WILT_2022-52

A playlist of songs that intrigued me from Sunday to Saturday. Week of 25 Dec 2022 to 31 Dec 2022.

1. Dust – ELY
2. L/R – Nilüfer Yanya
3. stabilise – Nilüfer Yanya
4. midnight sun – Nilüfer Yanya
5. At Pace – Cola
6. Fashionista – Folly Group
7. For You (Many Selves Version) – Kadhja Bonet
8. So Excited – Cola
9. Eyes – Wine Lips
10. Floating Features – La Luz
11. Uncanny – Daniel Villarreal

Hyperlink to Spotify playlist: WILT_2022-52

Notes

I should have done my reflections yesterday.

So it is the new year of 2023 today at the time of publishing. What a nice coincidence that the final week of 2022 ended on a Saturday, bookending the year with a nice bit of structure. (These weekly playlists chart a listening journey from Sundays to Saturdays for the unaware.)

I am quite glad that Week 52 explored a return to some new guitar-based alt/indie/rock music. I still feel a tension with rock music, in that most times I do not miss it because there are so many other different styles and histories of music, but it is also a genre that has profoundly influenced the cultural appreciation of music, and at times, there is tremendous merit to be found in rock guitar’s expression.

This week’s playlist starts with Dust by ELY, a cacophonous and urgent saxophone and rhythm arrangement that permeates through the song. For a while I thought that this would be how the year would end for me.

However, the true exploration came as a result of clicking on Nilüfer Yanya’s album thumbnail, PAINLESS (2022). What awaited me was gorgeous neo-soul style vocal delivery, but with a certain brashness of grunge-guitar with innovative and quirky musical arrangements and note choices. For example L/R opens with something that sounds like chords played on bass guitar, or a baritone guitar. Either way, as the chords slide across the fretboard, above the mix of a very understated and controlled drum arrangement. Holding it all together is Tanya’s unique and ephemeral vocals that perform with conviction of both craft and emotion. 

As the playlist started to evolve on its own, the recommendations came pouring in. Cola reminds me of the Strokes, but if they were a first-wave post-punk band. We are revisited by Folly Group performing the brilliant Fashionista whose hooks are as cheeky as they are evocative.

This playlist also has some unique outliers like For You by Kadhja Bonet. It’s an airy soul-pop number that is light on the instrumentation but heavy on the taste and groove. A midnight afternoon romp through a cool garden whilst declaring your love into the vacuum of solitude. Eyes by Wine Lips is garage-punk drag race firing on all pistons as the end comes looming faster and faster as you t-bone the song’s climax. Floating Features by La Luz is a Latin-esque psychedelic instrumental and Uncannyby Daniel Villarreal immediately stood out with its odd-time intro that sounds wrong, but still intently captivating. By the time the pieces start to fit and the orbits synchronise, a deluge of sounds and ideas spin into a hurricane of chaos, but sets everything back into its right place. Like watching a hurricane in reverse.

Also, if you’ve made it this far, here’s every single song from WILT_2022 in one playlist. I labelled it WILT_2022-00.