This has been a long time coming, but today I’ve got 2 CDs worth of amazing summer music. The first disc is more folk based in keeping with last summer’s mix, with the second less folky but just as perfect for the summer afternoons in the sunshine.
We have a few of the bands that were on the last mix popping up again, but most on here have not been featured on TBW before. As I’ve been out of the game for a while, some of these have been around for a few months, and then of course there are a couple of older tracks thrown in for good measure. Also, as some people haven’t noticed – you an download each mp3 individually by the right clicking and choosing “save target as”.
Coeur de Pirate starts off the mix with a blissful and beautifully simple summer piano based piece. The vocals in french create ideas of a simpler time of love and life in the rural countryside.
Gregory and the Hawk offer a great bit of acoustic summery pop. The vocals and very clean production may lend this to some soundtracks in the future, but don’t let that put you off. Easy and relaxed.
Tom Brosseau has crafted exactly what I love about folk music that evokes green summery bliss. It may just be Tom and his guitar and feels familiar, but it is summer folk perfection. Where’s that cider festival right now?
Run Toto Run are on here for a cover of Passion Pit’s debut single ‘Sleepyhead’, which was fantastic in its own right, but here they take out all the sweet electrics and replace them with what sounds like a fiddle and yet somehow avoids sounding too sickly sweet. Once the chorus breaks in, the sun should break through the clouds.
Marina & The Diamonds have been making a name for themselves over the last twelve months, with neon Gold putting out a few records. Here they offer some perfectly formed harmonious pop with a beat that you can’t help tapping your foot to.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone have the rough production sound that gives their music a certain innocence, and ending this track with an organ line from when the saints go marching just adds to that view.
Jeffrey Lewis is one of those artists that has been established for a while but as I don’t have a history of folk was only recently introduced to him from a Song by Toad podcast. This is cute, funny and reflective, and a track I can’t get out of, even if it is a good few years old.
Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground are on here again with another pop song that sounds like it could have been produced by the Beatles back in the days of Revolver. I may be a Stones man, but pop and folk music came together in the 60s and this owes a lot to that time. Who can’t resist playing a little Beatles at a BBQ?
Drew Helsinki (McConnell) is another from the last mix. Compared to the last one we featured this track is less haphazard, but again shows off his skills for producing simple pop songs that fit on any playlist.
Laura Barrett is on here for a cover of a Harry Nilsson track which brings a xylophone, violins and whistling into the mix, how could I resist such American folk perfection? It demonstrates how we have always looked back to simpler times with rose tinted spectacles even since the industrial revolution.
Small Crew have written a effortless pop song of hope and chasing dreams. Something that is part of that gentle summer emotional reflection that forms plenty of my summer days.
Jay Jay Pistolet are another cropping up from last year and again have produced some folk mastery with Oh Caroline. A just wondrous guitar based folk love song with harmonies and an harmonica that demonstrates why folk music is summer music.
Mumford & Sons have been making a name for themselves over the past 6 months or so with their 3 EPs, following in the footsteps of Noah and the Whale and Johnny Flynn. More great new English folk.
Aidan Moffat & The Best Ofs may be one of the best band names I’ve heard in a while and here give us some more folky summery perfection, with some simple brush drumming and harmonicas tripping us through Aiden’s wonderful deep vocal drawl that almosts makes me think of a happy folk version of Johnny Cash.
The Crookes finish off the first disc pop folk track of stories of youthful and blissful love. Simple structure and catchy rhythms and a few hand claps makes this a fitting end for the first section of the mix.
1 Coeur de Pirate – Comme Des Enfants
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2 Gregory and the Hawk – Grey Weather
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3 Tom Brosseau – Favourite Colour Blue
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4 Run Toto Run – Sleepyhead
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5 Marina & The Diamonds – Mowgli’s Road
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6 Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Optimist vs. The Silent Alarm
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7 Jeffrey Lewis – Back When I Was 4
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8 Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground – Birds (On A Day Like Today)
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9 Drew Helsinki – Ampersand
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10 Laura Barrett – Nobody Cares About Railroads Anymore (Harry Nilsson cover)
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11 Small Crew – It’s Not Too Late Too Wait
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12 Jay Jay Pistolet – Oh Caroline
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13 Mumford & Sons – Roll Away Your Stone
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14 Aidan Moffat & The Best Ofs – Big Blonde
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15 The Crookes – Backstreet Lovers
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You can also download all 15 tracks as a zip file:
Summer Days through the Folkish Haze Vol.2 CD1
Ex Lovers starts of the second disc with an easy and almost tweepop track that reminds me of the good parts of Voxtrot from a few years ago. Now seems to be the perfect time for listening to such tracks if ever there was a time.
