Tracks - page 42

I’m utterly obsessed right now with PSB’s audio-visual blend. There’s just something wonderfully uplifting in all of it: a sense of optimism, of hope, and of achievement. And of course there’s a highly satisfying seam...

I’m writing this in advance, and predicting that after two nights at a beer festival, this will be about the right pace for a much needed sunday chill.

Nothing is real. Here, REM employ their trick of the shiny happy song that isn’t. It’s a sugar-sweet track for people who still think The One I Love is romantic. It was a fake: it...

Balearic indie with a hint of Jack Penate (enjoyable second album, not irritating debut) and a pinch of the lyrical opaqueness of Everything Everything (the lyric probably comprises actual words, and some of them probably...

Timeless brilliance. I don’t think I need to say any more.

I always hate it when I get into a TV series only to find out some knuckleheaded channel decision-maker canned it after a couple of series because it had about five viewers too few. At...

I was going to start out by admitting to a bit of a literal pick today with this typically weekendish track from the good-time funlovin’ Oxford britpoppers, but the orange disk and blue skies from...

If you aren’t familiar with, or a fan of, the British sitcom Peep Show, then this won’t strike you as a particularly sunny or uplifting track, and with lines like ‘Paranoia, paranoia, everybody’s coming to...

How anyone can spin a ball the width of Gatting boggles the mind

Really, what’s not to like? Cute animals and a laid back holiday vibe. True, if you peer at the surface for long enough (not all that long actually) you’ll see through the veneer of blissful...

It’s really hard to find novels about the music industry that aren’t entirely populated by sleazy scumbags you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemies. Disconcertingly, the more you read about the reality of the industry,...

Set aside some time for this one - you’ll need it, but it’s well worth the effort.

Before the highly and diversely talented Björk embarked on her solo career, all kooky screams and smiles, she was, of course, lead singer of Icelandic band The Sugarcubes, doing pretty much the same thing, only...

In 2001, M83 were a vaguely shoegazey dreamsynth French outfit releasing a debut self-titled album. By 2011, they’d transformed into an epic double album releasing group, capable of unleashing a cathedral of electronic sound.

Apart from the vocals, everything you hear is sampled.

File under “not so easy to google”, along with !!!. -M- (his more retrievable given name is Matthieu Chedid) hails from a musical French family, and created his on-stage persona to combat his natural shyness....

The trouble with producing inoffensive melodic indie pop is that there’s already so much of it to go around; new songs sometimes make only a tiny splash in the melodic indie pop pond, and the...

Something German, I feel, in honour of this evening’s Champions League final. Also, something for the Giro, and coming Tour. And really, something beautiful and entrancing, and comfortably the greatest 30 year old electronic track...

Sometimes I am a google ninja, finding the facts that you can’t. Other times I am just a dumb guy who likes a TV theme tune but doesn’t even think to look it up, which...

The sound of summer, as channelled through the creative hive-mind of a bunch of Barcelona-based Basques. I highly recommend you listen to the Stay Close remixes and 2010’s Ayrton Senna EP, the first three seconds...