15/22 - I Swept The Marble Chambers

As promised, here's the second part of Petter's holiday Top 5(/10)! Christmassy non-Christmas songs, this time with a secular hymnal quality, as it's Christmas eve here.

 

 

Koreless - Strangers

Starting withh a wordless overture, setting a sparkly, crispy cold atmosphere. But turn up the volume and allow yourself to be enfolded, and you'll notice that here hides a whole carefully orchestrated symphony of glitchy chimes and vocal fragments.

 

 

Leonard Cohen - You Have Loved Enough

Christmas music has a tendency to descend into schmaltzy sentimentality, so why not take the opportunity to instead listen to Leonard, who in his early 00s output dug down into that schmaltz to again raise it up to the finest art. Great songwriting can remedy and purify the most overladen production...

 

 

Tarta Relena - Figues

Harking back to one of the best gigs of 2022: the moment these two women suddenly sung the first few lines of Björk's Lionsong I had goosebumps all over and tears in my eyes. And now, this track still works its magic, like pure winter light on my face.

Anouar Brahem - C'est Ailleurs

Been listening to this album on the early morning bus to work quite a few times and this searching, twinkling melody always gets me. "It is elsewhere", indeed!

 

Sigur Rós - Dauðalogn

Feeling sacred yet?

Inside I think
Forest lights reveal a fire
One with myself
Now I sit with steady land underfoot
The morning appears
With its calm against the storm
And now the surface ripples
And now we break the dead calm

 

Peace on earth and holiday presents to all, except the rightwingers!

14/22 - Harbor Myself Away From Everyone Else

Slowing down with everything, but speeding up with playlisting, here I provide thee with the first of a two-parter holiday collection! All in all ten christmassy non-christmas songs. The first five represent that very slowing down; cozying up; pottering about in preparation... The next five will be presented on Christmas eve!

 

 

Duke Ellington Orchestra ft. Ivie Anderson - There's a Lull in My Life

This song is on my morning playlist, so I actually listen to it all-year-round, quite often. But every christmas season shuld have a bit of old crackling jazz, and Ivie's voice has just the right timbre for this season. Even though it's really a sad, unrequited love, kind of song, it does make me feel somehow reassured about lulling: nothing much is happening, and that can be really enjoyable at times.

 

 

Damien Jurado - Over Rainbows and Rainier

No, this has nothing to do with rain; Mt. Rainier is a snow- and glacier-tipped mountain in the state of Washington, so perfectly suitable for a winter playlist. And with the achingly beautiful last two verses I think of this as the 'travelling home for christmas' candidate of this bunch:

Let your cries be of joy
May it always and forever fill the void
And allow my heart some room
May it be so that you'll one day need me soon

With my wheels in a turning and my back to the window
I collected every wave from the shore
I forgot I was human as I laid up my emotions
And I knocked them like dishes to the floor

 

 

Clairo - Harbor

I am home by myself on the island for the third day in a row, with a sore throat and a cough as my excuse to not make any errands into town. Through my window I am watching the birds at my feeding station, ice flakes and eiders floating in the sea, and the lights-garlanded ferries come and go in the strait. Coffee, home baked saffron buns, and Clairo's voice makes me feel perfectly harbored here on my lonesome.

Andrew Bird - Carrion Suite

I've been intending to put this piece on a Top 5 for a long time, and now I finally found the spot for it, in all its 10-minute glory. Of course, Andrew does actual Christmas tunes too, but his instrumental companion release to 2009s Noble Beast has been with me since then and brings a warm calming atmosphere like few other records. 

 

Shirley Collins - The Rose and the Briar

I am never not in the mood for another version of Barbara Allen – probably my favourite traditional tale of love and death – and when it's 86-year-old folk hero Shirley Collins singing it, complete with bird calls and what sounds like a foghorn in the background, I am transported beyond time and place. Which is a good place for the second part of Petter's season-playlist to pick it up in a week's time....

13/22 - Consciousness Is Synchronized And Crystal-clear

Another list, yeah? I'm trying to cram in a bunch of tunes before the year is over and I'm gonna start listening to this year's best-of-lists. So here are five tunes, drawn together by tone of voice and timbre of soundscape. It's winter and everything is crisp, dark, blistering, like so:

 

Tirzah - Tectonics

Tirzah keeps doing great things in the shadows, going from strength to strength since I first came across her at LGW a few years back. Last year's album is ominous, subtle, almost evasive... but also *chef's kiss* perfectly calibrated and sensuous.

 

 

Danger Mouse & Black Thought ft. MF DOOM - Belize

A posthumous DOOM verse is a pretty sure way to end up on Top 5 (hope there are many more in the vaults) and his cadence and way with words thrills as always (Freeze! He came to seize the free cheese before he flees to Belize). But Black Thought manages to get the best line in:

Fuck a thick skin, I got me a exoskeleton

 

 

Ka - Sad To Say

Some beautifully moody, confessional rap set to another really delicate production, that I discovered through last year's best-of-lists.

 

 

The Bug ft. Nazamba - War

The Bug is another artist I discovered through a brilliant gig at LGW, and who, from what I heard, played another fantastic concert at this year's festival (big regrets for not getting a ticket to that in time). Would have loved to hear this nightmarish thrill in its full bass glory on a live sound system.

 

Kendrick Lamar - The Heart Part 5

I've listened to Kendrick's latest album a fair few times since its release now, and it's a staggering work. But even as it keeps growing and growing, by the end of every listen I arrive at the final track – the pre-album single – and it still undeniably overshadows and encapsulates all that came before it. What a goosebump-worthy track! A modern master at his very, very finest.

12/22 - Like The River Styx, I Flow

Since I last posted a list, I have: worked an intense couple of months installing a major exhibition at Borås Art Museum; finally taken a new studio of my own; turned 40 years old; and gathered a great backlog of fantastic tunes. So to get stuck in again, a bunch of long time companions that never miss:

 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Burning

In the midst of the most stressful work week at the museum I had a moment when this song came on BBC6 in my earphones and suddenly I was bouncing around in the workshop by myself, feeling all my tiredness evaporate. To think it's over twenty years since these guys burst onto the scene with that flawless eponymous EP, and they're sstill making songs as fierce as this. And Karen O's voice is still one of the most exhilerating around - the way she just snarls out that chorus. Art Stars indeed.

 

 

Pulp - A Little Soul

A record that's also been around for over twenty years, and which I've loved through most of those years. This song might not be one of the most obvious hits from the album, but lately I've been struck by what an absolutely gorgeous, heartwrenching character study it is. The song version of being dropped into the middle of a Shane Meadows movie...

 

 

Liars - Houseclouds

I think I first heard Liars on a mixtape in 2001/2002 sent to me by an internet friend on the message board I frequented. It was Mr, Your On Fire Mr and it stuck with me. Last year they released yet another in a long line of ever-brilliant albums. I'll come back to that on a playlist soon, but last week I listened to their 2007 eponymous album and so I have to include this – one of my top 5 ever Liars songs.

 

 

Tehran Vocal Ensemble - Ey Irân

I went to a demonstration in support of the Iranian uprising, and at one point the crowd sang along to this, the alternative national anthem of Iran, and it was very powerful. Solidarity to everyone protesting in the country, and everyone helping to keep the people's plight in the headlines abroad! I dream of one day visiting a free Iran. 

Zan. Zedegi. Azadi.

 

Low - Don't Walk Away

And then Mimi Parker tragically passed away. What a treasure she left behind. A voice tailormade to bring comfort to millions. And like several of the great ones that have gone in recent years, she went out on top. I would go as far as to say that the last Low album is the best one of their long career. I'm positively obsessed with its stunning fractures and distortions.

11/22 - Too Much In My System

Some offcuts from the last couple of months, cobbled together into a rickety monument over the summer of 2022.

 

 

Labrinth ft. Zendaya - All For Us

I've been crying some in front of the TV lately. Reason being that I've watched both seasons of Euphoria over summer, one of the most beautiful TV dramas I've seen.  Starting out I was kind of hesitant, thinking it seemed both too bleak and too sensationalist, but by the second episode already, there was so much warmth and character development I just had to stick with it, and boy am I glad I did. Through experimental storytelling devices, musical numbers and visual approaches that teeter on being too much it always managed to feel so real, and so empathic. Also I never understood the hype around Zendaya before, but after these couple of months I am in awe. Stupendous acting. This collab music number is from the finale of the first season, and although the finale of the second season was even more perfect, this still gives me the feels thinking back on it.

