POTW (2019/17): Indie Greats Twirl

Indie Greats Twirl by New Element Music is this week’s Playlist of the Week. It’s a few days later than normal… Easter was a bit crazy for me, and then I took a few days off to knit a present for a friend. Something I haven’t done in a very long time! When I say I took the time off, that’s a very loose description, as I’ve been following an online conference at the same time about business skills for indie musicians. There really haven’t been enough hours this week.

Anyway, back to the playlist. It’s a pleasant collection of independent music, with an upbeat, poppy, daytime sensibility. It’s really easy listening, without being easy-listening music, if you get my drift – it’s not demanding to listen to, but isn’t loungey, as it’s light and energetic.

I covered one of New Element Music’s playlists a couple of weeks back, so if you’d like to know more about the playlist curator, Manu Salamanca, have a look at my post on Electronic Kaleidoscope Lounge. I will just underline that Manu has a talent for putting together a great collection of songs that work together.

Duration: 41 songs / 2h 31min at the time of writing.

Rating: PG – one or two songs are flagged explicit – set the filter (via the Spotify app on a mobile device) if this will bother you or you want to play this in front of your kids!

POTW (2019/10): Lo-fi Triphop / Chill / Dubstep

This week, we have this gem of a Trip-hop playlist by Leg Puppy for your listening pleasure. Leg Puppy are a subversive British punktronica band with a lot to say about current western culture, including smartphones, selfies and the closure of smaller music venues. (That last one might just be a UK thing?)

Leg Puppy’s superpower is nailing exactly what is wrong with the world, and not holding back from telling us how it is, whilst injecting the message with a shot of raw humour. Being rather direct, they won’t be to everyone’s taste, but, as Left Bank Mag have said, they are ‘fascinatingly entrancing’. This gift of lifting the covers on Pandora’s empty box and giving us a run down on what went wrong perhaps explains their love of the triphop genre, itself often a healthy source of social commentary. Some of Leg Puppy’s electronic tracks do lean in towards the triphop genre and probably my favourite of these, Black Light, is included here. Silence 23, their recent collaboration with Ceiling Demons, is reminiscent of some of the more menacing sounding tracks that Massive Attack and Tricky have produced over the years.

This playlist avoids the most obvious triphop choices, often picking edgier tracks that fit their own band’s sound and songs from obscurer artists. (There are exceptions: Massive Attack’s gorgeous collaboration with Hope Sandoval, The Spoils, made the cut). There’s a distinctly dystopian flavour pervading much of the selection and, as its name suggests, it has been spiked with some dub and chill, which vary the mood, helping to avoid it getting overly heavy.

Rating: PG (Some tracks are labelled ‘explicit’).

POTW (2019/1): Simon’s 2018 Top 10 on Spotify

I probably with hindsight should have made a playlist with all my own favourite tracks from the year, but that would have required I start making notes a year ago. Maybe next year! Instead, I have this lovely little selection from Simon Irvine, aka the artist Stuffamebobs, who I have mentioned before. (I’m extremely honoured to have a song included on this list, as well 🙂 )
Got to dash! Wishing you a Happy New Year, and I’ll be back on Monday with a new playlist for you, with the focus being on the new.

POTW (2019/1): Simon's 2018 Top 10 on Spotify

I probably with hindsight should have made a playlist with all my own favourite tracks from the year, but that would have required I start making notes a year ago. Maybe next year! Instead, I have this lovely little selection from Simon Irvine, aka the artist Stuffamebobs, who I have mentioned before. (I’m extremely honoured to have a song included on this list, as well 🙂 )
Got to dash! Wishing you a Happy New Year, and I’ll be back on Monday with a new playlist for you, with the focus being on the new.

Playlist of the Week (2018/45)

#POTW No 45: Electric Road Trip by Tobi

My Playlist of the Week this time around is Electric Road Trip. As implied in the name, it is full of electronic music of different kinds with the emphasis on pop, EDM and other upbeat styles, and it is a very listenable mix of tunes.

The playlist curator, Toby Davis, is a Luxembourg-based musician and producer who is very much involved in getting independent music into the ears of music fans. He says, “Good producing is like good plumbing: if you do your job right, no one notices.”* He is one of the key figures behind the ‘Monsterthread Community’ of independent music artists, and he also writes for Brash! Magazine as well as being a professional graphic designer and being all over the interwebs. He’s notably active in the  thread on Twitter, which promotes new music from less well known artists.  I’m actually quite surprised that I haven’t written about him before now; that’s clearly an oversight on my part, given how much Toby does on behalf of label-free musicians.

Some of Toby’s recent productions include The Strand by Daniel Feinberg, and Yours by Katie Ellen. He is also a keen remixer – you can hear some examples here.

 

* Bass playing usually follows the same rule, also.

Playlist of the Week (2018/42)

Stoneygate's Playlist of the Week No 42, 2018

This week’s playlist is from ENILSounds, aka Line Munch-Petersen, a “one-woman-band” from Copenhagen, Denmark, whose Traffic Jam List 2018 playlist I featured back in August. Line says about her work, “I make music because I have an urge to. I would love to be able to make a living out of it, but it is not my main goal. That is to be happy while I am doing it.” Line considers her style to be soft-synth electronic pop music, with lyrics about life, love and loss, but says some would label it New Age. In any case, listeners have said her music reminds them of Enya, but with a Joni Mitchell style vocal.

In case it’s not obvious from the title, this playlist is part of a series Line has been curating, to show off the most popular tracks that are trending by independent artists, plus a few from mainstream artists that fit with her vibe. She’s been faithfully creating  new lists of artists’ most popular music since early this year; This is October’s – enjoy!

 

 

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/41)

POTW No 41: Soulful Fox's Chill-out Downtempo Dance Music

This week’s POTW is the fantastic Chillout Downtempo Dance Music, by Soulful Fox, an independent music producer and performer from Liverpool who makes uplifting electronica music that leans towards house, downtempo and liquid drum and bass.

After studying for a music degree, she took a detour and started a career in banking, but  decided it wasn’t for her. She subsequently went into music teaching, which she loved and which also gave her the opportunity to learn music production, using Logic  software. You can find some of her excellent work via this playlist, or at her CD Baby or Soundcloud pages.