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Playlists: songs that raise or lower your heart rate

October 25, 2023 Peter Kimpton

Elvis Costello. But which side?

What music pumps up, or becalms your pulse? From fast pace, to a fierce vocal, searing lyrics, to minimalism, silence and space? Inspired by nominations from last week’s topic, guest playlister MussoliniHeadkick picks two highly effective and contrasting A-lists …

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In African, avant-garde, classical, country, dance, disco, drone, electronica, experimental, folk, funk, indie, hip hop, instrumentals, jazz, krautrock, music, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, psychedelia, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, songs, soul Tags songs, playlists, heartbeat, health, The Saints, The Undertones, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Elvis Costello, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Brian Eno, 23 Skidoo, Deep Sensation, Afronaught, Double Exposure, The Mighty Clouds of Joy, Lotti Golden, Erik Satie, Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Luca, Sister Drum, Miles Davis, Don Rendell, Ian Carr Quintet, Jan Hammer, Max Richter, Andrew Duhon, The Fire Engines, CYB, Death In Vegas, Chris and Cosey, Robert Haigh, Sema, MussoliniHeadkick, Leftfield
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Playlists: songs about paradise

July 13, 2022 Peter Kimpton

Lost Horizon (1937), based on James Hilton’s 1933 novel

Heaven can wait, so they say, but there’s no longer a need, but a musical utopia is here in a fabulous collection of playlists picked by guest of the week Nicko, taking us to a better place and inspired by last week’s topic

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In African, avant-garde, blues, calypso, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, drone, dub, electronica, experimental, folk, funk, gospel, hip hop, indie, instrumentals, jazz, music, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, psychedelia, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, songs, soul, soundtracks, traditional Tags songs, playlists, Shangri La, paradise, Utopia, B.W. Stevenson, The Flames, Sundae Times, Jesca Hoop, The 13th Floor Elevators, The O'Jays, Aldous Harding, Edwyn Collins, Ethel Waters, Buzzcocks, Gregory Isaacs, Sade, Billy Fury, Seaman Dan, Charlie Parker, Slapp Happy, Gene Austin, Shawn Phillips, Eden Ahbez, Lorraine Bowen, Frentel, The Eagles, Mischief Brew, Bob Dylan, Suzanne Vega, ELO, Missy Higgins, The Undertones, The Pretenders, Spinetta y Los Socios Del Desierto, Trio Matamoros, El Gran Combo, William Onyeabor, Rufus & Chaka Khan, Coolio, Icehouse, Fiction Factory, The Space Negros, Tony Bennett, Harry McClintock, Joni Mitchell, The Kinks, Amen Corner, The Last Shadow Puppets, The Staple Singers, Stevie Wonder, Chuck Berry, Talking Heads, Joe Smooth, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Seal, OPM, Meatloaf, Gabriel Fauré, Judy Garland, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Manecas Costa, Eurogliders, war, Johnnie Taylor, Deep Sensation, Gwen Guthrie, Les Djibos, Konono No 1, Nicko
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DRINK OF THE WEEK

Screwdriver

SNACK OF THE WEEK

Dorset Knobs

New Albums …

Featured
Juanita Stein - Weightless Hour.jpeg
Dec 3, 2024
Juanita Stein: The Weightless Hour
Dec 3, 2024

New album: This fourth solo album the the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of Australian indie band Howling Bells deals with heavy subjects with a light touch, a sparseness of style, and emotional potency

Dec 3, 2024
Papa M - Ballads of Harry Houdini.jpeg
Dec 3, 2024
Papa M: Ballads of Harry Houdini
Dec 3, 2024

New album: The alt-rock LA-based musician from Louisville, Kentucky, aka David Pajo, returns with six long-ish numbers, not necessarily themed around the famous escape artist, but packed with ear-catching, meaty, thrumming, sometimes looped, and always dynamic guitar work and rhythmic experimentation

