21 September 2017

Weekly Playlist 057

by: Geoff Davis

tags: music, playlists, top10

New releases and features dominate this week’s Top 10, featuring new singles by frequent playlist members Keep Shelly In Athens, The Killers, and Lorde, while Gorillaz and Branches appear with some older songs; Taylor Dayne brings up the rear in respect to chronological appearance, however.

I’ve heard it before, but hard-hitting pop single “Tell It To My Heart” by Taylor Dayne escaped my Spotify library, until a barista at Memphis’ Edge Alley coffeeshop that I was working at connected with another “Taylor”, apparently both named after the ’80s pop singer. It’s such a “totally ’80s” romantically-forward pop anthem, complete with plenty of layered synthesizer chords, fast-paced drums, and a soaring lead vocal track. Listen to it and just tell me you don’t start grooving to it…

Keep Shelly In Athens return with another spot on my playlist as the Athens, Greece-based dream pop duo released “Dark Light”, a, well, dark single noticeably inspired by acid house, electro, and industrial music. The rave-style percussion and sequenced synths play backdrop to recent band addition Jessica Bell’s forlorn vocals, interspersed between short jazz trumpet riff breakdowns and more ethereal verses about the effects of a significant other on the singer. “Dark Light” joins “Leave in Silence”, “Seattle”, and “Game Over (Daniel’s Scene)” as a promotional single for Philokalia, Keep Shell In Athens’s new album out September 29. I am very much looking forward to this release, as each of these singles have been home-runs in my opinion.

My last featured track is “Bike Dream”, off of Rostam Batmanflij’s debut solo album, Half-Light. Rostam, a multi-instrumentlist best known as a former member of baroque pop outfit Vampire Weekend, features his old band’s influence prominently throughout Half-Light, while still allowing Rostam’s personal style to shine through. I would best describe the project stylistically as a combination of Vampire Weekend’s lyrical style and vocal effects, Ra Ra Riot’s instrumentation, and fun.’s accessible yet experimental pop composition.

Here are my picks for the week of September 12-18.

  1. Dark Light – Keep Shelly In Athens New Release
  2. Homemade Dynamite [REMIX] – Lorde feat. Khalid, Post Malone, and SZA New Release
  3. Sex Murder Party – Gorillaz feat. Jamie Principle, and Zebra Katz
  4. Illin’ – Black Kids New Release
  5. Best Friend – Sofi Tukker feat. NERVO, The Knocks, and Alisa Ueno New Release
  6. Tell It To My Heart – Taylor Dayne
  7. Hey Alligator – Galantis New Release
  8. Bike Dream – Rostam New Release
  9. Some Kind of Love – The Killers New Release
  10. Darlin’ – Branches