The weather over in the UK is picking up so there’s a few things that need to be done: take scissor to denim and create new Summer shorts from old jeans; go on art gallery crawls with vodka and mixer surreptitiously blended in a mineral water bottle and do both of these things with head-phones on listening to sunny-sounding mixes . It’s like the Manchester equivalent of a reverse-tribal-rain-dance - folk out here occasionally ditch The Smiths and listen to optimistic music instead in the hope that the rain will stop and the sun will come out for a few minutes.
First up, Jesse over at Humili posted a mix entitled Fuck Art Let’s Dance. Good sentiment and great tunes, in particular Hot Chip’s laid-back promises in Over and Over never seem to get old:
Friend of EndTopic’s DisecoPodcast, Kikellamas, serves up a steaming hot cup of guitars, with a side-portion of beats, in mix form. After an introduction from sultry squeaky-voiced duo CocoRosie, there are cuts from Elliot Smith, Cat Power, Kings of Convenience and, amongst other mellow gems, Peter, Bjorn and John’s whistle-a-long classic Young Folks:
Our final choice is Avant-Avant’s La jeunesse mix by Jr. Tricolore de Numéro - it gets to the point almost immediately, this is marching music, building to a solid electro-ridden, four-on-the-floor groove within the first few minutes. Expect Hugg & Pep, Xiu Xiu, and Audion, climaxing somewhat unexpectedly (yet not inappropriately) with Severed Heads:
