02/24 - I'm There And I'm Also Not There

The wind is battling the sea and the house is creaking at the seams. I've been listening to a lot of instrumental music in the studio lately, so here is a largely wordless top 5 for hunkering down in February:

André 3000 - That Night In Hawaii When I Turned Into A Panther And Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn't Control... Shit Was Wild   

Trust Mr Ice Cold to make an on paper bizarre move and follow up a solid hip hop career with an ambient flute record, and then make it actually good! A true artist. Gorgeous sounds to discover gradually and one of my new favourite albums for slumbering on the bus to. And the live performance is a must watch:

 

Hedvig Mollestad - Kittiwakes in Gust

The perfect track for this weather. No kittiwakes in sight yet, but a couple of weeks I actually had them swooping by in the strait.

 

 

Kramer - Or Perhaps You Imagined It All   

This is the time of the year when I catch with last year's releases. This album's a standout with gorgeously produced, hard to place, dance music. Expect more tracks from this on future lists.

 

 

Emeka Ogboh - Verbal Drift    

Fantastic album of sound collages made up of field recordings from bus stations in Lagos set to beats. Transports me back to when I travelled in Ghana as a 20-something and spent hours waiting for departures in rural squares with tro-tro-stations. Good times.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Rings of Saturn

It took me a while to get round to Skeleton Tree. Back when it was released in 2016 I felt like it was almost overpowered by its tragic backstory, and I resisted listening to it for a long time as it felt almost unfair/exploitative that the death of Arthur Cave became interwoven with a music release. But lately I've found my own way into these looping elegies. This song especially awakens something gut-wrenchingly nostalgic to me, with old feelings just out of reach signalling back to me about what's lost with age.

 

01/24 - I Got The World, So I'll Be Fine

Welcome to the 15th year of Top 5!!! And apparently this year is GREEN! The world is still looking horrific, but I'm making an effort to start the year on an energetic, mostly positive note here:

Mina - Nessuno   

Social media is not always a hellscape. One day the instagram feed threw this fantastic video into my face, unbid for but welcome. Irresistible: the ompa-ompa-rhythm, Chet Baker in a bathtub for no reason at all, and the impossibly charming Mina. Fingersnapping is coming back, I'm telling you.

 

 

Sofia Kourtesis - Si Te Portas Bonito   

This is the time of the year when I catch with last year's releases. This album's a standout with gorgeously produced, hard to place, dance music. Expect more tracks from this on future lists.

 

 

Fever Ray - What They Call Us

Not sure what it is, but this song gives me the absolute shivers. Karin Dreijer never misses.

My plan was flexible
Don't get stuck anywhere

Youth Lagoon - Prizefighter

Every now and then, there's a perfect melody discovered in the ether. This chorus is like a gravitational centre that draws me in every time.

Jessie Ware - Begin Again

Followers of this blog (who am I kidding? I'm writing this for myself) will know that I am a sucker for crescendoing pop songs. And this banger from the latest Jessie Ware album is almost up there with Love On Top and Love Again. The ending is pure overindulgence in soaring strings, brass and backing vocals and it really, really works on me.