Dec 3, 2024
Kendrick Lamar - GNX.jpeg
Nov 27, 2024
Kendrick Lamar: GNX
Nov 27, 2024

New album: Braggadocio, flamboyant personas and diss rap is nothing new in hip hop, but the genre’s current chief innovator and Pulitzer Prize winner presents an artfully inventive form filled with eye-poppingly agile, madcap, mischievous wordsmithery, in this surprise new release filled with playful stylistic switches and some surprise targets

Nov 27, 2024
American Railroad by Silkroad Ensemble, Rhiannon Giddens.jpeg
Nov 27, 2024
Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens: American Railroad
Nov 27, 2024

New album: The latest in the Nashville singer’s projects with an international collective of musicians interprets traditional creates new folk songs, themed the tough history of the US rail frontier that was mostly built by Irish, African American, Chinese and Japanese immigrants

Nov 27, 2024
Poppy Ajudha - Poppy.jpeg
Nov 25, 2024
Poppy Ajudha: Poppy
Nov 25, 2024

New album: The south London singer-songwriter’s sophomore LP takes different direction to her 2022’s more social and political issue-based debut The Power In Us, with a more mainstream route of stylish, smart, soaring pop, soul and R&B centred on fraught, divided, candid emotions

Nov 25, 2024
Jack Cheshire - Interloper.jpeg
Nov 25, 2024
Jack Cheshire: Interloper
Nov 25, 2024

New album: Following 2020’s acclaimed Fractal Future Plays, the British experimental musician returns with his sixth LP, an excellent exploration across pastoral psychedelia, lysergic polyrhythms and beautiful field recordings on tricky themes of belonging in age of post-Brexit and gentrification

Nov 25, 2024
Kim Deal - Nobody Loves You More.jpeg
Nov 23, 2024
Kim Deal: Nobody Loves You More
Nov 23, 2024

New album: After various singles over the years, the former Pixies member, and Breeders musician finally releases her first full solo album, a truly fabulous execution of superb songwriting, sharp, heartbreak lyrics, diverse musical styles and instruments across indie, rock and pop, all performed with beautiful tenderness, grit and gusto

Nov 23, 2024
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Nov 23, 2024
Michael Kiwanuka: Small Changes
Nov 23, 2024

New album: A fourth album by the Mercury prize-winner, another gorgeously crafted and performed set of songs drawing on 70s soul and slowly simmering psychedelic rock, and the third produced by Danger Mouse and Inflo

Nov 23, 2024
Mahashmashana by FATHER JOHN MISTY.jpeg
Nov 22, 2024
Father John Misty: Mahashmashana
Nov 22, 2024

New album: The king of killer opening lines Josh Tillman returns with another majestic, beautifully melodic, grandiose, playfully clever, darkly humorous and philosophical set of eight epic songs fuelled by a sense of mortality and enduring irony

Nov 22, 2024
Fazerdaze - Soft Power.jpeg
Nov 19, 2024
Fazerdaze: Soft Power
Nov 19, 2024

New album: This sophomore album by New Zealand singer-songwriter Amelia Rahayu Murray is dreamy, soft-sheen, shoegazey “bedroom stadium” electro-pop and indie on themes of womanhood, devotion and compassion

Nov 19, 2024
She Drew The Gun - Howl.jpeg
Nov 19, 2024
She Drew The Gun: Howl
Nov 19, 2024

New album: Powerful, passionate highly accomplished fourth indie-rock album by singer/songwriter Louisa Roach and band from Wirral in Merseyside, one broadening her musical scope and perspective, not just socio-political and soul-searching personal, but also spanning eons, fuelled by some personal heartbreak

Nov 19, 2024
Ventre unique by Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp.jpeg
Nov 18, 2024
Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp: Ventre Unique
Nov 18, 2024

New album: Wonderfully energetic, rhythmic stylish, inventive and witty sixth album by the 12-piece experimental Geneva collective who sing politically in French and English, their music decorated with oodles of of clever brass, violins, double-bass, marimbas, percussion and more

