't work for free, I am barely giving a fuck away

Aesop Rock - Rings

The most dexterous rhymer in the game remembering his art school days just as I soon will, mine.

I used to draw. Hard to admit, but I used to draw...

Madvillain - Accordion

One of the best rap albums ever I'd say. This blog will not be complete until I've had every track from it on a list. Doom is running rings around everyone in under two minutes of dazzling, dense, droll rhymes and a timely reference to Joe Tex.

Royce Da 5'9" - Startercoat

Had Layers from this new discovery on a list a few weeks ago, but the more I listen, the more this stands out as my favourite track on the album...

James Blake - Love Me In Whatever Way

The new James Blake album is a vast treasure trove, that will take its time to truly get to know, but suffice to say it's full of shamelessly gorgeous melodies.

12/16 - The Voice Of Youth, The Hour Of Dread

It's been a while. Just too stressed out to write. But this list has been ready to post for a couple of weeks already. Mostly classic tunes

The Smiths - How Soon Is Now?

I am human and I need to be loved

Yep. Yep I do. Lovely guitar tone underlines it all.

Led Zeppelin - How Many More Times

Cause I've got you in the sights of my... guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!

The Beatles - Not Guilty

Yes, let that guitar weeeep George!

David Bowie - Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy)

Another contender for the best remix ever. The drop at 5:27 is pure magic.

Hot Chip - Easy To Get

Back to degree show stress...

Fear doesn't live here anymore

11/16 - Freedom Cut Me Loose

This week I'm only listening to Prince and Beyoncé's Lemonade, neither of which are on Spotify, so...

10/16 - Dandelions Lying Listlessly Listening to Echoes of Falling Palindromes

When essay-writing, it's good to listen to wordsmiths as a reminder of how fun it can be to construct sentences.

Antipop Consortium + Matthew Shipp - Coda

Let's start with an end.

Suddenly: death

Big Grams ft. Run The Jewels - Born To Shine

Three of my favourite rappers in the game (there's something absolutely amazing about Killer Mike's entrance here: "I walk in..." and you can almost feel the room shaking from his determination), and one of the most magical rap videos of the year:

Royce Da 5'9" ft Pusha T + Rick Ross - Layers

The sheer joy of constructing complex rhyme-suites is on full display here.

Kanye West - Fade

I think I've listened to it enough now to give my verdict: if the whole of The Life of Pablo was as good as its second half, it would deserve half the praise that Kanye himself heaps on it. Or in other words: Everything from Real Friends on, is pretty sweet. When the bass line drops in the closing track, you're ready to put up with almost any embarrassing Kanye-rhymes, and quite astonishingly, there aren't any.

Open Mike Eagle - Dark Comedy Late Show

I saw Jesus taking a selfie, and I photobombed

And dude better tag me 

Oh yeah, and this, of course:

09/16 - Yellow Diamonds In the Light

What a brilliant week in Glasgow. Much arty. Much party. These are my GI tunes.

Hot Chip - Dancing In the Dark

As untouchable as the original may be, this becomes more than the sum of its parts when they start weaving in those lines from All My Friends too. Two anthems in one!

Rihanna - We Found Love

Yes, obviously Work has been ubiquitous here too – what with all the work being shown everywhere, there really is no other other song that gets hummed as much. But the best Rihanna moment was at the Saturday afterparty, in a prom-like atmosphere in St. Luke's church, with balloons and bunting above our heads, the DJ played this and it felt like everyone was there and I loved them all.

Caribou - Our Love

That bass gives me the shivers! The tune almost doesn't need the beat drop. I just want it to keep shimmering around the bass forever.

Erykah Badu - Cel U Lar Device

Another top choice from the Saturday DJ. Why would you ever play the Drake version, when this exists? The 2:35 transition is ace. Erykah's phrasing is titillatingly precise. And the flowery soloing in the end adds some kind of weird nostalgia to the mix. The perfect workover.

William Onyeabor - Atomic Bomb

When in Glasgow, listen to William Onyeabor. That should be an adage.

I'm gonna explode

08/16 - Blood On Your Saddle

A bit of a strange mix, indicative of a scattered and slightly anxious mindset.

Bob Dylan - Idiot Wind

Love this sadder version of the ultimate resentment song.

We are idiots babe, it's a wonder we can even feed ourselves

Einstürzende Neubauten - The Garden

Over easter, I tried to discipline myself with essay-work, but ended up going on very frequent pottering strolls in the backyard. That's where you'll find me, unless it's pouring down with rain.

Portishead - Nylon Smile

Still an awe-inspiring album. Fractured and violent, but full of vulnerable beauty.

Wolf Parade - Modern World

Reading urban theorists and travelling between cities.

