Jam Sessions archive

The fall list is full of top dogs this year: P!nk, Mumford & Sons, The Killers, and No Doubt. That is, if you’re into them. I, however, am into…

Session #5 playlist

Highlights: Albums

The Mighty Chouffe
The West Town EP
Released: Sept 25, 2012
synth, alternative

First love. It’s supposedly epic and irreplaceable, an emotion that can never again be replicated for sheer purity. I call BS. Always have, argued at length. And I will continue to tow the line. However, soft spots—the things (regardless of being first or not) which tie the soul in knots because of one’s history with them as the things themselves—soft spots have a purity rather unlike anything else. Iris was my introduction to synthpop, and still stands as the band by which all other synth offerings are judged. The Mighty Chouffe is a side project by Andrew Sega of Iris. Click the playlist above and listen. Just listen.

But soft spots aside, the continuity of the EP is incredible. It’s been thought out almost like a book, the threads and twisting plot lines. From the band’s site:

This EP is best experienced when listened to from back to front in one sitting. I know, who does that, right?! But still. It’s true. If you DO that, you’ll notice a lot of musical and lyrical puzzles and references and other clever-boots things we’ve put in there. Trust us, it’ll be great! What’s that, you want an example? Okay, how about these:
The astute listener will note the keyboard solo in the second song becomes the chorus in the third song.
They will also notice the piano line in the third song becomes the verse in the fourth song.
Songs 1 and 5 serve as bookends.

Plus, the EP is by donation—so if you want to download it for free, you can. I didn’t.
Yeah. Soft spots.

Starred: Arrivals & Arrivals, Grace.

Imagine Dragons
Night Visions
Released: Sept 04, 2012
Alternative

Imagine Dragons strikes that perfect note between alternative and rock (much like One Republic), that’s uniquely them. The album’s solid, though most all my favorite singles are…on the EP. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but the EP’s the cream of the crop.

Starred: Tiptoe, Bleeding Out, Nothing Left to Say.

Highlights: Singles

Sabrina Washington
Hit It Hard
Released: Sept 12, 2012
Dance, pop

Instant inspiration. If I’m running or writing, this song comes on and suddenly everything’s doable. It’s like magic, even for slow scenes. Her first solo album is said to release sometime this year, though no date is set yet.

Ellie Goulding
Anything Could Happen
Released: Aug 21, 2012
Pop

It’s Ellie Goulding. Also included Figure 8 in the playlist. Full Album comes out Oct 9th. One of the few (actually the only) album I’ve preordered.

Calvin Harris feat. Florence Welch
Sweet Nothing
Released: Sept 20, 2012
Alternative, electronic

I neeed this album. It’s set to release Oct 14th in the UK, with details for everywhere else “coming soon.” (Which might be Oct 18 if the interwebs can be believed.) Yes please.

MIKA
Underwater
Released: Sept 28, 2012
Pop

While I have a couple MIKA singles, I’ve never felt the need to delve deeper. Underwater has changed my mind. Melodic and sweeping, it begs for repeat. Already available in the UK, it’ll hit the States on Oct 16th.

Talk about releases—this fall is full of good music and it’s not over yet. A lot of upbeat goodness coming up. These all live on my iPod, to the point the rest of my library wonders if I still exist anymore.

Session #4 playlist

Highlights: Albums

Owl City
The Midsummer Station
Released: Aug 21, 2012
Pop, electronic

What I love about Owl City is the happy glow that’s embedded into almost all his songs. Catchy, light-hearted, and upbeat, life can’t be that when you’re flying driving sedately down the highway with Gold baring in the speakers. Never underestimate the things that make you smile.

Starred: Dreams and Disasters, Bombshell Blonde, Metropolis.

Tobymac
Eye On It
Released: Aug 24, 2012
Pop, hip-hop

I’ve been a little in love with Tobymac from way back (dc Talk anyone?). His last album was good, but this tops it by miles. More electronic, more edged, more focused, just more. I recommend the deluxe version for the remixes. Plus, omg Mac Daddy! For the uninitiated, every Tobymac album includes a track with his son Truett, and listening to him grow is pure fun. Especially now he needs a job (because them Apples don’t grown on trees).

(A few of the) Starred: Eye On It, Unstoppable, Me Without You.

High Contrast
The Road Goes On Forever
Released: Aug 27, 2012
Dance, electronic

Purely instrumental, High Contrast offers something akin to an electronic movie score—but more focused, with each of the themes fully fleshed out. Makes for excellent writing music. All the tracks are solid (with the exception of its namesake, not bad but not my favorite), and several mix genres to give a while panning-over-sweeping-vistas feel, while others seem to tell a complete story.

