The Serious, the Silly and the Sublime!
30/06/25
Hello pals! I recently finished
excellent book, The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned a million pounds. A must read! (Or at least read this piece about them by .) It’s full of curious tales, magical thinking and mind bending connections. I was therefore very pleased with the delightful synchronicity of Dev Hynes aka Blood Orange (on the playlist this week) posting a picture on Instagram of The KLF’s book, The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way). Higg’s book is full of little coincidences like this, a reminder that if you want to find connections in this world, you absolutely will. The KLF was a bizarre project by two men who I can only describe as chaos soulmates, and whatever you think about their music or what they did, they absolutely had imagination! They were committed to their vision of what music, art and society should be; the results of their ideas might often have been silly or to be frank, insane, but they were rooted in a true sense of imagination and vision.There are two artists with new releases out this week who, to me, epitomise both of these ideas and I put it to you that Dev Hynes and Caroline Polachek are two of the great artists of our times, consistently delivering singular sonic worlds that don’t sacrifice accessibility for creativity. They’re both on the playlist this week as well as everyone’s favorite old young man Mac DeMarco, aging millennial dad’s number one bros, Animal Collective, Gen Z’s Norah Jones and a song that sounds like Taylor Swift meets Wheatus. Some of these songs are definitely higher on vision and imagination than others, but I leave it to you to decide which ones. Simply put there’s something for everyone! The serious, the silly and the sublime!
PS - The new Lorde album is out and the only reason nothing from it is on the list this week is that I haven’t had time to give it my full attention yet. But take a walk or a drive and give it yours.
Apple Music Playlist
On this beautiful song, more manifesto than poem, Anna Tivel gracefully finds the profound in the ordinary. It’s an elegant ode to all of us: to chaos, to the sorry and to the sweet; an acknowledgment that living is a creative act, that meaning can be plucked from anything, that if you’re lucky enough, you can make the world you want.
This is not the song I expected from the drummer of Paramores, a band I do not care for, although I think I was just too old for the teenage-angst required for it. We’re pretty far from angst here, instead we have a laid back, gentle steel guitar tinged song with what sound to me like little nods to Clair de Lune.
On this beautiful song Mac DeMarco gives us something that sounds like a lost Beatles demo, a song that sounds like a memory. Maybe this has always been part of his charm, to somehow embody both the goofy student with a guitar, eating cereal for dinner as well as the old man with a regret tinged voice looking back, his very own songs of innocence and experience.
Ok I have actually wanted to put a Laufey track on the playlist for ages because I am genuinely surprised at how much Gen Z love her. Crazy to me to see teenagers get so into this. Where is the angst? Shouldn’t you be listening to like Kneecap while angrily puffing your watermelon vape instead of putting on literally a song that is going to make your mom sonically white wine drunk? Your mom is going to invite her bookclub/pilates friends over any minute if you continue to play this! I suppose though that every generation must have their Norah Jones Come Away with Me moment, an album I will admit that I loved, but that was really so deeply uncool that it doesn’t even have nostalgic appeal. To be fair Laufey is way more interesting, her arrangements are really quite delightful. She’s the Disney princess of pop jazz and and I am absolutely into it.
This song is not actually about Davina Mccall (if you do not know who she is she’s a v well-known TV presenter in the UK) rather it is about “ pure, unadulterated devotion,” and it’s an unusually light and subdued offering from the band, but I love it. Its fuzzy nostalgia reminds me of a Strokes song.
You can tell Fine is Scandinavian with just a cursory listen, these girls are just all so good at the understated sexy. Fine went to the same Copenhagen conservatory as other Scandi dream girls, Erika de Casier, ML Buch, and Astrid Sonne and she and de Casier co-wrote some tracks for the K-pop group NewJeans, which you can listen to here and here. She and Sonne also have a new project called Coined. Look what happens when you fund the arts! This track is another woozy bruise of a song that she’s so good at making.
Dev Hynes has to my mind one of the most enviable careers out there. Musically he’s as happy in a concert hall as he is in a mosh pit, there’s all the conservatory skill without the snobish-ness, which makes him one of the most interesting, imaginative people making music at the moment. On this song he samples The Durutti Column as well as enlisting the help of a spectacular array of musicians, to make a song that feels tricky to define, that begs to be listened to over and over.
Part of the brilliance of Caroline Polachek is the way she tows a line between the primeval and the futuristic, and on this song both those forces are turned all the way up. Her ancient, operatic vocals on top of the grimy synth dance chords which swell into the most beautiful sway of sound; this song sounds like it belongs to a different world, which since it’s a song created for the soundtrack for the new PlayStation 5 video game Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, is exactly where it will live.
I love Animal Collective so much so there was no way I was going to not like this song. It’s them at their classic, fuzzy, joyful romp of a chorus best.
There’s a real lack of pretense in everything Charmaine Ayoku aka dexter in the newsagent does, from her IG page to the name of her previous EP, I Do Love a Good Sandwich, you can’t help but root for her. The music makes it easy to do that and on this polished track you can hear the influence of PinkPantheress, although it’s a open summertime window version of it. For a song about wanting, it’s as cool as a cucumber.
It’s been a good long while since I put a pure pop chart hit on here, but this track popped into my inbox courtesy of the always excellent All Things Go newsletter, Dear Besties, and it sounds so much like Teenage Dirtbag meets Anti-Hero that it entirely won me over. Sometimes the familiar just works, and I think 22 year old Alessi Rose is going to be pretty big, she’s currently opening for Dua Lipa on the European leg of her tour and supporting Tate McRae on her U.S. arena tour.
I was on the fence about this song until I thought about my friends and having fun for 2 minutes and this song just seemed sort of perfect for a mindless summer montage. Princess Nokia has this to say about it:
“‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’ is a salacious summer anthem that’s all about de-centering men and causing trouble with your girls. It creates a fantasy landscape where girls are lawless, summer is forever and Halloween is around the corner.”
Terrible, ridiculous description, but also absolutely correct and perfect.
'Years after the K Foundation had ended, Drummond had a flash of insight. "Most of the people who wrote about what we did, and the TV programme that was made about it, made a mistake," he said. "I was only able to articulate it to myself afterwards with hindsight. They thought we were using our money to make a statement about art, and really what we were doing was using our art to make a statement about money."'
Love the Princess Nokia, perfect nonsense and she's well earned the right to jack that Charli XCX beat