The April Playlist

This past month of music has been the best month of music this year. Fact.

It has been a month of beautiful albums, starting with Fyfe's fluid Control and Kendrick Lamar's tempestuous To Pimp a Butterfly, continuing with Tobias Jesso Jr's resonant Goon, and ending with The Staves' angelic If I Was and Sufjan Stevens' poignant Carrie & Lowell.

The best album, though, has been James Bay's Chaos and the Calm. I was actually so surprised at how good it was. Hold Back the River is a ready-made classic, everyone loves it, but the depth of quality songs on the album is astonishing. I could have easily put ten on this month's playlist. In fact, I nearly wrote an entire article at the time of release, but that was more to do with the date at the time. Chaos and the Calm was released the day after Mother's Day and I have a personal link between my mum and James Bay. You see, my mum and I saw James Bay live back in October 2013 supporting Kodaline at The Institute. He was the first of two support acts, the other being Hudson Taylor (whose album was disappointingly a samey, verging on naff, collection of rerecorded hits from previous E.P.s I had initially enjoyed) and nobody knew who the hell this bloke in the hat was. It was just him, his acoustic, and a dramatic spotlight on him. It all created this kind of intrigued bystander atmosphere; nobody could dance or sing along. I remember When We Were On Fire and I thought he was good, but Hudson Taylor would later trump him for live atmosphere. I turned to my mum and said, "He's pretty good."
She grimaces, shakes her head. "Average." she said. She loves the album.

And amongst all of that was the return of Florence + The Machine. Two moody singles with some fire and attitude gets me incredibly excited for the full album. The hype is real.

I'm From Barcelona returned as well, though they've always been a little more low key. One of my favourite songs is The Artist, which featured on How I Met Your Mother back in the day, and, while their music has grown up a tad since then, I'm still a massive fan.

Have a good Easter weekend everybody!

The Playlist

California Nights Best Coast
Get To Know Charlie Belle
When I'm Away The Colourist
St. Jude Florence + The Machine
What Kind Of Man Florence + The Machine
For You Fyfe
Lies, Pt. II Fyfe
Jasper Hooton Tennis Club
Helium Heart I'm From Barcelona
Craving James Bay
Scars James Bay
Hold Back The River James Bay
These Walls Kendrick Lamar
Dust Little May
Time Capsule Little Simz feat. Caitlyn Scarlett
Paris Magic Man
Daffodil Days Oscar
I Want You Remi Miles
FourFiveSeconds Rihanna, Kanye West & Paul McCartney
Let Me Down The Staves
All Of Me Wants All Of You Sufjan Stevens
Loveblood Sundara Karma
Without You Tobias Jesso Jr
Hollywood Tobias Jesso Jr
Back To You Twerps
Sequential twinsmatic
Ripe 4 Luv Young Guv

Find the playlist via Google Play Music here.