22 Favorite Tracks 2012

In alphabetical order…

Actress - Raven

AlunaGeorge - Just A Touch

Andy Stott - Luxury Problems

Ariel Pink - Baby

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - “Baby” from I.J. on Vimeo.

Brackles - Never Coming Down

C4 - Off Track

Citizen - Room Service

Darling Farah - Body (Jimmy Edgar Remix)

Deptford Goth - Life After Defo

Disclosure - Latch

Ellie Goulding - Anything Could Happen

Frank Ocean - Forrest Gump

Girl Unit - Ensemble (Club Mix)

Jam City - Strawberries

Jeremih - Rosa Acosta

Kuedo - Live, Work & Sleep In A Collapsing Space (Laurel Halo Remix)

Miguel - Do You…

Mac Demarco - Ode To Viceroy

Nicki Minaj feat. Cassie - The Boys

Sky Ferreira - Everything Is Embarrasing

Tree - Die

Vessel - Lache

Ake Djassen

six cups white vinegar

a bit of the eggplant frying oil

salt, pepper + 1/2 tbsp sugar

for two large eggplants

six minced garlic teeth

argh…

Ake Djaseen - Fortune

Empress Of

Empress Of - 2

Unknown

Unknown - Seeing Double

Deptford Goth

❤

Deptford Goth - Life After Defo

SOHN

Emanating from some point between Vienna and London, fifteen seconds of stuttering electronic percussion introduce Oscillate by SOHN, when it proceeds to do exactly that: undulating seductively with slow-mo, r&b flavored arpeggios, bubbly percussion and Grand Canyon-deep pads that sway as one in calm, natural rhythm, a distantly lamenting melody delivered by a stirring, ghostly voice.

SOHN - Oscillate 

Tree

Tree - Bold Nigga 

Fishing For Crabs

Fishing For Crabs is the work of 19 year old, Doncaster-based Lewis Murray, who’s glacial, hideaway bedroom transmission of the slightly Ashes To Ashes-esque Feels Right we featured here the other day. His songs under Fishing For Crabs are more direct and take focus on skipping acoustic guitars, watery pianos and silky harmonies with certain Alt-J reminiscent intonations, while retaining the certain sense of gentle wonder and pale melancholy of that aforementioned track.

Fishing For Crabs - Falling Down A Hole

Devoted Friend

Hide And Seek by Manchester’s Devoted Friend shuffles along pleasantly with wall-to-wall carpeted chords until coming to a halt, only to unexpectedly reactivate into a coda suffusing the passion of the Goo Goo Dolls soundtracking a million teenage girls shattered romantic dreams and the disorderly incense of a small rooms walls narrowing to the point of bone break. And you think that description sounds a bit rich and over the top? Well well, just you wait and see what is lined up for the next installment of Don’t Die Wondering ®.

Devoted Friend - Hide And Seek 

Lewis Murray

Everything in the room is ostensibly in its normal place, but the undeniable touch of a foreign hand is present in it: the notepad for quick scribbles that is a permanent fixture of your small bedside table is set at a jerkily unfamiliar angle, a drawer hangs limply ajar, and there is a mildly dusty footprint of a strange shoe just underneath the overhead window. There is a hint of a scent in a room. You imagine it to be the scent of clothing, a cheap nylon tracksuit, perhaps, meshed with a smoked cigarette on the way and the cold wind blowing outside. Not your own scent, anyway. That recently mentioned overhead window, incidentally, is closed, but only on the face of it, as closer inspection reveals it hadn’t been properly latched to its bolt. Not in a million years would you have left the room to go to work leaving such unfinished anomalies in it. Moreover, your desktop computer that sits under the desk is no longer there, as is your passport and hi-fi sound system. The television, DVD player, and Xbox, however, are exactly where you left them and appear untouched. Flicking your eyes across the room, you notice that the Rothko replica on the wall hangs crooked. You go to adjust it’s angle, only to find your feet encountering a sock that lies lifelessly on the ground. Unlikely. Your eyes follow the assumed falling trajectory from which the sock came from to find the dresser, which shows signs that it has obviously been trifled through. You rummage through it. Your father’s old watch, given to him as a retirement gift from the security firm where he had toiled for 15 years, is missing, and the cabinets are in a state of utter disarray. Will there be no end to these unpleasant discoveries? 

By the seventh time you rise from your bed that night to reorganize the placement of a book, push in a chair, or adjust the angle of any object that may or may not have been tampered with, or equally might have been left that way by yourself and now just appears to have attained a queer posture - you sit down and pour yourself a glass of water. These never-ending imperfections to what was a perfectly orderly room, and for what? For a three year-old IBM computer that was verging on theobsolete at the time of purchase and takes five minutes to start up? Surely the brand new Xbox is worth more. For a mid-price, leather-strap watch whose sole possible value in this world was emotional and evident to yourself and yourself alone?  No doubt the digital camera can be sold for infinitely more. The hi-fi system you can understand, it was quite expensive. You have no doubt been visited by a very curios burglar, and infuriatingly so.

Lewis Murray - Feels Right