Music To Start The Week With #099

by: Diego Martínez

August 19, 2013

We are beyond thrilled to say that we’re just one playlist away from rounding out 100 editions of “Music To Start The Week With.” That’s about one playlist a day for almost two years straight! In anticipation for such a milestone, we bring you another special selection of tracks, directly to our loyal readers. Even more diverse, we go multilingual this time: folky Spanish, coldwave French and a range of English-speaking house, indie and punk that go straight to your ears. Hopefully, they will all stay put for the reminder of the week.

From 1 to 10, here are this week’s tunes:

WILD music playlsit

 

1. Juana Molina – Eras

We kick things off with an Argentinian singer who has been away for five years, holding a track history of personal setups and professional triumphs. Growing up in an artistic environment, Juana Molina quickly took on the guitar at age five. Her family fled the country for France, following the 1976 military coup, and during her formative years in Paris she expanded her outlook on music by regularly listening to World Music radio. After returning to Argentina, she worked on developing her craft and soon, she became a darling of the international indie/electronic/folk scene. The bewitching songstress is back with Wed 21, a 11-track release guided by her trademark spirit of experimentation and her deep melodic sense. Lead single “Eras” is just a taste of those delightful ideas Juana’s bringing to the table.

 

2. Ha Ha Tonka – Lessons

Brett Anderson, Lennon Bone, Lucas Long and Brian Roberts, AKA Ha Ha Tonka, are sitting at the crossroads of Americana and indie, where Alabama meets Arcade Fire. The Missouri quartet have recently unleashed “Lessons,” the second single off their highly anticipated fourth full-length album of the same name, out September 24th via Bloodshot Records. The track is a bittersweet cut filled with buzzy, distorted electric guitar that perhaps carries the message of the album truest to form, while showing a clear departure from their more stripped down style to one that is filled with lush instrumentation.

 

3. Happy Jawbone Family Band - Everybody Knows About Daddy

Early this year, NYC-based indie label Mexican Summer introduced us to the freewheeling troupe from Brattleboro, Vermont, Happy Jawbone Family Band, with the compilation of earlier recordings entitled Tastes The Broom. Now the group has gotten stronger and potent, maintaining the energy and humor of their previous work. The rock/folk wonderments’ self-titled LP includes first single “Everybody Knows About Daddy,” a track described by Pitchfork as “rooted in a lineage that stretches from Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett through Television Personalities, Half Japanese and Robyn Hitchcock: Jangle-pop surrealists who combat sense with nonsense and tend to think the shortest distance between two points is a long, loopy line.” Deep thoughts but highly accurate.

 

4. SWF - Black & Golden

Next up is the dream of, and moniker for artist, musician, and self-described mystic Stevie Weinstein-Foner. His messages of love and longing roll from his debut album, Let It Be Told, like mantras blasted from the radio of a brightly re-painted VW van, cruising down a metaphysical highway of endless summer with the windows down. Let It Be Told (out October 8 via Mecca Lecca) was recorded in Memphis, and the album’s soulful proclamations are backed by a chorus of fuzzy guitars, vocal harmonies, and very singable hooks.

 

5. Zola Jesus – Fall Back

Nika Roza Danilova had done two studio LP’s before her stage name became the talk of the town with the release of her third effort Conatus, in 2011. Two years later, Zola Jesus, the girl who wanted to be punk more than anything, returns to the stage, only to channel her inner opera diva in a greater way. Her new record Versions is a collection of 9 classic tracks arranged for a string quartet and only one completely unreleased cut, “Fall Back,” originally written in 2010 and intended for a “Twlight” flick, as she confessed to the New York Times. “I’ve never seen a ‘Twilight’ movie. It wasn’t about the characters — it was about my own experience with love. When I produced the song, it wasn’t getting as big as I wanted it to be. Finally allowing it to be interpreted through strings, it met its match in a way.”

 

6. Meat Market – Too Tired

Speaking of people wanting to be punk, here’s an Oakland-based quartet who bust out a blend of surf guitar twang with garage-crafted power pop. A marriage between The Ventures meets The Marked Men. Meat Market have already amassed a solid following in California with just a self-titled cassette/LP to their name. This time, they offer up two new songs via Suicide Squeeze, one of them (“Too Tired”) perfectly encapsulating their sound: a marriage of propulsive Stratocaster riffs with a big catchy chorus.

 

7. Les Visiteurs Du Soir - Je T’Écris D’Un Pays

Around 1985, most New Wave outfits in the UK and US represented a very typical 80s image of color, glamour and pop hooks galore. In France, for instance, it was a different story. Musicians influenced by Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees opted for icy, mechanized sounds, recalling the historical artistic avant-gardes, literature and cinema. The end result was dark, danceable and intellectual. Something not precisely commercial but artistically compelling. Les Visiteurs Du Soir, formerly known as D.Stop and named after the 1942 Marcel Carné film, provided such elements in “Je T’Écris D’Un Pays,” later included in the compilation BIPPP French Synth Wave 1979-85.

 

8. Shakedown – At Night (Blonde Version)

When groups, musicians and producers decide to ‘give back’ to their listeners, you know they mean serious business. And they just don’t lend away anything, only the good stuff. That’s the case with UK duo Blonde. As a treat for achieving that coveted 10K mark on Facebook, they went out to drop “a bootleg of an old house classic that we’ve been playing in our sets for a while now.” Now isn’t that nice? Taking Shakedown’s classic 2002 one hit wonder, “At Night”,  the pair brings the tune back to life with a groovy electronic atmosphere perfect for any day/night of the week.

 

9. Finnebassen – Nightshift (edit)

We heard about Finnebassen’s talents when he was included on Jeange’s curated WILD playlist, the first in our “artist featured” series. Now, the Norwegian star has come with a vengeance. A funky and smooth vengeance, that is. He takes non other than the legendary Commodores and their 1985 hit “Nightshift,” an ode to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson. There are no words to describe this mindblowing edit, but we’ll try anyway: already featured in The Magician’s “Magic Tape Thirty-Four,” it stays true to the original’s structure but offers a seductive, exquisite lick to it with gentle synths and perfect basslines. We bet this one was made for slow grinding/horizontal movements.

 

10. Tourist – Stay

Williams Phillips is enigmatic, and so are the men who signed him to their Method Records label (Disclosure, of course.) It’s only natural that we chose the London artist to put an end to our WILD playlist for this week with a track so mellow as his earlier work, incorporating some minor darkness into that ambience. The bassline floats so beautifully in the scheme of things you can’t even really call it a bassline. And of course, the beautifully crafted beats lend the track just enough structure to sink your teeth into. It’s like a warm and flowing dream.

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