Modern world build things high
Now they house canyons filled with life

Marvin Gaye - Sexual Healing (live)

I wish there was a better sound quality version of this. The groove towards the end is just so tight and hypnotic. Like an unkillable beast it kicks back in, more fervent than ever, after Marvin hits his final note.

07/16 - No Batteries Included and No Strings Attached

Savages and savants. I'll have that knowledge and wit with a pinch of love and anger.

A Tribe Called Quest - Scenario

For Phife Dawg of course:

All that and then some; short dark and handsome

Bun B + Killer Mike + Cuz Lightyear - Savage Habits

Anything with Killer Mike on receives a lent ear from me these days. "Me, I'm a warrior and boy, that should worry you" is such a brilliantly simple line. Also really loving the dynamics of this chorus. Let it percolate for a while and you'll find yourself shouting along to whatever it is they actually chant.

Chester Watson - Pharaoh

Someone's been listening to a lot of Doom and Earl Sweatshirt. But no matter if you can keep level with them! This whole album is quite astounding when it comes to both beats and rhymes

Dumb it down so I don't come off a verbal grenadier

Bo Ningen - Nichijyou

Went to the gig of the year. How could it be otherwise when these Japanese madmen are the opening act? A mezmerising show, that still got even better when...

Savages - Adore

...one of the best live bands I've ever seen came on. I bounced around like a pinball in the moshpit, and then Jehnny Beth climbed out into the audience, and stopped with one foot on my left shoulder while singing a verse of Hit Me. By the time they played Adore I was drenched with sweat and swaying on my legs, and then everyone clenched their fists at the crescendo and never mind pretensions... I adored life.

06/16 - The Things That You've Got Coming Will Consume You

An exotic blend of delicious sound mastery.

George Martin - Pepperland

Thanks for picking up the Beatles and helping to open the world of music for me, George. I remember once in my teens, me and my mate were trying to write lyrics to Pepperland and make it into a song of our own. I mean, it's only like an instrumental on one of the most famous records in the world, so noone would call us up on it, right? What a stupid idea. Anyway, RIP, you gentle genious.

Cornelius - Fly

Long time favourite album by Japan's finest.

Anna Meredith - The Vapours

Few things on this album can compare to her masterpiece; Nautilus, but when the orchestral brass starts stabbing a steep ascent at 3:25, this is close to as epic. And every time I listen I find more amazing bits like that (like the subtle drop of the 'untz untz' cymbals at 3:06 for example)

Shye Ben Tzur + Jonny Greenwood + The Rajasthan Express - Roked

Went to the Barbican to see these guys. Musicianship on a whole other level. Singing and drumming that make your jaw drop. This being their headbanging seatclimbing set closer. Also, now I've seen Radiohead 10,2 times. ;)

The Mountain Goats - The Young Thousands

A slightly too triumphant-sounding song about heroin-addicts.

05/16 - You Smell Like Light, Gas, Water, Electricity, Rent

A seductive and happy list.

Camille Yarbrough - Take Yo' Praise

That slinky bassline. That hazed voice. Those devotional lyrics.

Goldfrapp - Pilots

Ice and clouds, shimmer outside
Rain just falls, at magic hour
It's just the sound of you and me
Time twitching
Murmurs of our friendly machine

Animal Collective - We Tigers

Music that sounds like a sugar rush.

Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment - Sunday Candy

Super happy music. The giddiness of childhood. Chance the Rapper seems to have one hell of a grandma.

Kendrick Lamar - 06.23.2014

Kendrick trying out yet another few voices, with an almost unnatural rate of success. The "Cornrow Kennie, he was born with a vision" line was where untitled unmastered. gave me my first chills of pleasure.

04/16 - Forgive The Kids For They Don't Know How To Live

Went home to Sweden for a family-swaddle, away from politics and art. But these songs I've had saved for this list for a while. So there's politics and art.

Arca - En

Enveloped in human and machine breath. Not able to tell the difference. But feeling the warmth from within.

Holly Herndon - Morning Sun

This album grows with every listen. Best voice-obsessed album since Medúlla, and this is one of its most unashamedly gorgeous tracks.

Jenny Hval - Heaven

Another album from last year I'm discovering now. It's fantastic. Razor sharp ruminations on all aspects of contemporary life. I'm definitely not embarrassed to say that I love intellectual, feminist avant garde music.

St. Vincent - Cruel

Realised I hadn't had maybe my favourite St Vincent song on a list yet. The unstoppable, propelling drive of this is incredible. And the icing on the cake is that little xylophone-like riff around the 3 minute mark. Absolute killer.

Sleater-Kinney - No Anthems

Never really listened to Sleater-Kinney back in the heyday, but gave their new album a whirl and got totally stuck on this. Great guitar sound. Great drumming. Hard-hitting chorus.

