echosmith

Without much preamble, here are my absolute favourite songs from an amazing summer of music:

15. Glass Animals – Black Mambo

Such sticky. Much sexy time. So rhythm.

14. Echosmith – Bright

“Bright” is rife with gorgeous melodies. I don’t want to be too reductive, but this is basically Taylor Swift doing Indie-pop. And it’s great.

Bonus: Zhu – Faded

Hats off to my boy Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat for this one. Don’t know why I slept on this tune. Memories of the limo ride to the beach from here to infinity.

13. Sylvan Esso – H.S.K.T.

At once gitchy, dirty, and throw-your-hands-in-the-air-like-you’re-an-heir-danceable. My favourite Esso song to date. Pure banger.

12. El Vy – Return To The Moon

I continue to play the shit out of this. If you ever wanted to hear The National’s Matt Berninger sing on top of warmer and more welcoming music (than The National usually do), this is for you.

11. Alabama Shakes – Future People

Future People. Gorgeous music right now. Those guitars. That melody. And as it always seems to come down to with Shakes’ songs, Brittany Howard’s soul-rattling, life-affirming voice.

10. Courtney Barnett – Depreston/Pedestrian At Best

The wittiest, most playful lyricist in music? Maybe. I wouldn’t care that much if she didn’t have the songs to match, but she does. These two tunes are quite different from one another, but Barnett shines in both. I adore the wistful “Depreston” and the way she lingers the line “I think you’re a joke, but I don’t find you very fu-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uhnny” in “Pedestrian At Best”.

It was exceedingly difficult to rank the following songs as each and every one are monsters.

9. Daya – Hide Away

Pop doesn’t get purer than this. Unbelievably catchy and a star turning vocal from this 16-year-old newcomer. Everywhere you look you’ll find a hook.

8. Houndmouth – Sedona

A grower. An unabashed summer anthem. For the pensive, for the yearning, for the nostalgic, for the happy. This is a beautiful song.

7. Alvvays – Ones Who Love You

I adore this track. When I saw Alvvays at Osheaga, I was really stoked to see their most known tracks, “Archie, Marry Me” and “Adult Diversion”, but “Ones Who Love You” was the one that stole my heart. It moves so effortlessly, like a refreshing gust of wind on a sun-stunned summer day.

From this point on, 6 could be ranked 1 and 1 could be ranked 6; their slotting probably just depends on how I’m feeling right now. These songs have all meant a TONNE to me this summer.

6. Glass Animals – Pools/Pools (Roosevelt Remix)

The first song I’d heard by Glass Animals was “Gooey”, some months ago. I really dug it. I listened to it but didn’t go completely apeshit for it. I started throwing primate fecal matter when I heard “Pools” though. It’s a pristine gem. Every sound in the track is so carefully assembled, fits so perfectly with what comes before and after it. Just don’t mistake the coruscating production for polish. There is an organic warmth here that not many songs can match. I wish the drum flourish at the end of the song lasted 15 minutes instead of 15 seconds. The lyrics are also a blast to sing along to. “Shake my little soul for you now toy… I’m a man of many tricks and tools and joy” is a line I sung with pleasure time and time again over the summer. Oh, and Glass Animals are incredible live and are going to be huge. Oh, and the Roosevelt remix is fucking amazing.

5. Chvrches – Leave A Trace

I firmly believe that Chvrches’ debut, The Bones Of What You Believe, will go down as one of the best pop records of this decade. It would be insane to expect them to match that effort, yet here we are. “Leave A Trace”, the lead single from their second album, is an absolute stunner. I think we’re at the point where we can say that Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, and Martin Doherty are preternaturally gifted at song making. And I’m pretty sure that’s an understatement. On their way to conquering the world, I have little doubt.

