Tag: The Polyphonic Spree

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Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2023, part four

Getting down to the wire now, heh? Just two more days left of 2023 after today. I think we might just manage it.

I usually do this thing sharing the final part of my ongoing annual playlist on the morning of New Years Eve but I’ve decided to switch it up for 2023. My last post of the year, the last word as it were, will be dedicated instead to my favourite album that the year offered us. It feels fitting now but we’ll see how it feels when it’s all said and done.

And I know I just inferred that the finish line is a welcome sight but honestly, 2023’s been a pretty good year. A marked improvement on the last, which was a huge leap forward on the previous two combined. I can’t really say things are back to normal* but they feel more familiar, if not weirdly surreal. The COVID is still around and the numbers still seem higher than they should be for a pandemic that is ‘over’ but we seem weirdly dismissive of it. Nonetheless, I’ve experienced a lot of post-pandemic firsts this year, like the first time back in the office, first time meeting some of my colleagues in person, first indoor concert, first train ride, first road trip across the border, whew. All of it has been exciting but also saddening for all the experiences that we collectively missed out on.

I don’t really want to talk about everything else that’s been going on in the world because it’s more than just a little crazy, so many deaths and so much damage and so much loss. So I’m just going to get back to the music. These last twenty five songs is a blend of new ones released over the last three months and a few b-sides, songs that had been released earlier on but for some reason, I missed them the first time around or just couldn’t fit them.

If you haven’t already perused them, I invite you to go have a look-see at parts one, two, and three. If you’re already in the know, have a gander at the highlights:

      • Kicking things off right with “Real life” a new song from the raw and frenetic Canadian indie rock trio, The Rural Alberta Advantage
      • Emma Anderson‘s (ex of Lush and Sing-Sing) debut solo album “Pearlies” has lots of great moments that show she hasn’t lost her dream pop sensibilities and “The presence” might be the closest sounding to epic Lush of the bunch
      • As Trans-Canada Highwaymen, Canadian 90s alt-rock royalty, Steven Page, Chris Murphy, Moe Berg, and Craig Northey unleashed an album of 70s Can-rock covers, like this faithful take on The Guess Who’s “”Undun”
      • “Panopticom” is the first track on the first new album of new material by Peter Gabriel in 21 years and shows he’s still incredible at what he does
      • Toronto-based Breeze gifted us 90s alt rock aficionados with an early Christmas present with a new album that includes the wonderful “Ready for love”
      • The dreamy “Amnesia” by M83 is definitely unforgettable
      • “Cicciolina”, from Cumgirl8‘s debut release on 4AD show that raw inventiveness that brought the legendary indie label to sign them

Here is the entire playlist as I’ve created it:

1. “Real life” The Rural Alberta Advantage (from the album The rise & the fall)

2. “Will anybody ever love me?” Sufjan Stevens (from the album Javelin)

3. “Nothing is perfect” Metric (from the album Formentera II)

4. “I want it all” The Drums (from the album Jonny)

5. “Full time job” Squirrel Flower (from the album Tomorrow’s fire)

6. “Is this love” Pip Blom feat. Alex Kapranos (from the album Bobbie)

7. “The presence” Emma Anderson (from the album Pearlies)

8. “Laff it off” Pony Girl (from the album Laff it off)

9. “Undun” Trans-Canada Highwaymen (from the album Explosive hits, vol. 1)

10. “Baby blue” Sundara Karma (from the album Better luck next time)

11. “So many plans” Beirut (from the album Hadsel)

12. “Give me everything” The Polyphonic Spree (from the album Salvage enterprise)

13. “Another life” Spector (from the album Here come the early nights)

14. “Panopticom (Dark-side mix)” Peter Gabriel (from the album I/O)

15. “Ready for love” Breeze (from the album Sour grapes)

16. “Don’t say it’s over” Gaz Coombes (from the album Turn the car around)

17. “Amnesia” M83 (from the album Fantasy)

18. “XIII” Dark Horses (from the album While we were sleeping)

19. “Pontius Pilate’s home movies” The New Pornographers (from the album Continue as a guest)

20. “Pick” Fenne Lily (from the album Big picture)

21. “Everything is sweet” Sophie Ellis-Bextor (from the album Hana)

22. “Now that’s what I call obscene” The Boo Radleys (from the album Eight)

23. “I inside the old year dying” PJ Harvey (from the album I inside the old year dying)

24. “Cicciolina” Cumgirl8 (from the EP Phantasea Pharm)

25. “Coming home” Echo Ladies (from the album Lilies)

Apple initiates can click here to sample the above tracks as a whole playlist.

And as always, wherever you are in the world, I hope you continue to be well. Above all, enjoy the tunes.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: In the summertime

Earlier this year, I had this brilliant idea to make a series of seasonal-themed playlists and post each on these pages on the first day of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. The idea was inspired by my friend Andrew Rodriguez, who has posited in the past that there are certain songs and albums that just scream out a particular season to him. I think there’s something to his idea and wanted to shared the love and expand upon it.

My playlist for Spring, the aptly titled “The first day of spring”, went off without a hitch. It was predictably full of the hope and pent-up excitement that the season brings and I posted it right on time. Of course, and incidentally, my summer playlist wasn’t as punctual. I had it made in time for the turning of the season on the calendar date but perhaps something in me felt that the time wasn’t quite right. Indeed, if you listen to these twenty-five tracks, it just screams out from the depths and the heights of mid-summer, wavering between the hazy and languid, and the all out beach and patio party.

