I'm really enjoying having a space to post what I'm listening to each month. This month has been a lot of slower, chill tracks. Expect lots of falsettos, with a couple of hardcore tracks at the end.
- Calm, clot, cold, and bleed. A great collaboration between Novo Amor & Ed Tullet
- The vocalist here should sound familiar – it's Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.
- A great piano melody paired with smooth vocals; a great slow groove.
- The latest track from Novo Amore. Anchor up to me, love.
- This was on my Spotify Discover playlist in September.
- A track from Ed Tullett, the other half of the collaboration in the first track. The vocals and acoustic guitar pair wonderfully with a simple banjo melody.
- Spacey, upbeat, and groovy.
- Another catchy Spotify Discover recommendation.
- I've been listening to The Republic of Wolves ever since their demos were released in 2009 and everyone started wondering if they were actually Brand New demos. Simply, you should be listening to this band. This is a live recording of "Wood/Bricks." Pay attention to this track's incredible lyrics. "Well, I pried myself into pieces and scattered them over the wreckage / And you were still shaking your head, holding onto your nails."
- One of these months I'm going to make a playlist that's just made up of indie bands that follow the [Place][Noun] convention. It'll be easier than you think.
- Ólafur Arnalds' "For Now I Am Winter" was my favorite record of 2013, and one of very few albums I own on vinyl. This track is a collaboration with his close friend Nils Frahm they made during a night of improvisation. See it happen at Trance Frendz.
- I don't listen to The Wonder Years as much as I used to in college, but this track was really well written and has a certain poignance to it. You know, in that self-deprecating pop-punk kind of way.
- Agent Fresco's vocalist, Arnór Dan, was the vocalist on Ólafur Arnalds' For Now I Am Winter. Agent Fresco is Dan's band, and it's very difficult to pin them to a genre. Their website refers to them as "Art Rock," and I think that's fitting. Howls is one of my favorite tracks on their latest record, Destrier. "I remember / Still I remember howls of youth."
- "Let's just say, I never got an angel / I've got some skeletons, myself – but I display them on the shelf." I saw Letlive a few years ago with Enter Shikari, and at one point, the vocalist climbed one of the speaker stacks and leapt to the nearby balcony, where he began quoting Romeo & Juliet. That pretty much sums up the band.
- Owen's New Leaves feels like an autumnal record, so I needed to fit this in before the end of the season.