Nov 18, 2024
Sophie Royer - Young-Girl Forever.jpeg
Nov 18, 2024
Sofie Royer: Young-Girl Forever
Nov 18, 2024

New album: The California-born, Vienna-based Iranian-Austrian multidisciplinary artist’s newest LP is a very catchy mix of eclectic, political and mainstream, electro-pop, disco and new wave, centred on the contradictions of being a female artist today with all of its freedoms and capitalist trappings

Nov 18, 2024
Du Blonde - Sniff More Gritty.jpeg
Nov 17, 2024
Du Blonde: Sniff More Gritty
Nov 17, 2024

New album: With a startling new look, the multi-talented British singer-songwriter and video artist Beth Jeans Houghton returns with her powerfully anthemic glam rock, grunge pop and fuzz guitar indie in this follow-up to 2021’s Homecoming

Nov 17, 2024

new songs …

Featured
Cloth - Polaroid.jpeg
Dec 2, 2024
Song of the Day: Cloth - Polaroid
Dec 2, 2024

Song of the Day: After last year’s beautifully crafted and spun Secret Measure album, the Glasgow twins Rachael and Paul Swinton return with a thrumming, evocative, vivid new indie-pop number around the theme of memory capture, out on Mogwai’s label Rock Action Records

Dec 2, 2024
Bonnie Prince Billy - The Purple Bird.jpeg
Dec 1, 2024
Song of the Day: Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Our Home (featuring Tim O'Brien)
Dec 1, 2024

Song of the Day: Homely, toe-tapping, but as ever, wittily droll, Kentucky singer-songwriter Will Oldham returns with a very Nashville-style folk-country number with fiddle and Grammy-winning mandolinist Tim O’Brien, heralding a new album, The Purple Bird on 31 January via Domino Records

Dec 1, 2024
The Priscillas - Plastic.jpeg
Nov 30, 2024
Song of the Day: The Priscillas - Plastic
Nov 30, 2024

Song of the Day: Panache-filled, punchy panic by the glamorous London power-punk quartet in this new single about how one of the planet’s biggest polluting problems goes down to cellular level, with menacing guitars and bass lines, driving drums, and sharp, dynamic vocal harmonies

Nov 30, 2024
KuleeAngee - Animated Love.jpeg
Nov 29, 2024
Song of the Day: KuleeAngee - Animated Love
Nov 29, 2024

Song of the Day: A fabulous toe-tapping, funk-disco, acid-house-influenced, talky-vocal indie-electronica groove debut by the Scottish duo of Duncan Grant and Keshav Kanabar, out on the Manchester indie label, Lab Records

Nov 29, 2024
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Nov 28, 2024
Song of the Day: The Ocelots - The Good of a Bad Year
Nov 28, 2024

Song of the Day: This beautiful, gently paced, piano-based single, about highlighting overlooked moments of joy, heralds the forthcoming new album Everything, When Said Slowly, by the Leipzig-based Irish twin brothers Ashley and Brandon Watson from Wexford

Nov 28, 2024
Les Amazones d’Afrique - Wa Jo.jpeg
Nov 27, 2024
Song of the Day: Les Amazones d’Afrique - Wa Jo (featuring Jemiriye and Mamani Ke​ï​ta)
Nov 27, 2024

Song of the Day: A fabulous, feisty, Afro-electro dance track by the female collective, calling for women of all sizes to unite on the dancefloor ‘without fear or worry’ and featuring newest member Nigerian singer Jemiriye on lead vocals alongside founding member Mamani Keïta

Nov 27, 2024
Sophie Jamieson.jpeg
Nov 26, 2024
Song of the Day: Sophie Jamieson - How Do You Want To Be Loved?
Nov 26, 2024

Song of the Day: A gorgeous, gut-wrenching, intimate folk and electronica single by the London-based singer-songwriter about trying to find forgiveness when faced with pain, from the upcoming album, I Still Want To Share, out on 17 January 2025 on Bella Union

