Feature: Summer - Playlists

Baked

On Melancholy Hill – Gorillaz

Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots – Flaming Lips

Haiti – Arcade Fire

Never Stops – Deerhunter

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel

What Would I Want? Sky – Animal Collective

Bros – Panda Bear

Do You Realize?? - Flaming Lips

Good Intentions Paving Company – Joanna Newsom

Silver Soul – Beach House

May I Walk With You? - Star Slinger

West Side – The Studio

Elastic Reality (Deep Dish Does X Mix) – Casa De

When I Grow Up (Version by Lissvik) – Fever Ray

Joanna – Superpitcher

Dictaphone's Lament – Tycho

Key Sparrow – Peaking Lights

Too High To Move – Quiet Village

Mornin' – Star Slinger

New Theory – Washed Out

Round and Round – Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

Plain Material – Memory Tapes

New Beat – Toro Y Moi

Despicable Dogs – Small Black

Bicycle – Memory Tapes

Live In Dreams – Wild Nothing

Feel It All Around – Washed Out

Loaded – Primal Scream

Just Like Heaven – The Cure

The Village Green Preservation Society – The Kinks

Sunday Morning – Velvet Underground

Waterfall – Stone Roses

Feel Flows – Beach Boys

Time of the Season – Zombies

Who Loves the Sun – Velvet Underground

In this first and biggest playlist I've arranged a great selection of tracks for just chilling out in the day, classic summer music essentially. Kicking off with Gorillaz' impossibly sunny On Melancholy Hill, the first few tracks are indie-rock classics that scream summer, from the pristine piano of Grizzly Bear's Two Weeks to Animal Collective's glorious sample of The Grateful Dead in What Would I Want? Sky, by way of a few of my very favourite artists, Joanna Newsom, Beach House and Panda Bear.

Star Slinger's effortlessly catchy May I Walk With You? starts off the second section of more dancey and electro-infused cuts, veering between the house and dub-tinged cuts of Casa De, Superpitcher and Peaking Lights and the balearic swoons of The Studio (whose D. Lissvik crafted the marvellous Fever Ray remix also selected) and Quiet Village's inspired vocal track, all rounded off with another classic Star Slinger track, the shining Mornin'.

The next phase is a set of some of the best chillwave of the last few years, a genre evoking too-bright snapshots of summers past through Washed Out's brilliant disco cuts, and Wild Nothing and Memory Tapes' mellower reflections on music past.

From here we go to some classic summer anthems from some real oldies; from some incredibly famous tracks of Primal Scream, The Cure and The Stone Roses to some real gems from The Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys (including the hilarious Kinks track lampooning the conservative British villages of the time). So lay back and get listening.

Toro Y Moi – Underneath The Pine

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm not the biggest fan of chillwave as a genre. Although it is sometimes done well, as a genre it too often feels a case of retro-style over substance, and ends up feeling disposable in musical terms. It's interesting then, that one of the kings of chillwave, Toro Y Moi's Chaz Bundick, has taken a significant move towards a different style in his sophomore album, substituting the hazy samples and chopped beats of his debut album Causers Of This and replacing it with lush organic instrumentation at every turn in an album which is frequently delightful but rarely surprising.

This move is evident on opener Intro/Chi-Chi, where dense ambient layers give way through cascading synths to a hazy beat. What follows is New Beat, a potential breakout single with a fantastic funky riff that propels the song along nicely. Bundick knows how to suit music to his reverb-laden vocal hooks, and considering how different this album is to his previous release, it's admirable that the rich analogue sounds on the album generally work so well; he's moved from laptop synths to guitars, organs, chimes, piano, and much more with a deft hand and clear vision. The other funky highlight is Still Sound on the other side of the album, with gorgeous throwback tomtoms and a rushing vocal line that is pure sugar in its addictiveness.

What's most laudable about this album though, is that the less poppy breakaway hits are often actually better than their more immediate counterparts. Go With You is relaxed and has a chorus which intelligently almost comments on itself in terms of vocal structure, while the musical hooks are cut up skilfully without losing the summery, organic feel this album so prominently displays. Following this is instrumental Divina, an achingly gorgeous short piece where synths and drums are layered in perfect synchronicity, to be built on by a supersimple piano melody that might just be the best thing on the entire album. This is over too quick but thankfully followed by another highlight, Before I'm Done, which has a great background emotive drive that stays in the background rather than forcing itself upon you in another intelligent move. Tracks like these absolutely nail the atmosphere of summer haze and lethargy, without sacrificing energy and excitement as so many chillwave artists seem to.

So there are quite a few good tracks on here, and Bundick is clearly a skilled songwriter. The problem is, the tracks can tend to sound rather formulaic, there are few points when the music really surprises you, and besides the movement between chilled-out and funky there is little variation across the album. The second half of the album doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first, little gems like Still Sound and the lovely Got Blinded are set in the midst of tracks like How I Know and Light Black which showcase a surprisingly negligible amount of sonic development, they just don't go anywhere. Elsewhere, when something new is tried on this latter half it never quite works. The soundscape of slight penultimate track Good Hold is electronically pulled underwater and resurfaces across the second half of the track; it's a lovely effect but doesn't quite further the composition of a track which was already fairly thin. Similarly closer Elise feels as if its lacking in strength, gliding nonchalantly out of existence rather than making any sort of impact or last impression. But maybe that's the goal of the chillwave aesthetic. And maybe that's why I've never been so keen on it.

This album is beautifully textured and richly organic, and there is a great deal of intelligent, thoughtful songwriting here. But it really could have done with something to mix up the formula, and some slightly more successful variations on the theme. Yet all the same, Bundick has shown an extraordinary musical capability to move to an album this accomplished and lush from his synth-pop starts, and although this isn't a great album I'll definitely be tuning in to hear what he comes up with next.

7/10