The Top 25 Tracks of 2013: 11-25

This blog was never designed to be a music news blog, but if I don't post my favorite tracks from 2013 as a compilation then they will never get posted in a soundtrack-style playlist at all.  So without further ado, here are my Top 25 Tracks of 2013 - the songs that rose above the noise, pushed boundaries, and made me excited about music again.

(Not all of these were on Spotify so you'll have to click the links for the ones in blue.)

• 11. Bibio – A Tout A L’Heure - Bibio has always had a great texture to his music, but it wasn't until A Tout A L'Heure that he managed bring excellent vocals into the mix. This one is going to make every vacation playlist I make from here on out.
• 12. Phosphorescent - The Quotidian Beasts - Call me crazy for not putting Song for Zula in this slot, but Quotidian is really the one on this album that does it for me. The guitar line that holds it all together, filled with attitude and experience, is one that doesn't happen so often in music nowadays. It's an ambitious tune and even Phosphorescent barely has the years under their belt to pull it off... but they do... and it's awesome.
• 13. Blondes - Andrew - Swisher was my favorite electronic album of the year, because it was made for the club, but could easily be dissected by a group of intellectuals over a bottle of wine. Andrew is representative of Blondes' slick attitude and knack for the adventurous. DJs use this to separate the early stage of the night from gametime. You're not messing around when you throw this on.
• 14. Juana Molina - Eras - The guitar here really reminds me of early Radiohead and I love it.
• 15. Sophie - Blipp - Imagine a DJ dropping this in the middle of a house set? Everyone would lose it. It's so different, but immediately likeable. I imagine people absolutely breaking it down, kind of like the dance scene in Two Lovers.
• 16. Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardener - Talk about a head trip. It's rare to find a song where the vibe between the lyrics and the instruments meet up so well. Barnett pulls off the straightforward indifference to her own anxiety problems so well that someone should probably call a doctor.
• 17. Toro y Moi – Rose Quartz - the best build of the year.
• 18. Burial – Rival Dealer - Just before the end of the year Burial released the Rival Dealer EP composed of three cinematic tracks that surprised pretty much everyone for their dramatic departure from his slow, sparse dubstep history. Hiders is a close second here, but Dealer wins, because it drops a relentless jungle beat out of nowhere. Not only is it a surprise in the song itself, but in the context of Burial's career no one saw that coming. So to hear it for the first time was truly mindblowing.
• 19. Daft Punk - Doin’ It Right ft. Panda Bear - Who knew Panda Bear and Daft Punk would sound so good together? Random Access Memories is cool in that before Daft Punk would just sample a vocal like this, but here they actually collaborated on new material with leading musicians from a couple different genres and eras. Kind of refreshing in the age of digital everything.
• 20. Almunia - Wrapped In Your Hair - My new favorite roadtrip album. The guitar line around 3 minutes gets me every time.
• 21. Motor City Drum Ensemble - Send A Prayer pt. 2 - throw it on some good speakers and pour yourself a drink.  What a good track to play in the middle of a classy party. Just people floating around from room to room checking out the scene. Sheesh. The double bass beat is so damn confident it’s sexy.
• 22. White Denim - Pretty Green - Sometimes I feel like new indie bands hide behind their trendy lo-fi fuzz effects, too afraid to play it to us straight.  Not White Denim.  They want you to hear what’s going on and that is a very good thing, because these guys have serious chops. 
• 23. CFCF - Beyond Light - The Last of the Mohicans meets Mission to Mars.
• 24. Eluvium - Rain Gently - Rain Gently is Eluvium doing what he does best, slowly creating introspective atmospheres that start out as songs and evolve into something much more.  It’s the sound of you having an epiphany. The title is downright corny though.
• 25. Finnebasen - Bella - You’re driving your red 1969 Ford Mustang Boss through the Nevada desert at night.  It was hard to leave but you had to.  Things would have never worked out between you two.  Have you really been driving all night? I guess so... the sun is about to come up.

1-10 will be posted later this week.

image: Fedrigoni Woodstock

Happy Friday

 

Here's just a couple feel good tunes to remind us all to not take ourselves too seriously.
Have a good weekend everyone!

1. Tanlines - Reinfo
   I couldn't wait until summer to post this.  A fan just sent this video to the band and they turned it into their official video.  Sound like nice guys.
2. Tourist - Placid Lake
   What a great kickstart to a weekend.  You're feeling a little tired, a little beaten down from the work week and then BAM you remember how fun weekends can be.
   
3. Faith Evans - Love Like This Before (B+S Edit)
   I don't find something like this too often.  It has some real rhythmic attitude, but gels perfectly with dance vocals.  This is more than an choppyy edit.  This is a whole new song. Nice work.
4. Todd Terje - Inspector Norse
   A clever use of the bounce.
5. Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime (Moplen Remix)
   
   Just for fun.
 

image: sezio

Happy Friday

Here are some slick, jazzy house tunes to get it started this weekend. 
Make sure you have some good speakers or headphones.
Gentleman, this is vodka.
Enjoy.

1. Robert Dietz - Pandemic
   This is what the getaway driver listens to...
   
2. Mendo - Inocencia
   Don't expect anything big to come from a tune like this.  It's not about big build ups of white noise and dubstep bass drops.  It's about the overall vibe.  By the time a song like this comes on, everyone is well beyond the initial awkwardness of dancing and has moved on to being hypnotized.  It's like those moments where you step back and realize that the night is going better than expected.
   