Nov 26, 2024
Sasami - Blood on the Silver Screen.jpeg
Nov 25, 2024
Song of the Day: SASAMI - Just Be Friends
Nov 25, 2024

Song of the Day: Superbly soaring, stirring, classy melodic rock-pop by the Los Angeles singer-songwriter and classically trained French horn player Sasami Ashworth, with a new single about that sense of dizzying longing in that in-between state of an ambiguous relationship, and heralding her next album, Blood On The Silver Screen

Nov 25, 2024
Kelora.jpeg
Nov 24, 2024
Song of the Day: Kelora - Something Else
Nov 24, 2024

Song of the Day: Mesmeric, shimmering, haunting psychedelic dream pop and cyber folk by the Glasgow-formed, London-based duo of Kitty Hall and Benedict Salter, heralding their new album, Sleepers, out on 10 February via True Panther Records

Nov 24, 2024
Marie Davidson.jpeg
Nov 23, 2024
Song of the Day: Marie Davidson - Sexy Clown
Nov 23, 2024

Song of the Day: The Canadian DJ-producer, electronic musician and vocalist returns with a sassy, talky, catchy, witty electro-pop dance number heralding her new album, City of Clowns, made in collaboration with Soulwax and Pierre Guerineau out 28 February 2025, via Soulwax’s own DEEWEE label

Nov 23, 2024
Franz Ferdinand band.jpeg
Nov 22, 2024
Song of the Day: Franz Ferdinand - Night or Day
Nov 22, 2024

Song of the Day: Glasgow’s favourite art-pop-rockers, fronted by the articulate Alex Kapranos, return with another catchy, jaunty new love song heralding their forthcoming album, The Human Fear, out 10 January 2025 on Domino Records

Nov 22, 2024
Sunny War.jpeg
Nov 21, 2024
Song of the Day: Sunny War - Walking Contradiction
Nov 21, 2024

Song of the Day: With sharp, socio-political lyrics on modern paradoxes, absurdities and inequalities, this beguiling duet with the legendary singer from anarcho-punk band Crass, heralds a new album by the Nashville born, LA-based folk-punk artist Sydney Lyndella Ward, Armageddon In A Summer Dress

Nov 21, 2024

Word of the week

Featured
Raccoons.jpeg
Nov 27, 2024
Word of the week: broticolous
Nov 27, 2024

Word of the week: Mice, rats, spiders, foxes to raccoons, this obscure adjective, connected to the French noun broticole, this relates to any animal and insect species with a tendency to live around and alongside humans and their dwellings perhaps as scavengers, but also showing adaptability

Nov 27, 2024
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Nov 15, 2024
Word of the week: circumbendibus
Nov 15, 2024

Word of the week: Not a snaking elongated piece of public transport but still a very evocative 17th-century word for a circuitous, long-winded route or way of doing something or telling a story …

Nov 15, 2024
Deoch an Dorus pub in Partick, Glasgow.jpeg
Oct 16, 2024
Word of the week: doch-an-dorris
Oct 16, 2024

Word of the week: From the17th-century Scottish Gaelic phrase, deoch an doruis (and also with the form deochandorus), this literally means “door-drink” – a toast made with, or to honour, someone about to depart

Oct 16, 2024
Four lads in jeans.jpeg
Oct 4, 2024
Word of the week: eel-skins / excruciators
Oct 4, 2024

Word of the week: Aside from the literal outer layer of the ray-finned slippery fish, this evocative, slightly suggestive 19th-century slang means very tight trousers, while this week’s bonus word, excruciators, points to the experience of wearing very tight shoes

Oct 4, 2024
Grey long-eared bat.jpeg
Sep 19, 2024
Word of the week: flittermouse
Sep 19, 2024

Word of the week: With other variants such as flickermouse and flinder-mouse, this rather charming Tudor-period English noun is a rather evocative and onomatopoeically descriptive one for that quietly sonic-guided night creature – the bat

Sep 19, 2024
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