 

 

DVBBS & Borgeous - Tsunami

One of the bands that didn't make it onto my last Top 5, celebrating the Clandestino Botnik Festival, was young South African trio Phelimuncasi. They played after the tremendous BCUC, which could have been a thankless job, but they certainly managed to keep the dance frenzy going with some of the oddest beats I've heard, giving us all a sense of what a hip Durban night club might sound like. But on record their music doesn't really appeal to me as much. However, after the gig was over, one of the guys didn't want to leave so he stayed behind and did a bit of regular DJ:ing and in the early morning hours, this was the last tune he played. By that time those magnificent beat drops basically set off mass hysteria, and they're still mighty powerful in my home speakers too.

 

 

Friends - I'm His Girl

Just a great song I heard on the radio a couple of weeks back. Like a Shangri-Las, updated for 21st century sensibilities.

 

Lakou Mizik ft. Joseph Ray - Ogou (Pran Ka Mwen)

Another of the greatest weekends of the summer was had in Emma's house up in the hills of Aberdeenshire. In between excursions to the different Scottish biotopes – loch, river, hill and coast – we lazed around the big wildgrown garden, talked, watched owls, and cooked. When it was Alex turn at dinner, he played this, and my ears perked up. An all around gorgeous track.

 

Beyoncé - Summer Renaissance

It's been such a busy season that I didn't even have time to listen to the new Beyoncé album when it came out. Now I have, and while it's not my favourite of hers, it feels like a grower. And ending with an explicit Donna Summer tribute was a good move. It's been. a good. Summer.

Applause, 

a round of applause

10/22 - Nós Somos Muitas

Clandestino Botnik. The bestest festival in the world. Summed up thusly for your aural pleasure:

BCUC - Sikhulekile

Let's begin with the unrivalled kings and queens of the festival. Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness. Quite possibly the best live band in the world. Everyone says so. If you don't, you're probably just a little behind.

 

 

HAEPAARY - Born by Irreproachable Gorgeousness

While BCUC was a dear reunion, HAEPAARY was the great new discovery. At a festival priding itself of its leftfield, experimental, global bookings, this Korean duo took the strangeness prize. Combining ancient court music from centuries-old dynasties with electronics, crashing cymbals and klackety woodblocks, they sounded like nothing I've heard before, and if there's one thing I want from music these days, it's to hear something new. I will be listening more to this, I know.

 

 

Ayom - Ayom Manifesto

What started out as perhaps a slightly underwhelming evening gig with slightly too nice and tasteful bossa, gathered significant speed as darkness kept falling, one of the band members started tap dancing, the singer just got hotter and hotter, and ever since the festival I've not been able to get this song out of my head.

 

Lorena Álvarez y los Rondadores de la Val d'Echo - Manolo

The last gig of the festival was a veritable love fest. Remaining bands and audiences alike crowded into an old community hall where three of the most charming spaniards alive drank wine, read lyrics and sang partly whimsical, partly stunning acoustic songs from the stage, framed by a 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' banner.

 

Selda Bağcan - Yaz Gazeteci Yaz

Ending with the beginning. I knew what a fantastic festival it would be when already halfway through the first concert I had tears in my eyes. 73-year-old protest singer Selda, who's done more than one prison term for her activisim, limped out slowly onto stage, and during the concert had to take several rests on a chair while her band entertained the audience with sing-along to Bella Ciao. But when she sang – oh my, how she sang. A septuagenarian really shouldn't be able to have a voice like that. Shivers.

Don't write in the suffocating language of fame

Don't write about the roses in your garden

Don't write about the the young unjust hands of murders

Write about those dying in the east without doctors

Write write journalist write

Write write sir write

09/22 - Please Don't Confront Me With My Failures

This is the calm between the storm. Got back from my UK holiday on Monday, heading to Clandestino Festival tomorrow. But these five exquisitely sequenced tracks have been waiting on their turn for a while, so here's for a little breathing hole:

Donovan - The Lullaby of Spring

As I said, this has been in the works for a while. Even since spring, when chiff-chaff eggs were indeed painted by motherbird eating cherries. And Donovan is one of the foremost poets of the kind of child-of-nature bliss I feel when I get to spend some days just romaing about the island.

 

 

Lambchop - Smuckers

Speaking of poets of the everyday, few can turn mundane details into beautiful couplets quite like Kurt Wagner. This little melody is so unassuming, so subtle, that you might not notice how absolutely gorgeous it is until you've listened to it as many times as I have. Just stick with it.

