The 20 best songs of the last month
My favourite songs of the past month.
The top songs of the month
Click the title of the song to see the original post.
My highlight of Primavera in a set with a naked drummer and singed body hair is also the cheeky Canadian who makes sweet delicate jams like this one from his excellent new album This Old Dog. Antics aside, the songs speak for themselves.
2.
Baba Stiltz – Can’t Help It
A rising act on Axel Boman’s Studio Barnhaus label, ‘Can’t Help It’ draws you close with its intimate lyrics pitched in a style suited to the dancefloor.
This Afro disco dancefloor track comes from a surprising source – the blind Malian couple known as Amadou & Mariam. The pair always had a capacity for soaring transformative melodies so it’s nice to hear them bring that with extra heat on their first track in five years ‘Bofou Safou’. The title takes its name from the the Malian nickname given to a young man who would rather party, dance and dress up than work.
The atmosfolk duo of Morgan Macintyre and Gemma Doherty continue to charm even if they’re causing trouble with a song that expands their palette in subtle ways and keeps their melodious intent intact.
“The song is about transitioning, from Belfast to Dublin, from an old love to a new, and the gaps that can be found between you and another person or place when people transition at different paces and in different directions,” says Morgan.
There are any number of songs that could have been here from James’ surprise album True Care but ‘Holding On’ is the one I keep coming back to.
Sure, we’ve all heard this by now but this is my pitch for Pop Song of the Summer. Plus, she does a mean acoustic version as seen on Jools. I played this a lot in May.
An analogue night-time construction with a graceful intimacy, as in the rest of the album From Night To Night, David Kitt’s full-length electronic side-project New Jackson comes up trumps. This is a nice segue if you’re only familiar with his solo material under his own name.
Caribou’s Dan Snaith returns to his Daphni side-project with a low-slung percussive groover that dropped as part of a forthcoming Fabriclive mix.
9.
Everything is Recorded – Close But Not Quite
XL Recordings boss Richard Russell returns to his roots to make music with Sampha and a Curtis Mayfield sample. Read this great profile of the man from The New Yorker.
Throw shade and shake the shudder away with a highlight from New York dance-punk party band !!! (chk chk chk)’s new album. A Primavera Sound favourite.
