Another Autumn Playlist

So after listening to Brady’s Autumn Shuffle last week, I was inspired to create a seasonal playlist of my own.  I didn’t put quite as much thought into my list as Brady, rather I simply chose to create a list of songs and albums that I feel both musically and lyrically fit the mood of the season. Let me know if you have any songs or albums that you really fall for this time of year. I hope that this playlist makes your ears bleed til winter comes.

matt pond PA

I really love this group a lot and in fact I find that almost their entire catalog fits that autumnal season very well, especially Several Arrows Later.  But instead of choosing a track from that album I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and include this excellent cover of another band that fits the fall season very well, Neutral Milk Hotel.

matt pond PA – In An Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)

Iron & Wine

Here is a guy I am sure you are all familiar with by now.  Someone who like Nick Drake also got his first big exposure through the “Garden State” soundtrack. Well I find his contemplative lo-fi folk music to be great company on a sunny fall afternoon.  One of my favorite things to do is to go for a drive in the fall while the leaves are in transition and this song I chose for you here is one of my favorite companions along the way.

Iron & Wine – The Trapeze Swinger

M83′s Saturdays = Youth

Saturdays was an album that I heard last year and it went in one ear and out the other without making much of an impact.  But this fall it has penetrated down to my very core and has become one of my favorite records.  And I attribute a lot of that to the season in which it was heard, both physically and in my personal life.

M83 – Graveyard Girl

Explosions in the Sky’s The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place

One of the best experimental quartets around.  They were the first instrumental band that I was able to really get into and I find myself consistently going back to this album each fall. You might recognize them from their work for the soundtrack to “Friday Night Lights,” the television show.

Explosions In the Sky – Your Hand In Mine

The Radio Dept.

Here is another group that I would say has an autumn feel to their entire catalog.  Something about their music just takes me back.  It just puts me in this very retrospective mood. It’s not uncommon for music from my past to take me back to the time when it first captured me. But I just discovered this band about a year ago. I don’t know how they do it.

The Radio Dept. – Pulling Our Weight

Here are a few more tracks to help round out the playlist.

TV on the Radio – Family Tree

Grand Archives – Torn Blue Foam Couch

Broken Social Scene – Guilty Cubicles

Conor Oberst + Gillian Welch – Lua

Autumn’s Shuffle

“Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.” – Robert Browning

There’s nothing like the majestic melancholy of autumn. The cooling winds, wood smoke and mosaic of sunburned colors make for a truly magical few weeks, tainted only by a quiet apprehension of winter.

Maybe it’s the slow fade of fall that makes me nostalgic, but every October, I’m reminded of the autumns from years past, and specifically, what I was listening to in those times. Here’s a hint: the timbre of an acoustic guitar is sweet honey when enjoyed with falling leaves.

Nick Drake

You may have heard him in a car commercial or buried under the clatter of a Starbucks or on the immensely popular soundtrack for “Garden State.” The songs of Nick Drake, an influential folk musician from the early 70s, are commonly pegged as “autumnal,” and with good reason. Ornate finger picking and alien chord changes build songs that are purposefully sparse, ideal for contemplation. The perfect soundtrack to Sunday afternoon drives.

Nick Drake – From The Morning

Radiohead’s In Rainbows

Radiohead certainly are an intentional group of fellows, and I would venture that the October release of In Rainbows was no accident. The tender electric guitars, rim clicks and the most lush string arrangements this side of Billie Holiday’s Lady in Satin, are proof. Better still, In Rainbows sees the band getting their R&B on when Yorke does Al Green on “House of Cards.” Best enjoyed with a lover.

Radiohead – Nude

Radiohead – Faust Arp

The Roots’ Game Theory

The music of autumn should feel detached and lonely, but still pine for company. Game Theory embodies this by behaving like a belligerent child, furious one moment (“In the Music” openly scoffs at police) and welcoming the next (“Long Time”). Roots songs embody a variety of characters, from a caustic girlfriend to a redeemed prince of the ghetto. The common denominator(s)? Realism, soul singers and FUNK-Y guitars.

The Roots – Baby

Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out

Brubeck will never get the respect of jazz greats like Miles Davis or John Coltrane because, unlike those artists, he’s always been content to coast for miles on one aesthetic. Where Davis and Coltrane continued to reinvent themselves late into their careers, Brubeck is still playing “Take Five” at all his shows. He must know it’s a shtick, but he also must know that it’s a good one. The gimmick of Time Out is strangely endearing; it’s a quaint jazz record with an outsider mentality.

Dave Brubeck Quartet – Blue Rondo A La Turk

School of Seven Bells

The deluxe edition of this New York based trio’s electronica/dream pop debut, Alpinisms, was released about 2 weeks ago and has been in surprisingly heavy rotation since then.  The single “Iamundernodisguise” somehow manages to lodge itself in my head everyday, which probably creeps people out as I constantly chant the chorus under my breath.  The rest of the album is equally as hypnotic, with lots of emphasis on rhythm and layered vocals.  This deluxe edition  include alternates versions, live cuts, demos and new mixes, plus an alternate take of the aforementioned song.  Let it make your ears bleed.

Where the Wild Things Are

Spike Jonze has taken a 10-line children’s picture book and turned it into a full-feature film.  Which is quite a feat in and of itself, but I think that he does so successfully, even if it doesn’t really translate into a movie that kids will want to sit through.

They did a great job developing this little 10-line plot into a pretty fascinating full-fledged story.  They did a great job of inviting the reader into the world of the “Wild Things” and I quickly found myself very invested into the each of the characters.  Unfortunately though, Jonze left us with very little resolve when it came time for Max to choose to sail back home.  But for me that didn’t really prevent me from enjoying this beautiful movie.

The little boy that they cast to play the part of Max just absolutely blew me away.  12 year old Max Records’ performance was just phenomenal.  It was amazing to see the little guy carry a cast like that.  I have a feeling that this won’t be the last we see of Records.

Overall it was just a gorgeous film.  I loved the way it was filmed, and the Australian landscape was a great choice for filming the island of the “Wild Things.” And most importantly, the Karen O. scored soundtrack was a lovely match.  When it came time to record the record, Karen O. enlisted the help of several of her indie music peers, calling themselves Karen O. and the Kids.  The kids include Tristan Bechet (Services), Tom Biller (co-producer with Karen O and member of Afternoons), Bradford Cox (Deerhunter), Brian Chase (YYY), Dean Fertita (The Dead Weather), Aaron Hemphill (Liars), Greg Kurstin (The Bird and the Bee), Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather), Oscar Michel (Gris Gris), Imaad Wasif (New Folk Implosion), Nick Zinner (YYY) and an untrained children’s choir.  And trust me, you can expect the kind of greatness that should come from an all-star lineup like this