2013 So Far (In A Playlist)

My blog is now in its third year of posting the music that’s grabbed me the most, floated my boat, captured my heart during the first six months of the year, in a historically strict twenty-five tracks. (I fully expect the person who first made me think of doing this will, as usual, come up with a far superior list).

You can play my 2013 tracks so far via YouTube or Spotify.

1. Mount Kimbie – Made To Stray
2. Daft Punk – Lose Yourself To Dance
3. John Grant – GMF
4. Kurt Vile – Was All Talk
5. Public Service Broadcasting – ROYGBIV
6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Despair
7. Daughter – Youth
8. Suede – It Starts And Ends With You
9. Vampire Weekend – Diane Young
10. Boards Of Canada – Reach For The Dead
11. Haim – Falling
12. David Bowie – Where Are We Now?
13. Wolf Alice – Bros
14. Darwin Deez – You Can’t Be My Girl
15. Disclosure – Latch
16. Local Natives – Wooly Mammoth
17. Villagers – Passing A Message
18. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds – Mermaids
19. Jessie Ware – Imagine It Was Us
20. Phoenix – Trying To Be Cool
21. Fuck Buttons – The Red Wing
22. Gaz Coombes Presents – One Of These Days
23. Foals – My Number
24. Kelis – Jerk Ribs
25. Queens Of The Stone Age – I Sat By The Ocean

Sunday Swoon. 26th May 2013.

1. So I have a huge soft spot for Baz Luhrmann films. I’ve heard people niggling at his adaptation of The Great Gatsby, someone saying they walked out after ten minutes, but I loved it. The party scenes were visually breathtaking, made me feel like I am missing glittery ticker tape in life. The casting was perfect for the characters, Mulligan and DiCaprio as Daisy and Gatsby especially. It stuck close to the original book by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The soundtrack was perhaps a little too much vanity from Jay-Z.

2. The much talked about Parquet Courts played London’s historic The 100 Club last Sunday. Without getting drawn into the whole “is guitar music dead?” question what I will say is it was great to see a band who didn’t look like a Top Man advert, over groomed and too stiff for movement. There was a kid alone (he really was a kid, around 16) right at the front looking like he’d just discovered the greatest band of all time. Eyes unblinking, mouthing every word, rapt with attention. I love seeing that look on people.

3. I always get sucked into these “great summer read” books (I admit it, I even read Dan Brown). I read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn in about two days, staying up until the early hours to get to the end. It’s surprising and full of twists without over complicating the plot. I predict a film adaption will follow by the end of the year.

4. Field Day was utter brilliance on Saturday. Perfect weather, great company for the day and some real standout performances from the likes of How To Dress Well, Kurt Vile, Animal Collective and Bat for Lashes. I’ll opt to put a track of hers on here because it was the last crystal clear memory I have. Things after that got a bit gin hazy. The best day of 2013 so far, by far.

5. Lastly a new track this week from bare-footed, natty haired Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – Better Days.

Field Day Mixtape 2013

The bands I’ll be aiming to see at Field Day this Saturday in a mixtape (I distinctly remember writing last years sitting in a park in the sunshine). Although, from my present mood I am considering rounding off the day watching John Cooper Clarke so I should have added poetry and spoken word into my list. With a cider in my hand, the smell of petrichor in the air and dirt on my knees. I do get goosebumps over that first festival of the year feeling.

You can play my mixtape on YouTube.