DM Stith’s Secret Playlist
by DM Stith recently signed to Asthmatic Kitty, the same label as Sufjan Stevens, and has a new EP out this week titled Curtain Speech, featuring contributions from Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), Rafter, Sebastian Krueger and the string quartet Osso. Think Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear meets Arthur Russell. We got the rundown from him on his eight favourite songs right now and he kicked off with The Shangri-Las’ Out In The Streets [listen below]: ’1:22 – 1:43 is a miracle. I’ve never been so obsessed with twenty seconds of high-hat and high school girl shrieks: it’s a raging teenage fantasy that all the composition notebooks in all the lockers of 1965 couldn’t write better. That the singers have managed to preserve their naivety perfectly in this three minute song may be the reason I feel recording pop music is worthwhile’. Read the rest of DM Stith’s Secret Playlist.
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Tagged: My Secret Playlist, pop music
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Julia Nunes has been a singer-songwriter since age 13. She plays guitar, ukulele, melodica, and piano, but she also uses household items, such as pillows, water bottles, tissue boxes or an old slinky, for extra percussion. Her charm is best displayed on stage or in the videos she posts on YouTube. Using video/audio layering and a unique approach to song arrangement, Julia has created over 60 music videos of originals and covers, most of which have been viewed an average of 650,000 times. She began her Secret Playlist with The Early November song, Hair: ‘When I listen to this song, I allow myself to be as cynical and damning of the world as I can possibly get, and still have a spring in my step. I envision a Barbie version of myself making her way through the world, becoming self aware and crestfallen with a smile frozen on her face’. Read the rest of Julia Nunes’ Secret Playlist.
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El Perro Del Mar’s Secret Playlist
Sweden-based El Perro Del Mar, otherwise known as Sarah Assbring, recently released her third full-length album, Love Is Not Pop and supported Peter Bjorn and John on their North American tour. We asked her to tell us about her favourite songs by other artists and she started with the Joy Division song, New Dawn Fades [listen below]: ‘I fell into a dark Joy Division crack last Summer. Usually that’s a very good sign that I’m not feeling so good. Still, I think I managed to pick something good out of it for the first time. New Dawn Fades is one of those moments where Ian Curtis’ lyrics hurt so much, you don’t know where to turn. It’s like this slow build-up to heartbreak. The ending of this song, where he’s singing, ‘It was me waiting for me, hoping for something for more. Me seeing me this time, hoping for something else,’ breaks my heart anew every time I hear it’. [Read the rest of El Perro Del Mar's Secret Playlist]
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Land Of Talk’s Secret Playlist [psst, they like Bon Iver]
Red hot Montreal band Land of Talk feature Elizabeth Powell, a former punk who got her start playing her own anti-rock anthems on the local scene of Guelph, Ontario, during her mid-teens. We got the inside word from her on the tunes that inspire Land of Talk’s own high energy frock and roll. The first track she propped was, drum roll please, Bon Iver’s hauntingly evocative, Re:Stacks: ‘This song changed my course, emotionally. I can’t tell you how, but it levelled me. Everyone I’ve played it for, or who has heard it, has had the same or similar reactions. This is a song I will listen to well into my twilight years’. Read the rest of Land Of Talk’s Secret Playlist.
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craig said | 14 March, 2009
Just checked out DM Stith’s new album Heavy Ghost, and it is superb. I look forward to more.