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CMU Approved CMU Playlists
Playlist: CMU Re-Approved
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 27 March 2013
Let’s take a moment once more, shall we, to look back through some recent CMU Approved columns, to pick out a selection of tracks that have since been properly released. This time we’re looking at artists who have featured in the column since late last year, with a playlist of the tracks originally featured. Though, with these tracks now attached to an album or EP release, you can delve further into the artists’ work if you wish. Or just take in the one track as it slips past on this playlist.
CMU’S RE-APPROVED TEN
Subscribe to this playlist on Spotify, and then read on to find out more about our choices.
01 Steve Mason – Fight Them Back
Taken from Mason’s new album, ‘Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time’, first single ‘Fight Them Back’ sees him, in line with the rest of the album, pull the difficult balancing act that is sending a message through an accessible song – laying angry, confrontational lyrics over laid back music.
02 Angel Olsen – Sweet Dreams
Following on from folk artist Angel Olsen’s ‘Half Way Home’ LP, released last September, on ‘Sweet Dreams’ her voice lights a glade of grey, thorny guitars.
03 Veronica Falls – My Heart Beats
New LP ‘Waiting For Something To Happen’ has a greater clarity of tone than releases preceding it and a new sense of space and panoramic sound, of leaving what’s really the best feature of any Veronica Falls track, its stepped boy-girl harmonics, to breathe.
04 Parquet Courts – Stoned And Starving
‘Stoned And Starving’ is, ironically given half its title, a sober story of having no money and nothing to do, something many other young Americans can sympathise with in this, the era of the ‘fiscal cliff’.
05 The Men – Electric
‘Electric’ is less manacled by the sheer incessant noise of The Men’s early LPs, thus leaving space and time between bars to realise it for what it is, a formidable chip off the ‘classic rock’ block.
06 Retro Stefson – Glow
Their first album to be released in the UK, the eponymous ‘Retro Stefson’ sees this band’s sound really reach maturity, mixing an eclectic range of influences from rock to house amazingly successfully.
07 Elliphant – Down On Life
‘Down On Life’ from Elliphant’s debut EP is nothing but exemplary alt-pop, a lurching, dancehall-furred leviathan birthed via Icona Pop/Niki & The Dove MDs Company Ten.
08 Lapalux – Guuurl
Soulful but experimental, ‘Guuurl’ carries on the same twisted R&B feel of Lapalux’s previous releases, though with perhaps more rounded edges.
09 Kate Boy – Northern Lights
Production team Rocket Boy’s slick but often understated music and Kate Akhurst’s voice wrap themselves around each other, one occasionally slipping loose and dancing over to the listener to make sure you know they know you’re there.
10 Dream Tiger – A Lover’s Regret
The first solo single from WHY? multi-instrumentalist Liz Wolf, ‘A Lover’s Regret’ is a dark, pulsing and atmospheric synth-based track, featuring dubstep-like pacing.