Yes, I know August is more than half over and the kids are heading back to school soon but that doesn’t mean we have to let the summer end. As long as the sun beats down on us and the patios remain open, we can stretch this thing out and enjoy it to the fullest. So I suggest we put this playlist on repeat, turn it up, and get ready to “Lay back in the sun” and hit as many “Happy hour”s as we can.

Other highlights on this mix include:

    • “In the summertime”, the title track and opening number sets the tone with love
    • Camera Obscura’s “Lloyd, I’m ready to be heartbroken” isn’t necessarily linked to the season lyrically but it definitely has the feel that we wished all summers had
    • “Island in the sun” is Weezer as The Beach Boys and resulted in one of their biggest ever hits
    • I remember first hearing Smash Mouth’s retro fling, “Walkin’ on the sun” in the summer of 1997, falling for it, and then, falling all over myself trying to find their album in the stores
    • Black Box Recorder’s lovely cover of the wistful “Seasons in the sun”, a song originally made famous by Canadian Terry Jacks

For those who don’t use Spotify or if the embedded playlist below doesn’t work for you, here is the entire playlist (complete with YouTube links) as I’ve created it:

1. The Rural Alberta Advantage “In the summertime”
2. The Housemartins “Happy hour”
3. Primal Scream “Higher than the sun”
4. Young Galaxy “New summer”
5. Doves “Catch the sun”
6. Camera Obscura “Lloyd, I’m ready to be heartbroken”
7. Galaxy 500 “Fourth of July”
8. The Airborne Toxic Event “The girls in their summer dresses”
9. Weezer “Island in the sun”
10. Pink Mountaintops “The second summer of love”
11. Violent Femmes “Blister in the sun”
12. The Polyphonic Spree “Light & day / Reach for the sun”
13. The Pogues “Summer in Siam”
14. Spiritualized “Lay back in the sun”
15. The Sundays “Summertime”
16. Rachel Goswell “Warm summer sun”
17. Munroe “Summer”
18. Belle and Sebastian “Another sunny day”
19. Shannon Lay “August”
20. Vampire Weekend “Cape Cod kwassa Bkwassa”
21. Smash Mouth “Walkin’ on the sun”
22. Dodgy “Staying out for the summer”
23. Black Box Recorder “Seasons in the sun”
24. The Jezabels “Endless summer”
25. The Decemberists “Anti-summersong”

And as I’ve said before, I’ll say again: Wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe and continue to be well. Until next time, enjoy the tunes.

For those of you who are on Spotify, feel free to look me up. My user name is “jprobichaud911”.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2002: #14 The Polyphonic Spree “Light & day / Reach for the sun”

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The Polyphonic Spree has already appeared twice on these pages: once for their cover of Nirvana’s “Lithium” for my ‘100 best covers’ series and for the second time, this very song was included on the playlist I created from bands I’ve seen as opening acts. In both of those posts, I wrote about how I discovered the band because of their opening spot on David Bowie’s “Reality” tour so I won’t bother rehashing that tale. Instead, I just want to say a few words about a great film called “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”. (Bet you didn’t see that one coming.)

If you haven’t seen it, the film is a weird, wonderful, and truly beautiful story about love, starring Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey. It was directed by Michel Gondry and the screenplay was written by Charlie Kaufman so that might give an inkling of you might be in for, should you decide to watch it. (And if you do, I’ll try not to spoil it for you with any of the following words.) It’s a film told out of sequence and through the use of memories (and lack thereof) in Jim Carrey’s character’s head. He has just recently broken off a two year relationship with Winslet’s character, who has taken the drastic next step of erasing him from her memories. In a vengeful fit, he decides to do the same. What we see in the film is this very process and posits answers to questions like: what happens when he decides he doesn’t want to forget her anymore? What happens should these two meet up with each other after they have both had this process done? Is the love we feel for another just a culmination of the memories and images we have of the other person or is it something bigger, something more innate, more ingrained in our natural fabric?

I originally watched this film while living in a basement apartment in Vanier with my wife. I think it was likely a few months after the release date early in 2004 because I remember getting a copy of the DVD from the Ottawa Public Library. I watched it by myself and then convinced Victoria to watch it with me a few days later. We both loved it, of course, though I was probably slightly more enamoured with it. I’ve since seen parts of it on television and whenever I do, I linger on the channel if I have the time and just appreciate the ingenuity of how the story is told. Just last week, I rewatched the whole film again when I saw that this post was on deck for me to write.

And in case you’re wondering why all the talk of the film, this song, “Light & day / Reach for the sun”, (as well as another of the group’s tracks) is on the soundtrack for “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”, though I never did place it within the film itself. (Let me know if you are able to do so.) It originally appeared on The Polyphonic Spree’s debut album, “The beginning stages of…”, and was released as a single the following year, along with its original video. The video was redone (see below) when the song was included on the soundtrack and the band began to pick up more steam. It is just as quirky as the film and the gigantic, cult-like band itself and features scenes from the film with superimposed mouths singing words of the song.

Have a look and let some sunshine in on your life.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2002 list, click here.