Guitar prodigy Julian Lage‘s debut on Blue Note, “Squint”, is our album of the week. Produced by Margaret Glaspy and Armand Hirsch, Lage enlists bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King in this eleven-song voyage.
We’re back from Le Guess Who?, one of the few festivals in Europe where we could choose between four or five quality club nights in various venues or a packed Xylouris White gig post-midnight on a Saturday. We were lucky to get in and witness one of the best concerts of the festival, which doubled as a release show, since the duo composed of Greek singer/laouto player George Xylouris and Dirty Three’s Jim White has just released their fourth album in six years, The Sisypheans. Plus: new tracks by Oiseaux-Tempête, 10 000 Russos, Katie Gately, FKA twigs, SebastiAn, Moor Mother, Vanishing Twin, Gus Seyffert, Wolf Parade, Jeffrey Lewis, Jonathan Wilson, Itasca, Mount Eerie & Julie Doiron, The Delines, Twain, Sea Lion, and The Good Ones.
This is our 200th playlist since we started back in January 16, 2015. 3603 tracks, 244 hours of music, way more than those 244 hours spent reading, keeping track and listening to the hundreds of artists featured in our playlist so far. Sounds like we’re going to ask you for money, right? Of course not. We’re only going to ask you to tell a friend or two about our playlists. We do this mostly to keep ourselves updated on what’s new and avoid falling into the “music these days just isn’t as good as it was back in the day” trap (which roughly translates to “I got older and gave up my interests”). But the best part about it is knowing someone out there actually listens and values what we do. We know algorithms are pretty cool, but nothing beats a playlist that was handpicked by a group of dedicated people.
This week we focus on Sandro Perri’s latest record, “Soft Landing”, his second LP in two years after a long hiatus. 2018’s “In Another Life” was one of our albums of the year, and “Soft Landing” replicates its winning formula of one long song/a few shorter ones while sounding quite distinct, with electronics playing second fiddle to his good old guitar. The result is similar: another ambient-ish pop masterpiece from the Canadian guitarist and songwriter. Plus: new tracks by I am Oak, Lower Dens, Queen of Jeans, Frankie Cosmos, Young Guv, The Comet is Coming, Los Pirañas, Jeffrey Lewis, Jesse Malin, Garrett T. Capps, Peter Bruntnell, Monks Road Social, The Deer, The Highwomen, Lola Kirke, Lady Wray, Adam Green, Birds of Play, The Milk Carton Kids, Mandolin Orange, and Anna Larson.
We felt like taking a week off from our playlist-making… so here’s a backlog of great songs we listened to in the last couple of weeks: Bolachas Now Playing 41-42/2015! More than a hour and a half of songs for your listening pleasure, featuring Josh Ritter, Jeffrey Lewis, Jacob Faurholt, Rodney Crowell, Nap Eyes, Promised Land Sound, Eleanor Friedberger, Martin Courtney, Red River Dialect, Dave Rawlings Machine, Actual Wolf, Natalie Prass, Rudimental ft. Bobby Womack, yes I’m typing everything and not just pasting names, Ephemerals, Jamie Woon, John Grant, Freddie Gibbs, Blood Orange, The Album Leaf, and Floating Points. Enjoy it.