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Robert Wyatt is back
Going back for good reasons or bad, heartbreak or sheer habit, by nature or nature, emotional or physical places. Guest guru nosuchzone also returns with perfectly playful and poetic selections that go through all the levels
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The march of progress …
There are different perspectives of looking at the two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance of history. Cul-de-sacs to cowardly reverses, let’s explore songs where going backwards in life can be good, bad, or a mixture
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Long exposure: who is spinning this ferris and other records for the playlists?
Rolling in with a big, beautiful range of rotating artists and contexts, sounds and genres, guest playlister ParaMhor spins a lovely selection of discs picked from a multiple revolutions nominated from last week’s topic
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Norway’s popular Pulpit Rock or Preikestolen
Actual or metaphorical, from windows to riverbanks, doorways to cliffs, to mental or physical extreme places, this week let’s go to a variety of precipices, stare into the abyss, but also find astonishing new perspectives in song
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Blow by blow: Greek god of the wind Aeolus
It's time to catch a breather. Singers or instrumentalists, acoustic sounds or artificial effects, inhaling or exhaling, this week it's all about the sounds, involuntary or otherwise, of air passing before, after or or sometimes during notes
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Getting right into each other: ABBA
Songs about themselves. Does this sound loopy? You’re right. It’s all about the self-referential to any aspect of a songs’s own music, structure, instruments, format, lyrics and more. Droste effect? Mirroring? It’s all about the song
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And this bird must sing …
Hope, fear, dreams, resolutions, giving the finger to 2020, but a welcome thumbs up to 2021? However you feel about this new chapter in the calendar of our lives, it’s time to express it in the form of song suggestions
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Stretch out in the spirit of the 80s
This could be a fine body of work. Everything from stiffness to full fluidity of exercise – bending, flexing, twisting, stretching, it’s time limber up and pick up on songs that capture corporeal movement in any context
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We’re normal … The Bonzos
Regular? Standard? Stereotype? Average? Typical? Natural? What does normal mean, and how might it be explored in song lyrics? From people to behaviour, families to jobs to towns, and any other context, it’s all a matter of perspective
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Right place at the right time come into focus …
Moments of realisation? From scientific to practical, physical, emotional, philosophical or spiritual, expressed in one lyrical line, one musical rush, or building slowly, and then suddenly and unexpectedly coming into focus in song
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Fragile, insecure synchronicity. Simon & Garfunkel.
What makes for a great duo and how does is that dynamic expressed? Perfect balance of sound? Unspoken understanding and harmony? Symbiosis of roles? Contrast in character? Fragility, insecurity and tension? It’s time for two’s company …
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The Go-Betweens
There’s no denying it - this is a subject that is attached to every part of our lives, private and public, and from many nominations, guest playlister AmyLee picks amazing all-encompassing selections to uncover the musical truth
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Monkey business: once wise, now denies …
Politics, climate change, racism, health or personal relationships, all this and more can can come under the umbrella of denial, and in song lyrics it’s a potent area for nuance, irony, emotion, and things that bite back
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Hold on to your headdresses – it’s Heilung
The Halloween runes and the rituals rise up with plenty of antlers and feminine power as guest guru DJ Bear aka PopOff! throws many potent ingredients into the musical cauldron and comes out with playlists that are really cooking
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Austrian Krampus … where paganism does a Christmas album …
Ritualism, celebration, sacrifice, worship of nature, sex and food? Ancient and 20th-century traditions come a procession of all kinds of colourful characters in this week’s theme that heralds horror or pleasure in equal measure
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Correspondence captures time, place, culture and emotions …
Love letters to rejection replies, friendship, work or leisure, written correspondence are the preserved leaves of history, revealing human nature in all its states and culture, but how does it come up in songwriting? Reply here …
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Class act: John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett in 1966
On the move or stuck in one place? Class snobbery to pride, social control to aspiration, it’s a hugely potent part of human life, something that never seems to disappear in stories, situations, and above all the feelings it generates
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Float your ideas, and nevermind the cost. From the Nirvana album …
For crying out loud. This week’s topic is all about those beautiful and cute bundles of joy that we all once were, miracles of wide-eyed wonder as well as guzzling, selfish, exhausting, sleep-sapping, puking bags of expensive energy extraction
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This week’s lists will leave you beaming
As the days grow shorter, and especially for those who live in the further northern hemisphere and Nordic countries, guest DiscoMonster chooses lists from last week’s topic to more than brighten your day, brain, and mood
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Frank Sidebottom, aka Chris Sievey
From Ancient Greeks to pop personas, they are a fascinating indication of what it is to be human – wearing them, looking at them, putting on or removing, and what they do to the self - projecting, hiding or expressing. Here’s some inspiration …
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