Summer days through the folkish haze vol.2

1 July 2009

This has been a long time coming, but today I’ve got 2 CDs worth of amazing summer music. The first disc is more folk based in keeping with last summer’s mix, with the second less folky but just as perfect for the summer afternoons in the sunshine.

We have a few of the bands that were on the last mix popping up again, but most on here have not been featured on TBW before. As I’ve been out of the game for a while, some of these have been around for a few months, and then of course there are a couple of older tracks thrown in for good measure. Also, as some people haven’t noticed – you an download each mp3 individually by the right clicking and choosing “save target as”.

Summer days through the folkish haze vol.2

Coeur de Pirate starts off the mix with a blissful and beautifully simple summer piano based piece. The vocals in french create ideas of a simpler time of love and life in the rural countryside.

Gregory and the Hawk offer a great bit of acoustic summery pop. The vocals and very clean production may lend this to some soundtracks in the future, but don’t let that put you off. Easy and relaxed.

Tom Brosseau has crafted exactly what I love about folk music that evokes green summery bliss. It may just be Tom and his guitar and feels familiar, but it is summer folk perfection. Where’s that cider festival right now?

Run Toto Run are on here for a cover of Passion Pit’s debut single ‘Sleepyhead’, which was fantastic in its own right, but here they take out all the sweet electrics and replace them with what sounds like a fiddle and yet somehow avoids sounding too sickly sweet. Once the chorus breaks in, the sun should break through the clouds.

Marina & The Diamonds have been making a name for themselves over the last twelve months, with neon Gold putting out a few records. Here they offer some perfectly formed harmonious pop with a beat that you can’t help tapping your foot to.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone have the rough production sound that gives their music a certain innocence, and ending this track with an organ line from when the saints go marching just adds to that view.

Jeffrey Lewis is one of those artists that has been established for a while but as I don’t have a history of folk was only recently introduced to him from a Song by Toad podcast. This is cute, funny and reflective, and a track I can’t get out of, even if it is a good few years old.

Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground are on here again with another pop song that sounds like it could have been produced by the Beatles back in the days of Revolver. I may be a Stones man, but pop and folk music came together in the 60s and this owes a lot to that time. Who can’t resist playing a little Beatles at a BBQ?

Drew Helsinki (McConnell) is another from the last mix. Compared to the last one we featured this track is less haphazard, but again shows off his skills for producing simple pop songs that fit on any playlist.

Laura Barrett is on here for a cover of a Harry Nilsson track which brings a xylophone, violins and whistling into the mix, how could I resist such American folk perfection? It demonstrates how we have always looked back to simpler times with rose tinted spectacles even since the industrial revolution.

Small Crew have written a effortless pop song of hope and chasing dreams. Something that is part of that gentle summer emotional reflection that forms plenty of my summer days.

Jay Jay Pistolet are another cropping up from last year and again have produced some folk mastery with Oh Caroline. A just wondrous guitar based folk love song with harmonies and an harmonica that demonstrates why folk music is summer music.

Mumford & Sons have been making a name for themselves over the past 6 months or so with their 3 EPs, following in the footsteps of Noah and the Whale and Johnny Flynn. More great new English folk.

Aidan Moffat & The Best Ofs may be one of the best band names I’ve heard in a while and here give us some more folky summery perfection, with some simple brush drumming and harmonicas tripping us through Aiden’s wonderful deep vocal drawl that almosts makes me think of a happy folk version of Johnny Cash.

The Crookes finish off the first disc pop folk track of stories of youthful and blissful love. Simple structure and catchy rhythms and a few hand claps makes this a fitting end for the first section of the mix.

You can also download all 15 tracks as a zip file:
Summer Days through the Folkish Haze Vol.2 CD1

Ex Lovers starts of the second disc with an easy and almost tweepop track that reminds me of the good parts of Voxtrot from a few years ago. Now seems to be the perfect time for listening to such tracks if ever there was a time.

Heartless Bastards offer an effortless and timeless garage rock ballad with singer Erika Wennerstrom’s voice easily falling between that rock growl and pop harmony. Wonderful.

The Paper Cranes demonstrate their talents for crafting great pop songs here. They fold a number of clever riffs into one song that should sound over complicated, but somehow finds its way it being simple, cheery pop pop pop as they say on their MySpace

Doctors & Dealers are another to be able to make a very simple and familiar song feel somehow new and interesting with a few well placed harmonies and a foot-tapping beat throughout.

Elizabeth & The Catapult‘s Taller Children begins with just the vocals and drums making an easy pop song, before the rest of the band jumping in and making the whole thing a lot more interesting and showing off their rock and roll side which is always going to go down well with me.

