Factory Floor - ( R E A L L O V E )
Seeing Factory Floor for the first time a few years ago changed everything for me. They’ve been a really important part of my career so far as I was lucky enough to tour with them a couple of times. This track, although now missing from their sets, is still one of my favourites and a song that is guaranteed to make me dance. Relentless, motorik, propulsive.
Cass McCombs - County Line
I know every note and word of this album (‘Wit’s End’), it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard in my lifetime. This is the opening track and even though there’s a kind of AM Radio MOR quality to it there’s also a real sense of nostalgia in the lyrics and the arrangement that really pushes my buttons. Cass is absolutely my favourite contemporary singer/songwriter in the traditional sense.
These New Puritans - Organ Eternal
The repetitive riff in this track initially flummoxed me with its odd time signature changes, and it was a lot busier than the rest of the tracks on this sparse and beautiful album. But it didn’t take long for it to become the standout from ‘Field of Reeds’. The rate of progression of These New Puritans and Jack Barnett as a composer especially is really something to admire and be inspired by.
Death Grips - Hacker
Was tough to choose from this album (‘The Money Store’). I know people usually prefer ‘Exmilitary’, but there’s something slicker about this album, something a bit more pop that I find irresistible. The dynamics in the recordings of this group are totally smashed and squashed into an endless assault of loudness, and indeed this track has blasted out at many a house party whenever I’ve been able to get my sticky mitts on the music playing device. Incredible.
Oneohtrix Point Never - I Only Have Eyes for You
This is a really amazing rework of a very popular song that most people will know. At first I found the stuttering vocal effect annoying but actually, it’s very carefully done and when the syllables come together and extend over the hook line it is instant goose bump territory for me. All that on top of very Popol Vuh Aguirre soundtrack reminiscent sampled choir. I often forget about Daniel Lopatin and how he’s one of the most talented producers around, but buying his most recent EP ‘Commissions I’ and hearing this on it really hammered that point home.
Blanck Mass - Chernobyl
This is one chord sequence repeated for the entire track with very slight changes to the frequencies over the course of it, but sometimes simplicity produces the most emotional results in music. The rich detail of the atmosphere in this track really gets to me. It’s been a very important track in my life for very personal reasons and it never ceases to recall the intense emotions, both negative and positive, that I have attached to it.
The War on Drugs - Under The Pressure
This is a very recent addition, seeing as the album only came out this year. My manager played this to me for the first time in the car as we were driving to Glasgow. The driving rhythm really lends itself to being in transit and as my manager cranked the volume I just felt a great euphoria. There’s parts of this track (the vocal delivery, for instance) that would usually put me right off but there’s an intangible thing lurking beneath that really grabs me and pulls me along with it. It’s definitely been track of 2014 so far, in terms of it being played constantly on tour, in the van or dressing room since.
Laurel Halo - Light + Space
I’ve talked about this song before in a few places, but I don’t want to miss an opportunity to mention it ever. There’s not been a track in my lifetime that is more evocative of a time and place in my life than this. There’s something tangled in the production and the vocal that recalls a very beautiful but bittersweet period. As time goes by, that intensity doesn’t seem to fade and I’ve never tired of listening to it. Similarly to the Blanck Mass track, as soon as it begins, time comes flooding back and I feel as though I’m where I was when I first heard it. Beautiful.
East India Youth plays the Parklife Weekender next weekend. His new single Heaven Is How Long is out June 16.
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.