03/16 - Where Trouble Melts Like Lemon Drops

A week of dislocated shoulder, morphine, a cold and a lot of books. Let's space out.

Aphex Twin - Logan Rock Witch

It's an unenviable position to follow on the heels of Girl/Boy Song, the crown jewel of the Richard D. James Album. But even in that shadow, this perfectly calibrated cacophony of odd sounds shines and sparkles in the sun. The little knocks. The toy flute. The beat drop at 3:03.

Axel Boman - Fantastic Piano

Swedish. Liquid. Fantastic. Crackling. Makes me long for summer.

Slow Magic - Feel Flows

I know nothing about this tune, except that it surges like the sea.

Dmitri Shostakovich - Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major, Op. 102: II. Andante

Next to Beethoven's Emperor Concerto the most unapologetically beautiful piece of music I know. Romanticism, sentimentality, nostalgia, melancholy; I'll have it all, thank you! Once that piano starts tinkling my defences are worn down.

Bill Frisell - Somewhere Over the Rainbow

There's something breathtaking going on here. This is the music equivalent of what I look for in good drawing; a bunch of high tension lines, tentatively seeking out the contours of a greater whole; carving away at its essence, and then stopping just before completion, leaving every trace of the search alive to the eye.

02/16 - Whispering As We Tumbled

Aaah! No discipline! Top 5 is slipping through my fingers! Yet; I've got music! Enough candidates for three lists. So here goes the first:

Cali Swag District - Teach Me How To Dougie

What can one add, except; can someone teach me how to dougie?

Fat Tony ft. Kool A.D. & Despot - Hood Party

Funniest rap about gentrification you'll ever hear. Can't wait for a full length from Despot, he's my fav underground rapper.

Stop asking where Brooklyn at coulda just looked on a map
Half the cats yelling back ain't where they're from just where they're at
Running from their stubborn dads, lunches that their mothers bagged
Hunches that they gon' be something good for nothing college grads

Pusha T ft. Ab Liva - Got Em Covered

If I would've ended up doing a best of 2016 like I should have, King Push would have been a contender. The beats on this album are something else. They get under my skin, they clatter and clank along beside me on the street.

Velvet Underground - I Heard Her Call My Name

Has a guitar ever sounded this violent? Only VU would think to juxtapose that with what is essentially a pop song....

...and then my mind split open!

Robin Trower - Daydream

It's guitar revival day it seems. Sometimes you just gotta lay it on. The timing here is everything. It's like every beat hangs lazily in the air, before settling in with a rumble. Meanwhile the guitar holds back, and holds back, ...and then spurts like an adrenaline rush!

01/16 - To Paint That Love Upon A White Balloon

So, the idea was that my first list of 2016 would be a belated round up of the best of 2015. But then, we all know what happened. I don't think I've ever felt this affected by a celebrity's death. I'm not sure why, to be honest. Maybe it was because of the eagerly awaited new album; it made it feel so very unreal. Or just the way I suddenly realised how absolutely omnipresent he's been. So... this is not 'the best' five Bowie songs. Just 5 of amongst 10, 20, 50? of the songs that could have ended up on such a list at any point since my teens. ...and that aren't already in my top 5 archive.

David Bowie - Memory of a Free Festival

I remember having this as the ending of a mix cassette tape for my first festival visits. And as much as the entire Space Oddity is in one way poking fun at and dissecting the hippie-culture, there's also something truly genuine and nostalgic going on here. Who doesn't feel like "the very source of joy" runs through that outro?

David Bowie - Velvet Goldmine

One of the very best songs of the Ziggy-era, and it didn't even make the album. But my local library had some kind of box set or special edition of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust... so this was there from the beginning for me, and next to Moonage Daydream, it was always the favourite. Those backing vocals!

David Bowie - Be My Wife

As much as Eight Line Poem lives up to its name, the eight bare bones lines that make up the lyrics for one of Low's 11 best songs (yes, that's all of them) are sometimes just the simplicity you need:

Sometimes you get so lonely
Sometimes you get nowhere
I've lived all over the world
I've left every place
Please be mine
Share my life
Stay with me
Be my wife

David Bowie - Golden Years

We were singing along to this in the car up to our New Years getaway in Aberdeenshire.

Nothing's gonna touch you in these golden years

David Bowie - Blackstar

Talk about going out on top. It's got everything I wanted David Bowie to be in 2016. Tinges of jazz. Swathes of electronica. New nods to Scott Walker. Sudden flashes of classic Bowie-melodies. A fair helping of darkness and foreboding. A LOT of magic.


Also a good time to revisit this amazing tribute:

How is this an image of a dying man?!