March tunes

Happy March! Welcome to the monthly showcase of a song from the last CHURCHES album, a song from the last Disclosure album and eight other songs. The snow is melting everywhere and I am excited for driving-with-the-windows-down-and-the-tunes-cranked season. Let's see what I'm listening to this month.


10 - "Where the Night Goes", Josh Ritter

Not the typical fare you'll hear blasting out my speakers, but man this song hearkens back to good old times with my wife watching Josh at the Black Sheep or at Bluesfest. There was a time when his album Hello Starling was on constant repeat around here. We also got him to sign our copy of Golden Age of Radio at one point (it says "Holly + John! You are stellar...". Awesome.

9 - "Why Do We Try (feat. Stokley Williams)", Robert Glasper Experiment

Robert Glasper has a new album coming out soon and I'm very interested in giving it a listen. This is from his Black Radio album. I seem to have gotten back into jazz a bit lately, with songs by Rusresh Mahanthappa and Kamasi Washington providing backdrops to my days. Radio has some interesting tracks on it - some fresh tunes, some covers, all R&B- or hip-hop-infused. If you've somehow heard this song before (I hadn't), it's an old Mint Condition song, of which Stokley Williams was the lead vocalist.

8 - "Run Away With Me", Carly Rae Jepsen

So apparently this confection of a pop album that CRJ released last year was good. Everybody really, really liked it. See what I did there? But somehow, even here in Canada, her releases never got any traction at radio and I wasn't even aware of any of the tracks until I was sifting through the best-of lists a month or so ago. As far as pop songs go, this one's pretty catchy. I should probably listen to more of the album.

7 - "Chop it Like it's Hot (Vandelux Remix)", Snoop Dogg and Pharell Williams

I'm not a big "remix of iconic songs" guy. Once you know a song it's really hard to rearrange it in a way that draws my attention. This one's a pretty fun hack at "Drop it Like it's Hot" though. As one blogger pointed out, it starts out sounding like Lou Bega wanted to take a crack at it, but then it shifts gears and gets a lot funkier. Worth a listen.

6 - "Downtown", Magical Cloudz

That, my friends, is a low-budget video. Not as low budget as Li'l Dicky's "Save That Money", allegedly, but still pretty bare bones. So these two guys are from Montreal and this ethereal little number has been stuck in my head for a while. It looks like these guys have been racking up the critical acclaim over the past couple of years, long listed for the Polaris Prize, working with Grimes, touring with Lorde...and then breaking up two weeks ago. If only I had posted this on time, then I'd still be full of hope for more of them in the future. Oh well.

5 - "Follow You", CHVRCHES

Another Martin Doherty cut from Every Open Eye. Strong.

4 - "Rewind", Kelela

Thanks to Wikipedia, I have learned that Kelela used to sing both jazz standards and progressive metal. Hm. I listened to "Bank Head" (a Kingdom track featuring her vocals) quite a bit a couple of years back but didn't hear of her again until recently. "Rewind" was the first track released from her debut EP Hallucinogen and I was stoked to hear it appear this season in an episode of Girls. The sound kind of takes me back to Miami house from the mid 90s. Love it.

3 - "Knives", Matoma & Frenship

Matoma is a Norwegian DJ. Not quite Swedish, but close. His debut album is called, wait for it, Hakuna Matoma. Frenship are apparently a couple of guys from L.A. (one of whom sounds like he used to front Bastille). That is all I know. Warning: this song's a bit of an ear worm.

2 - "Masterpiece (feat. Jordan Rakei)", Disclosure

I've just about squeezed every worthwhile track out of this album. This one is a nice slow jam for the ladies. Or the guys. Frankly, whoever is in need of a slow jam to set the mood.

1 - "The Hook", Flybear

Oh man. As far as instrumental electronic tracks go, this one is solid. It will be playing loudly and frequently from my minivan over the coming weeks.

Thanks for listening!!