3. Tim Green - Lone Time
   It's refreshing to hear analog percussion like these brushes on the snare drum in an overtly electronic track.  Just something to get the blood flowing.

Scroll up to hear Pandemic.

image: Familiale

Happy Weekend

   
Here are some gems that I couldn't wait to share. 
They work well with a giddy weekend vibe.

1. Tycho - A Walk
   Tycho released his much anticipated new album Dive this month.  With these seven new tracks (and three re-releases) Scott Hansen breathes new life into his sun-drenched, Northern California wonderland.  You can't say this sound comes from the Haight & Ashbury 60's, because it's far too optimistic and perfect to be rooted in reality.  It's more like the soundtrack to your memories of a perfect day on the Mendocino coast.  I love a good album opener and A Walk delivers.  This is the best intro I've heard since the Secret Machines'   Alone, Jealous and Stoned.
2. Real Estate - It's Real
   The new surf rock of New Jersey's Real Estate returned this month with Days.  RE really gets me, because you can listen to their whole albums straight through and then easily decide to do it again.  I wish they had released Days on tape so it could be that album that never left my car's tape deck player - a perfect go-to that is creative and laid-back but not without it's sing-a-longs (see It's Real).
3. Os Mutantes - Bat Macumba
   The next time I come back from a particularly fruitful banana picking adventure, I'm going to load up my old wheelbarrow and throw this on.  The bass sounds like a rubber band.
4. Daphni - Yes, I Know
   I could never really get into Caribou, but Daniel Victor Snaith's side project, Daphni, has my full attention.  Snaith picks his samples wisely: a soulful chorus, native chants and tribal drummings - then he arranges and tweaks them in the true Caribou fashion to make an utterly timeless piece of music that is as much for your body as it is for you head.

 

Heathered Pearls Mix

Heres a mix to thrown on the next time you put the Millennium Falcon on autopilot and smoke a jay with your co-pilot.  It's a daytime disco breakdown to help you space out and tune up. 
I've also found it to be great for late night biking.

via Jakub/Heathered Pearls from ISO50

Tracklist

Boards Of Canada – Ithcus Sound
Ikons – Honey (Coyote rmx)
Woolfy vs. Projections – Isabella
Tornado Wallace – Swimmin’
Worst Friends – Ski Hive
Clashing Egos – Aminjig Nebere (Joakim’s afrobot mix)
Motor City Drum Ensemble – Raw Cuts #6
Studio – Life’s A Beach (Todd Terje beach house mix)
Sourya – Anatomy Domine (Prince Language mix)
Blackjoy – Moustache (Prins Thomas diskomiks)
Tiger & Woods – Deflowered
Spoon – Don’t You Evah (Matthew Dear mix)
Seth Troxler – Aphrika
John Selway – Shake The Snow
18 Carat Affair – I Wanna Love You

 
You can download this mix by clicking the arrow on the right.

image: io9.com

My Kind of Party

image: Noel

There are very few DJs out there that get to play exactly what they want at a party.  Fans will want to hear the song that made you famous or a specific sound.  This makes sense from a party goers perspective, but sometimes I think the audience needs to put trust in the DJ and believe that he will provide a good (and fresh) time if they would just stop yelling for more Deadmau5.  That is not to pick on Deadmau5, but there is so much good music out there it would be a crime to revert back to the easy choice.
  And so I created a mix that I feel fits the essentials of a party into one jampacked hour of gumball funk sleekness.  It is an uncompromising mix of tunes that fit my version of the perfect party: equal parts fun, dancing, weirdness and edge.  These songs are still popular, but I doubt your average partygoer would request them... yet.

I (roughly) mixed them myself in case you wanted to download them.
Or play them by track in the playlist player.

My Kind of Party Mix by SNDTRKDLFE

1. Willie Graff & Tuccillo - Give You Up (Give You Up, 2010)
     Willie has been a resident DJ at Cielo for years and every time I've seen him play, he hits
       the mark.   Genius intro and trippy funk guitar.
2. Adam Port, Sante - Own (Own EP, 2010)
    This was my pregame jam last year.  So fun.
3. Baltimora - Tarzan Boy (Living in the Background, 1985)
    First started listening to this after rewatching Beverly Hill Ninja for the 10th time, but now
      I legitimately enjoy it.
4. The Pleb - One for Senegal (African Groove, 2003)
5. Siriusmo - Blaue Sonne (The Plasterer of Love, 2010)
     That sunshine funk.
6. Andreas Hennenberg & Simon2 - Bolingo Gringo (It Began in Africa, 2010)
    Featured on It Began In Africa, a fundraiser album for the African Children's Choir.
    Sampling  native vocals into a tech-house tune works perfectly here.
7. Moby - I Love to Move in Here (Last Night, 2008)
    As first seen in Two Lovers.
8. La Fleur - Flowerhead (Flowerhead EP, 2011)
     Ew.
9. Azari & Ill - Reckless With Your Love (Tensnake Remix) (2010)
    Yes, that is C&C Music Factory you're hearing.
10. Maya Jane Coles - What They Say (What They Say 12", 2010)
    Rounding it out with a slick and slightly creepy outro to signal the end of the party.  Grab some
    pizza and stumble home.