Starred: Emotional Vampire 120 (NHS Mix), Ghost Dance (NHS Mix), Moonwatcher (NHS Mix).

Flobots
The Circle In the Square
Released: Aug 28, 2012
Alternative, Hip-hop/rap

Flobots is back with a vengeance, and as message-ladened as ever. And as ever, requires a few listens to sink under the skin. The namesake song is my favorite here (which I love as much as If I), but the range, cohesiveness and originality of the whole is impressive. The album often invokes the feeling of old spirituals, while being solidly edged hip-hop.

Starred: Journey After (War Fatigues), The Rose and the Thistle, Run (Run Run Run).

Erin McCarley
My Stadium Electric
Released: Aug 28, 2012
Pop

Beware—this mix of alternative pop is highly infectious. Your feet might start tapping without any word to your brain. Not having heard her earlier stuff, I can’t make comparisons or say if this album was worth the wait. But I can say I’ll be on the list for her next one.

Starred: Pop Gun, Elevator, What I Needed.

Highlights: Singles

The Presets
Ghosts
Released: Aug 04, 2012
Dance, electronic

How have I never heard of this group before?? If the rest of their work is anything like this, I may be in love.

OneRepublic
Feel Again
Released: Aug 27, 2012
Rock, pop

I picked up OneRepublic when they first came out, let them languish as they became radio darlings, then rediscovered the general awesomeness of Waking Up this summer—just in time to live with their latest single on repeat.

Anberlin
Someone Anyone
Released: Aug 28, 2012
Alternative, rock

I haven’t listened to Anberlin since who knows when. But a friend loves them, and it’s not hard to see why. Pure catchy rock that doesn’t fall into the same-old same-old traps—unlike most of the new rock I sample on iTunes. (Anyone have good rock recommendations? I’d love them.)

Lupe Fiasco & Guy Sebastian
Battle Scars
Released: Aug 28, 2012
Hip-hop/rap

I discovered Lasers this spring, and wondered how I survived without. But the various single releases since haven’t really caught my attention—until this one. It’s near perfect. Hello repeat.

It’s been a long month on the road, in beautiful country. As my access to music (and music discovery) was limited, I’ve only one album for you this month.

You can listen to all the songs on Future of Foresty’s site. I loved their travel series, and Speak to Me Gently is always on my iPod and my go to song for quiet, bittersweet scenes.

All in all, I’m glad to be home. Can’t say there aren’t things I won’t miss, though.

As beautiful as the ocean is, there’s just something about the mountains.

Youtube is letting me down this month! Ahh! So there’s quite a lot of soundcloud embeds floating around instead. I’ve got quite a mix for you this month, everything from hard rock to quiet folk.

Session #2 playlist

Highlights: Albums

Matthew Koma
Parachute – EP
Released: May 29, 2012
Rock, pop

Catchy, bouncy, and fairly expansive—for a four song ep, every tune has its own flavor and style. At least musically. Lyrically, they’re all pretty grounded in sex. Ya know. (Oh, grab a free new track on his site).
Starred: 1998, Parachute.

Linkin Park
Living Things
Released: Jun 09, 2012
Alternative, rock

Yes. Yes. Yes. They’ve apparently already sold over 50 million and for excellent reason—this whole album’s solid, perfect repeat material. After skimming Minutes to Midnight, and skipping A Thousand Suns entirely, Living Things brings front and center everything I love (and have loved) of Linkin Park’s style without trying to rewind the clock or skate by on past success.
Starred: Burn It Down, Castle of Glass, I’ll Be Gone.

Trent Dabbs
Future Like Snow
Released: Jun 19, 2012
Singer/songwriter

On an entirely different note comes Trent Dabbs—slower, measured, quiet and often acoustic, Dabbs reminds me a little of Andrew Belle. A little harder to appreciate on first listen, but offering something new every repeat. My favorite track (by far) is Hoping for Home, which winds under the skin hot, sticky, and unshed.
Starred: One Last Look, Hoping for Home, Better Off Now.

Writing playlist tip: for quieter/more depressing sections, load a list with Belle, Greg Laswell, Dabbs, and have at it.

Highlights: Singles

Delta Rae
Bottom of the River
Released: May 04, 2012
Alternative, on the folk side

The full album, Carry the Fire came out this June, which I can’t quit commit myself to buy. Maybe someday. Until then, I live with Bottom of the River on repeat. The heavy drums and vocals style build like an old spiritual, holding a universe full of secrets and sins.

Matt & Kim
Let’s Go
Released: Jun 25, 2012
Alternative, pop

Matt & Kim personify off-beat pop, and this single is very much them—which is what makes it great. I love their particular bounciness, a mix of vocals and piano, sidewalks and skateboards.

