CMU Playlists

Playlist: Outfit

By | Published on Thursday 21 June 2012

Outfit

Hailing from the Wirral and now based in London, Outfit struck a significant first chord with the darkling dancefloor opus that was their six minute-spanning debut single, ‘Two Islands’. The band further show their scope in their just-released debut EP ‘Another Night’s Dreams Reach Earth Again’, as features the funk-laced electronica of ‘Drakes’ and ominous psych paean ‘Dashing In Passing’.

Now poised for appearances at this year’s Beacons, Underage and End Of The Road festivals; the band’s Thomas Gorton, Andrew Hunt, Nicholas Hunt, Christopher Hutchinson and David Berger have pooled their collective tastes to compile an ensemble CMU Playlist for us.

Introducing their ten best-loved tracks, they say: “As a group of people, we have very different tastes in music. We try and stay open-minded. Style is just a way of getting a message across, or a way of representing a unique character. As a group of people we admire others who have style and character and therefore we look for that in music too. This playlist is just some of the tracks we’ve been enjoying recently. It’s not tightly ‘curated’, it is just some moments in pop music which meant something to us. And maybe to you, too”.

OUTFIT’S TEN
Click here to listen to Outfit’s playlist in Spotify, and then read on to find out more about the band’s choices.

01 Luke Abbott – Brazil
Abbot epitomises the Border Community sound that we’ve come to love as a band. Droning synths and dusty drum patterns. And there’s a totally 1970s rock feel to this track, I think. Hear the “chug”, like ZZ Top for backpacker electro nerds.

02 Arthur Russell – Janine
Can’t say enough about this man, and thankfully a lot of other people have recently, so I don’t need to. But I love this period of his songwriting, Fleetwood Mac-style perfect pop tunes, but with that distinctive voice and style of song structure that only he does.

03 Bo’Tox – Blue Steel
A stone cold classic. From the guy who does Cosmo Vitelli, it’s a beautiful dance floor slug which slowly slides between electro melodicism and 1990s Garbage-esque melancholia.

04 Robert Wyatt – Shipbuilding
It’s a song written about shipyards reopening in Birkenhead (where we’re from) to make ships for the Falklands. A heartbreaking vocal from Wyatt, but the lyrics by Elvis Costello really make it.

05 The Birthday Party – Happy Birthday
Perfect post punk guitar. Sounds like he’s using strings made of foil.

06 Tuxedomoon – In A Manner Of Speaking
These lyrics, they say a lot. They were one of the most interesting and artful bands to come from 1970s/1980s New York and their appearances on shows like ‘TV Party’ make me wish I had been born somewhere else, some other time…

07 Broadcast – Until Then
We’ve been playing this album a lot recently whilst writing new Outfit songs, it has such a beautiful balance of pretty melody and abrasive textures. She sounds as calm as Nico, but so much more human.

08 Soul Clap – Lonely C
Soul Clap have also been getting heavy rotation in the Outfit household, mostly on account of their wonderful vocal treatments, and their thorough understanding of 1980s and 1990s synth pop and funk. There is room for E Funk in 2012. P Funk has too much distorted guitar, G Funk too much gold and stuff.

09 Grizzly Bear – He Hit Me
The Crystals’ classic done by Grizzly Bear. Both bands are firm favourites, the former for their pop economy and the latter for their scope and ambition. If only there was a band trying to do both things….

10 Franki Valli & The Four Seasons – The Night
Dave [Outfit drummer] has been playing this a lot over the past few weeks. Shut your eyes and tell me the first minute of this song doesn’t sound like it was released in 2010… great hushed vocals, and surprisingly good lyrics.



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