4. Twenty One Pilots – Stressed Out/Ride/Holding On To You

I knew this band for “House of Gold”. I think it’s a good song, but stylistically, it’s in the same vein as a lot of other songs in the Indie-pop arena. Man, I had no idea what these cats had up their sleeves. The masters/coiners of schizo-pop, Twenty One Pilots don’t sound like anyone else. I fell deeply in love with a bunch of their songs over the summer. These were the three I fell hardest for. I’ve listened to these tracks a tonne, yet with each listen, their appeal does not cede, it increases. This is some of the most thrilling pop music being made anywhere. I am not surprised one bit that this band has become huge. They check off way too many boxes. Similar to the reach-for-the-stars-and-neighbouring-galaxies-and-let’s-make-sure-to-get-the-kitchen-sink-in-there-too effort of Fueled By Ramen label mates Paramore (on their last, eponymous record), Twenty One Pilots clearly want to make the most appealing and melodic music possible. And they couldn’t give a fuck what genre it belongs to or how it’s classified. While that’s being talked about, they’re too busy making hits and selling out shows. Too busy holding onto you. It’s not rocket science.

3. Miguel – Leaves/Leaves (Adam Foster’s Sweet California Remix)

Miguel’s “Coffee”, from his third album, Wildheart, is one of the songs of the year. That is a fact. But “Leaves” is the album’s other ace up his sleeve (when he wears sleeves, which is rare, I grant you). The melody, lyrics, and Miguel’s typically stunning vocal combine to form a strange sadness. It’s part regret, part love, part infatuation, part uncertainty, part longing. It’s an evergreen in a forest of maple trees. “The leaves don’t change here, so I never saw it coming” is possibly the lyric that struck me hardest over the summer. There’s a simple beauty in those words. The leaves don’t change here, and neither does my feeling for this song’s melody, those words, that voice. The first clip is a(n incredible) live version of the track while the second is Adam Foster’s fantastic Sweet California remix.

2. Christine and The Queens – Paradis Perdu/Saint Claude

I shed a tear the first time I heard “Paradis Perdu”. Because emotion transcends language. Because of the Kanye sample that was so completely unexpected. Because of that melody. And that vocal. Because I knew I’d be seeing Christine and The Queens at Osheaga. I live for moments like that. Where art batters routine. Feelings compel. Where music is the only thing in the world. These are the moments that make life feel like paradise. They must be remembered.

“Saint Claude” is just as great a song. The vocals in the chorus are brilliant.

1. Wolf Alice – Bros

“Bros” is precious. The video yes, but the song, first and foremost. The guitars, the vocal harmonies, and most of all, the bridge. The way Ellie Roswell sings “Oh, jump the 43, are you wild like me? Raised by wolves and other beasts, I tell you all the time, I’m not mad. You tell me all the time, I got plans.”

A better ode to friendship I don’t think I can recall. Friendship with people, with wolves, with clouds, with music, with water, with road trips, with tall blades of grass and sun fades in the past.

Another summer gone. Another pack of memories to store. Music, as always, there to soundtrack it all.

I wrote the following last year, but the words don’t belong to 2013. What follows is an evergreen sentiment that applies to all remixes. Here it is:

Transformation can do many things to an object. It can make something louder, quieter, bigger, smaller, heavier, lighter, darker, brighter, and so much more. The process of transformation is of some measure science, art, and parts unknown, and thus, cannot be coerced into formula.

Remixes seek to transform, in some manner, the source material into something new, fresh, and vibrant. The best remixes do this, and also pave a bridge of familiarity to the original. Developing something new while maintaining some semblance of the old is an enormously difficult task, and that’s why it rarely happens.

If a remixer is smart, the simple act of picking the right song to treat will come with a certain amount of cache, and will garner a certain level of intrigue (read: there will be a built-in audience). But that doesn’t mean the remix will end up being good. So many are not. There are some though, that are good, and some, even better than that. Not only do they transform, they transcend: the source material, emotions, and every so often, time itself. To be lost in a piece of art where an entire dimension ceases to exist is one of the joys of the artistic process, and indeed, one of the joys of this life.

To remix is to change. The best of the best though, remember to keep something of the original intact, whether it’s on the surface or buried deep beneath it. The great Roman poet Ovid, in his sprawling poem, “The Metamorphoses”, gives us an idea that serves as supreme directive for approaching remixes, “Omnia mutantur, nihil interit (everything changes, nothing perishes).”

50. alt-J – Left Hand Free (Lido remix)