Flobots
The Circle in the Square
Released: Jun 26, 2012
Alternative, hiphop

I can’t call myself a Flobots groupie, since I tend to sample their albums instead of listening to them complete. But the songs I sample I love with epic groupieness and include in 70% of my playlists. They’re different and not afraid to be exactly that. For which I think people tend to dismiss them out of hand—and that’s a mistake.

Ellie Goulding
High For This (free on Soundcloud)
Released: Jun 2012

It’s Ellie, it’s a cover and it’s free. What more do you need to know?

Highlights: Podcast

Pastlights

Caught a Ghost
CAG Mixtape (EP)
Jan 2011 / alternative

Yes, it’s a year and a half old. Yes, there’s only three songs, and one’s only ok. But the other two—the other two could move mountains if they felt like it. No Sugar in my Coffee and Time Go are completely dissimilar and completely wonderful.

AKW
For No One
Feb 2012 / singer songwriter

Poetic and unhurried, sometimes veering sometimes into folk and sometimes alternative, AKW offers songs that build on themselves almost like story arcs—beast popping up unexpectedly and yet always in perfect sync with the overarching note. (Can’t find a youtube video, but you can hear my favorite single on soundcloud.)
Starred: Bury the Hatchett, Little Room, Who to Tell.

Adrian Lux
Self-titled
Apr 2012 / electronic, dance

A solid electronic album, with some great singles and a good flow (ie, some diversity). Not Morgan Page, but good writing music. When skipping songs, when Lux’s come on I always tend to stop—which is a higher praise than it sounds.
Starred: Burning, All I Ever Wanted, Wildheart.

Music fosters sanity. For writing, running, turning out the screaming baby in the airplane seat next to yours, music can block out the world or tap into the soul. Jam Sessions feature albums released in the past three months that I’ve enjoyed, a few older discoveries, whatever’s recently caught my attention from Soundcloud, and a playlist mixing all the above. Sound good? Let’s go.

Session #1 playlist

Highlights

Morgan Page
In the Air
Released: Apr 03, 2012
Electronic, dance

A friend turned me onto Page’s last album (Believe, 2010), and I’ve been hooked ever since. Not only for the quality of the music, but the quality of the singers he brings in (like Lissie) many of whom I also love. Page has a knack for keeping the underlying integrity/style of a singers work and interweaving it into his music. Plus, his podcast rocks.
Starred: Addicted (feat. Greg Laswell), Light Years (feat. Richard Walters), Missing.

Paul Van Dyk
Evolution
Released: Apr 03, 2012
Electronic, trance

Paul van Dyk is one of the big dogs in the trance/electronic world. He doesn’t release studio albums often (the last in 2007), but they’re always worth the wait. He (along with Page) offers some of my favorite writing music.
Starred: I Don’t Deserve You (feat. Plumb), Symmetries (feat. Austin Leeds), Eternity (feat. Adam Young).

Switchfoot
Vice Re-verses
Released: Apr 21, 2012
Alternative, rock

I’ve been in love with Switch since my teens, and holy hell have they been on a roll. Songs from both Hello Hurricane (2009) and Vice Verses (2011) are staples on practically all my playlists. The Vice Re-verses remixes are awesome and fun, and I’d expect nothing else.
Starred: Afterlife (Neon Feather Remix), Darkest Horses (JT Daly of Paper Route Remix).

Garbage
Not Your Kind of People
Released: May 15, 2012
Alternative

This is my first brush with Garbage, and truth to tell I didn’t download the whole album. And yet, every time their songs hit my headphones I grab for the ipod to star them. They’re growing on me to the point I’ll probably go back and download everything.
Starred: Sugar, Control, Big Bright World.

General Ghost
If Then EP (it’s free!)
Released: May 25, 2012
Alternative

Different, slower, General Ghost offers a more mellow sound that’s great for quiet/semi-depressing scenes. Though they’re not among my favorites yet (their first album only came out this past January), I think they might be in a year or two. I had a professor in college who always considered first albums the best, because they were more “raw” and “honest.” I tend to disagree. I like seeing growth in my music, the change and maturity. It’s worth the wait.
Starred: The Way We Are, If Then, Don’t Waste Yourself.

Pastlights

Imagine Dragons, Continued Silence EP
Feb / alternative, rock

Oh I love them. How I love them. From the songs to the name to the album cover. It’s their first EP and there’s not a bad song here. I’m sold.
Starred: Radioactive, Demons, On Top of the World.

Mona, self-titled debut
Feb / alternative, rock

Mona, I think, caught me in an off mood and is waiting to grow on me. I like them more immediately than, say, Garbage, but am not yet writing odes in their honor. Still, they made my run playlist, which Means Something.
Starred: Shooting the Moon, I Seen, Lean Into the Fall.

Highlights: Podcast