POTW (2019/25): Adventures in Space & Time – Unsigned Artists

I recently shared Skyline Tigers’ playlist Making Waves after a long wait. Well, here’s another of hers, to make up for lost time – my choice for this week’s Playlist of the Week is her Adventures in Space and Time – Unsigned Artists collection. It’s great to see that she has a brand new single out, A Space Lullaby with DaveyHub and Nicky Havey, too.

How to describe this playlist? It’s frequently upbeat, but has a spacey feel about it. That’s not too surprising, as most of the songs are space-themed and there are a lot of synths. There are very occasional breaks from the theme, though – Superstar, GJART’s collaboration with Deggsy is a witty skewering of the search for fame, and is the most obvious departure.

A 90s Dance Influence

The mood of this list is a little trippy at times, but rarely heavy. Tracks such as Trip’s 13th Star to the Left convey a clear 90s dance influence, but the playlist also has very current-sounding pieces. There’s even some 60s style psychedelia.

Skyline Tigers hasn’t shied away from including longer tracks, which playlisters sometimes avoid to fit more in. The longest track here is still less than 10 minutes, though, and the average song length under 5 minutes; that leaves plenty of room for a lot of different unsigned artists to contribute.

Down The Wormhole

Standout pieces for me have been Daveyhub’s Prodigy and Chemical Brothers-inspired Terraforming, Bufinjer’s frenetic Down The Wormhole, a dark collaboration between Vandalamp and Craig Manga, Germ 10001, and Amphlux’s EDM piece Mercenary. There are also some lovely chilled out tracks, notably Tuuligan’s Year 4101 at Lagoon Nebula 140616 and 10 Million Days from arcaans the LightProvider.

Overall, the playlist has a good energy level; you could easily cook or clean to it – or drive for that matter. You might not want to study to this one, though: there are tracks with lyrics, and the energy level is probably a bit too frenetic at times. (But feel free to disagree!).

Duration: 3h 51min, 51 songs

Rating: I reckon this one’s a ‘PG’; some of the tracks might be a little bit scary for a very young audience!

POTW (2019/19): Making Waves

This week’s playlist of the week is Making Waves, courtesy of Skyline Tigers, a fab singer, songwriter and producer who also features in the playlist. Making Waves has been on my schedule of playlists to review for quite a while – I must have first heard it late last year.

A moody, grey sea and a grey-blue sky. Waves are crashing towards you, one of the Farne Islands is in the distance behind the last wave.

POTW is a few days late this week as I got ‘kidnapped’ to some beautiful places on the Northumbria coast by some lovely people from my church for the Bank Holiday weekend. I returned to a backlog of stuff-to-do, some of it related to taking excessive numbers of photos while away. (Also see my post on Overwhelm – I still haven’t got anywhere near being through everything I was trying to do that week!). Yeah, I know, excuses, excuses. Will try to do better next week.

Anyway, the playlist has been my companion today for a serious clear-up of my kitchen (it needed it, believe you me). The tone is chilled, but not the sleepy kind, as there are driving beats at times, and there are songs peppered throughout, which provide more focus. There are 80s overtones at times, but not overdone. A couple of favourite tracks from today’s listen: Skyway Meadows from Nicky Havey, a drum and bass piece that’s gentle for the genre, and Skyline Tigers’ own track Home (Wane of Summer Remix). Or her track Moonlight Sea, which has hip hop tendencies, eastern overtones and almost demands you start dancing around in time to it. (Or is that just me? The comments section is there for a reason…)

Do please show Skyline Tigers lots of love as she’s been going through a rough time lately with a major illness and is now recovering. She was still supporting other indie artists while she was in the thick of it, which is pretty hardcore in my book. Major respect!