 

 

Kathryn Williams - These Days

Yes I know, Nico's version is the definite. And Jackson Browne's is the ingenious original. But sometimes you just want the sugary warmth of Kathryn Williams' voice to lull you into an afternoon nap, and I have quite the soft spot for this entire album of covers, even though it is predominantly taken up of songs that really shouldn't be covered again.

 

Kings of Convenience - Winning A Battle, Losing The War

Another long time companion, this album, and its gorgeous harmonies.

The sun sets on the war
The day breaks and everything is new

 

Arooj Aftab - Mohabbat

I, and everyone else, have already raved about this fantastic record, but one of the lasting rules of this Top 5-project is that if a song has made me cry recently, it goes on the list. And listening to Arooj speak about this song on the Song Exploder episode for the track, I did indeed start to well up. Not because of any particular personal connection I found with it, but because of the pure beauty of the music, and her reverent treatment of this traditional tune. Learning to listen for the details of the arrangement just makes it all the more stunning.

08/22 - El Mundo De Los Luciérnagas

Here's the list that never was. I put this together right after an outstanding, fantastic weekend of Clandestino Festival back in June, but I feel like I haven't caught up with myself for a couple of months now, so never got around to post it. And now I'm off on vacation, so better get this out the way, because when I come back it's already time for the second Clandestino weekend. Can. Not. Wait.
Don't have time to write much on these tracks, suffice it to say that all these acts were jawdroppingly good live. Some live up to that standard on record, some pale in comparison, but still bring back great memories.

Marina Herlop - miu

So complex and quiry it's teetering on the edge of too pretentious. But seeing her, backed by the girls from Tartat Relena, pull all the harmonies and shapeshifting off live was utterly mesmerising!

 

 

Lova Lova - Libundu Mbisi Ya Mai

The sweatiest, most unrelenting dance gig I've been to in years and years. Why stick with one bass player when you can have two? And why add anything more than drums to that, when you've got the voice and charisma of Lova Lova? Congolese hardcore... something, of the highest caliber!

 

 

Los Pirañas - Todos tenemos hogar

Endlessly inventive, endlessly engaging colombian bouncy bouncy.

 

KOKOKO! - Buka Dansa

Congo x2! The clubs of Kinshasa must be the most exciting in the world! Plastic bottle drumset on stage makes the audience go wild.

 

Tarta Relena - Las Alamedas

A close to perfect concert on the last day made me absolutely well up with tears, purely because of the beauty of the music. I love this Catalan progressive acapella group now. LOVE.

07/22 - I'm Fine Forever

Woah, that was a great April. Lots of work, but also a fantastic easter and lots of sunny days. I've had this list ready for some time, but been too busy with all the goodness to post it. Which is ironic, because it's all about chill vibes this time. So perhaps perfect for a much less busy May?

Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes - Expansions

Think I heard this on BBC6 one morning and I was in love from the second the bass riff joined that little bell cymbal.

 

 

Khruangbin - Evan Finds the Third Room

Watched this live set and understood Khruangbin's greatness. Just the tightest, coolest, smoothest band imaginable. "Yes."

 

 

Helado Negro - Thank You For Ever

Blissing out in the sun, having the year's first dip in the sea. How am I feeling so good all of a sudden? Thank you to the birds and butterflies, the artists and the friends, thank you forever. This song is just about pure happiness, which is a darned hard subject to pull off without sounding silly.

 

Cassandra Jenkins - Hailey

Gotta fit in at least a smudging of melancholy in the list, to make it sweet but not saccharine. Adn what a gorgeous, gorgeous piece of melancholy it is...

New you

Same me

 

The Fleetwoods - Unchained Melody

Discovered another version of one of the best songs ever. Lightyears from the bombast of sweaty Elvis'  live version, or the perfect crescendo of the Righteous Brothers' breakthrough version, but pretty much as good, in a completely different, hypnotic way. Never has "godspeed your love to me" sounded more hazily content and sure of love's eventual arrival.

06/22 - I Had It Bad But Now I'm Back In The Saddle

Spending sunny early spring days on the island, working on translations out on the cliffs and listening to non-Western-centric reinterpretations of "rock" on high volume with the windows open:

 

Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime

What a fucking rush! This might be the single best track released in 2021. I've listened to it so many times, that everything – from the introductory wail, to the galloping drums, to the mighty guitar freak out at the end – feels like it pulses through my blood immediately after hearing the first few seconds. Like a benevolent dose of heroine. Or something similar; I don't know.