Buke and Gass start off with a couple of pretty angular and disjointed riffs which slowly fall into place with the vocals. They are like a more pop YYYs, but with songs that blow the YYYs last album out the water.

Leopold And His Fiction have a track that reminds me of the Datsuns debut a good few years ago now. They might not have that bass driven growl, but write better 70s themed rock/pop than most actually did back in the decade.

The Fine Arts Showcase have written in ‘London, My Town’ one of my favourite tracks of the last six months. It is a wonderous rock/pop that sound familiar but new, rough round the edges and yet clean. I don’t how to pigeon-hole it right now and I don’t really want to, but you just need to listen.

Magic Wands are one of my bands to watch of the moment as they are regularly putting out catchy, danceable pop/rock and Black Magic shows off those quite impressive skills pretty well.

Goldhawks‘ ‘Where in the world’ may have been posted about within the last couple of months, but it is such an expansive and engrossing song that it fitted so well into this mix that I couldn’t leave it out.

Wolf Gang has a single out on the constantly amazing Neon Gold and have been on my radar for a little while now (thanks Angus). I have just been waiting for the mp3 and a good reason to share it. That is now, and here is a beautifully layered piece of unrepressed pop that should be on everyone’s summer soundtrack no-matter what genres you’re into.

You can also download all 11 tracks as a zip file:
Summer Days through the Folkish Haze Vol.2 CD2

Or download both CDs (26 tracks) as a single zip file:
Summer Days through the Folkish Haze Vol.2

Clap to the Electricity Vol.10 with Passion Pit, Little Boots, The Random, AC Slater and Deadmau5

By: Tim

15 January 2009

In: Mixtapes, News & Leaks

9 comments

It has been a long time coming, but definitely worth the wait with 2 discs worth of electro-pop to electro-noise perfection. As per usual, some of these you will know and others you should.

Passion Pit are tipped to be huge this year (even by the BBC) and this remix puts some better beats behind it. Little Boots offer some more of their beautiful electro-pop and Yukseks puts his golden electro touch on Tommy Sparks. The Random (as a duo and Tony Roballo on his own) also offer something special and I’m sure will gather quite a following in 2009. Then the best remix I heard last year by Foamo of the always excellent Mystery Jets. Somehow their tunes lend themselves rather well to amazing remixes.

Clap to the Electricity Vol.10 (CD1)

On disc two we have some of the TBW favourites in SebastiAn, Deadmau5 and more Little Boots, along with something a little different from Beoes Kaelstigen.Â AC Slater (yes named after that one from Saved by the Bell) is picked for big things this year, and understandably as he cracks out remixes and originals tunes that take plenty of influences from 90s dance but somehow ending up very 2009. Designer Drugs and Trash Yourself also come in with something a little heavier for when the party is well underway.

Clap to the Electricity Vol.10 (CD2)

You can also download both discs as zip files:
Clap to the Electricity Vol.10 (CD1) | Clap to the Electricity Vol.10 (CD2)

Or you can download both discs together:
Clap to the Electricity Vol.10

Clap to the Electricity Vol.9 with Little Boots, Yuksek, Alex Gopher, The BPA and Van She

By: Tim

18 October 2008

In: Mixtapes, News & Leaks

11 comments

It has been far far too long since I put together one of these mixes, and the clubs I have been to in the meantime have been the best I have experienced, from Ibiza to Beirut to Tel Aviv to London – all awesome incl Matter at the O2 if you ever get to go, do). There was a rough mix floating around on my facebook over the summer, but this is the first one for months and months to fulfill the wait. So apologies for the really really long delay, but here it is, finally…Clap to the Electricity Vol.9.

As usual, we have a mixture of some names you could/should have heard of like Van She, Yuksek and Alex Gopher, and some you might not like Flou, The BPA, Prairie Cartel and Trash Yourself. All, as normal – are *great* in their own right. In fact, the Alex Gopher track on here has got to be in my top 5 for the year. Done.

One quick note of interest too – is The BPA (Brighton Port Authority), which is a collaboration project between Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) and David Byrne, Dizzee Rascal, Emmy The Great, Iggy Pop, Pete York, Jack Penate, Jamie T, Martha Wainwright, Conan, Olly Hite, Lateef, Ashley Beedle, Simon Thornton, Thomas Gandey, and Justin Robertson. That is one impressive roll call, and I imagine we should be seeing some more of their stuff on TBW in the neat future.

Clap to the Electricity Vol.9