Heartless Bastards offer an effortless and timeless garage rock ballad with singer Erika Wennerstrom’s voice easily falling between that rock growl and pop harmony. Wonderful.
The Paper Cranes demonstrate their talents for crafting great pop songs here. They fold a number of clever riffs into one song that should sound over complicated, but somehow finds its way it being simple, cheery pop pop pop as they say on their MySpace
Doctors & Dealers are another to be able to make a very simple and familiar song feel somehow new and interesting with a few well placed harmonies and a foot-tapping beat throughout.
Elizabeth & The Catapult‘s Taller Children begins with just the vocals and drums making an easy pop song, before the rest of the band jumping in and making the whole thing a lot more interesting and showing off their rock and roll side which is always going to go down well with me.
Buke and Gass start off with a couple of pretty angular and disjointed riffs which slowly fall into place with the vocals. They are like a more pop YYYs, but with songs that blow the YYYs last album out the water.
Leopold And His Fiction have a track that reminds me of the Datsuns debut a good few years ago now. They might not have that bass driven growl, but write better 70s themed rock/pop than most actually did back in the decade.
The Fine Arts Showcase have written in ‘London, My Town’ one of my favourite tracks of the last six months. It is a wonderous rock/pop that sound familiar but new, rough round the edges and yet clean. I don’t how to pigeon-hole it right now and I don’t really want to, but you just need to listen.
Magic Wands are one of my bands to watch of the moment as they are regularly putting out catchy, danceable pop/rock and Black Magic shows off those quite impressive skills pretty well.
Goldhawks‘ ‘Where in the world’ may have been posted about within the last couple of months, but it is such an expansive and engrossing song that it fitted so well into this mix that I couldn’t leave it out.
Wolf Gang has a single out on the constantly amazing Neon Gold and have been on my radar for a little while now (thanks Angus). I have just been waiting for the mp3 and a good reason to share it. That is now, and here is a beautifully layered piece of unrepressed pop that should be on everyone’s summer soundtrack no-matter what genres you’re into.
1 Ex Lovers – Just A Silhouette
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2 Heartless Bastards – Searching For The Ghost
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3 The Paper Cranes – Telephone
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4 Doctors & Dealers – On The Dancefloor
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5 Elizabeth & The Catapult – Taller Children
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6 Buke and Gass – Rum For You
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7 Leopold And His Fiction – Come Back (Now That I’m Here)
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8 The Fine Arts Showcase – London, My Town
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9 Magic Wands – Black Magic
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10 Goldhawks – Where In The World
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11 Wolf Gang – Lions In Cages
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You can also download all 11 tracks as a zip file:
Summer Days through the Folkish Haze Vol.2 CD2
Or download both CDs (26 tracks) as a single zip file:
Summer Days through the Folkish Haze Vol.2
Thanks for the Coeur De Pirate mp3. Sigh, couldn’t find one anywhere.
Pleased I could help. She’s a wonderful pianist/songwriter. I was slightly amazed by the amount of tattoos she has in the photos though for such a sweet voice.
Bloody good as always, not very summery here (NZ) to appreciate the summerness fully as always but i will pull it out again in a few months! Run Toto cover is cool. Thanks.
i feel so out of the loop… there are a bunch of cool bands here i’ve never heard of before :(
Wow, I’m glad I stumbled upon your blog. This is a great collection of bands, most of which are new to me.
Thanks. We try…
a ton of bands I’ve never heard before! Thank you so much. :)
The Crookes kindly did a photo interview for us. If you like things like photos and music you should check it out here http://bit.ly/aHX23Z
[…] timing for the latest instalment of Summer days through the folkish haze (previously vols 1 and 2). As with all our mixtapes here on TBW, there are some bands you may know and others you wish you […]
Thanks for all the musical treats – lots of bands I hadn’t heard before.