 

 

Illuminati Hotties - MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA

If any song from 2021 was to give Afrique Victime a run for the money, it would be this earworm to gobble up all other earworms. Pure unadulterated, hellraising fun.

If you're not laughing, baby, then you're not making money!

 

 

John Fahey - In A Persian Market

Breaking away from the contemporary for a bit, with an equally infectious melody. For a bit it is an almost abrasively jaunty ditty, but then comes that twice-repeated gorgeous breakdown and evens things out. The fact that it is such an utterly unadorned recording just puts the tune centerstage and makes it even more impossible to get out of one's head once it has gotten a grip there.

 

Yasmin Williams ft. Amadou Kouyate - Urban Driftwood

Another lesson in the strength of purified melody lines. Treating a tune this economically allows for a simple smattering of tablas, like the one at 2:46, to raise the intensity several levels and thrill me to no end. Gorgeous kora lines too (can anything be less than gorgeous when played on the kora?).

 

 

Aragehonzi - Detarame Kagura

How to end such a joyous romp of a playlist? Why, with crazy Japanese fusion of course! And with the most exciting vocal glissando put to record in recent years! Discovered thanks to the excellent podcast James Acaster's Perfect Sounds, endlessly mining the odds and ends of the musical output of 2016, with one of the most brilliant comedians of our times.

yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOH!

05/22 - Either Side You're On, It's Not What You Deserve

You can't argue with this music. Stop arguing.

 

Najwa - Bella Ciao

So, the other day I couldn't make it last any longer, and finished the final episode of La Casa de Papel – one of the most thrilling TV shows I've seen. So here's to El Profesor, to Nairobi, to Murillo, to Helsinki, to Palermo, to Estocolmo... and of course, here's to Najwa Nimri, aka Alicia Sierra, aka my main current TV crush. 

And, some words of solidarity for the brave Ukrainian people:

 

Una mattina mi sono alzato
E ho trovato l'invasor 

O partigiano portami via
O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

 Questo è il fiore del partigiano 

🌻

 

 

Tirzah - Send Me

This is very cool music. If you're not with this, I'm afraid you're not very cool.

 

 

Joe Goddard ft. Valentina - Gabriel

From the first time I heard this on BBC6 I've been in awe of the way it holds back and keeps you wondering what kind of tune this is for a good minute and a half, before releasing this absolute monster of a disco torch song.

Gabrieeeeeeeeeeeeeeel!!! Gabrieeeeeeeeeeeeeeel!!!!

Mandy, Indiana - Bottle Episode

I don't know what this is, but it makes me all tingly inside. I want to headbang in a crowd until my thoughts are scrambled like.

 

 

Low - The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing Off)

By now it's worth asking whether any band has ever aged as well as Low. The previous album and this one are absolute masterpieces. Possibly the best of their three-decade long career. Devastating music for our fractured times.

04/22 - I Know My Shoulder Blades Are Shattered Wings

Yet another list which should serve as an argument that I ought to be able to make a living just composing playlists like these.

 

 

DakhaBrakha - монах

U kraine, I kraine, everybody kraine for Ukraine! Fuck Putin. Fuck realpolitik. Back off and let DakhaBrakha continue to bliss out in peace with amazing harmonies and freaky folk instrumentation. 

🇺🇦

 

 

Tierra Whack - Stand Up

Still to release a less than superb track. Tierra Whack is one of my favourite voices right now.

 

 

Noname - Rainforest

Why can't everyone be as wise as Noname? Mixing Franz Fanon-references with poignant critique of capitalism's commodification of natural resources and calling out billionaires, all while retaining emotional resonance and groove.

Moor Mother ft. Nappy Nina, Maassai, Antonia Gabriela, Orion Sun - Made A Circle

A warm celebration of previous generations and matriarchy smack in the middle of chaos and struggle.

A little more
They set the score
The precedent
They built the floor
The ceiling is irrelevant
We want more for the betterment
Of our whole
Momma holds us close so they can’t hold us
Old wisdom knows this well
She pulls us in and tell us secrets
Feeds us with her well, she preaches
Wellness. Beat the bell
It rings and shatters all the stigma
The enigma is a pattern
Passed down like matter
Brings this gift to give that we matter
We no different from them
We make a difference after we witness their valor
Their spirit is ours

 

 

Armand Hammer ft. Earl Sweatshirt and the Alchemist - Falling Out The Sky

Such an atmospheric, nostalgic, eloquently poetic collaboration. As soon as I hear Earl Sweatshirt's voice I kind of settle in to a enjoyable stoned feeling letting the rhymes wash over me. Add to that a bit of David Lynch's voice as well, and I'm floating, man.

03/22 - My Demons Have Populations

 Activity is picking up speed. Intensity heightens.

 

 

Gaye Su Akyol - Meftunum Sana

Turkish psych-folk with a bit of free jazz explosion tacked onto the end? Yes please and thank you.

 

 

Danny Brown - Dance In The Water

No one does manic like Danny Brown. The only purely joyous track on Atrocity Exhibition, with a production so fat and juicy it makes me drool.

 

 

Backxwash ft. Ada Rock - I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES

Perhaps slightly more abrasive than the frequent listener to Top 5 (who am I kidding) will be used to, but oh wow how true, hard hitting and exhilerating this recorded anger feels.

Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul - HAHA

A simple trick, produced brilliantly into something irresistible. Insanity ensues.

 

 

Remi Wolf - Quiet On Set

Every bit of this track is a guilty pleasure. Especially the dirty quips.

Orgy at Five Guys with five guys
That's ten guys and holy christ
I've never seen more nuts in my life

02/22 - What You Need Is What You Have

I have had a surprisingly pleasant start of the year. Working less, ticking things off my to-do-list at home, and spending lots of time out on the cliffs. Here's to calm January weeks:

 

Garth Stevenson - Flying

I still set my alarm, because I don't want to miss sunrise. I stay in bed for a few minutes, watching the sky pinken and a few gulls maneuvering past through the window. On a clear, calm day the sky's gradient from dark blue to warm orange is mirrored perfectly in the seascape I can see from my living room. Cormorants dart by.

upsammy - Growing Out of the Plastic Box

Once out, the tweets from blue tits and house sparrows mix with the conversational hums and haws from a dozen or so eiders floating in the strait where the little ferry chugs back and forth. The east side of the island is where the day bustles forth, with morning commuters, cats and magpies crossing paths on the carless streets.

Daniel Herskedal - The Mistral Noir

From the south tip you can see far, across where the river mouth opens up the way to the city, and international ferries, container ships and the occasional military boat make their way out towards Kattegatt. Closer by, porpoises and seals cleave the surface in soft, leisurely arches. Their movements, in contrast to the motorboats', translate like gentle waves via the optical nerve and on through the body.

Cucina Povera - Muna Muuttaa

The west side of the island is the rugged wild face. Here I am left to myself with my coffee and the wren darting hither and thither across my path. When two roe deer startle and leap up a ravine I stop still and soon after we are all standing watchign each other in a tense moment of recognition. The wren breaks the silence with a rattling trill, the deer continue on up the rocks and a murder of crows noisily take to the air as a sparrowhawk glides by. Everything is in wordless communication.

Hand Habits - Control

Back inside language ensnares me once more with its linear prejudice and prompts to get on with the day, with the ambitions, with life. But I'm not treading water. I'm just moving slowly, deliberately. 

I can change, I can change, I can change...

 

01/22 - Turn The Oscillator!

Ok, ok, ok! Here we gooooo! Another year, another top 5! Let's hit the ground running (two weeks late) with some rrrrrrock!

 

The White Stripes - Hello Operator

Never a bad time to rediscover early White Stripes. Sonic economy, pregnant pauses and an oh so satisfying harmonica solo to top it off

Mötley Crüe - Too Fast For Love

Well, here's a band I can't claim to be a conoisseur of. I've never been very interested in this type of tetosterone- and trema-laden classic rock. But at some point, for some party or the like, someone has downloaded this track to my iTunes, and well, there's no denying its riff-heavy, bouncy appeal. 2021 was too fast love, let's see if 2022 is too.

Bob Dylan - Obviously Five Believers

The thin wild mercury sound at its most unleashed never gets old.

Fifteen jugglers

Five believers

All dressed like men

Tell your mama not to worry because

They're just my friends

Hey Colossus - Tied In A Firing Line

An epic, rumbling build-up with a fantastic payoff five minutes in. I would very much like to see this band live, please.

Cleo Sol - 23

I have started to go through the Best of 2021 lists. Lots of discoveries to look forward to. This a lovely little closer with 60s girl group-vibes I found among Pitchfork's 100 tracks.