“Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”
I first did a blog about what I’d been listening to back in 2020 and it showcased what was feeding my soul during the winter of that year, here is a link to it. I had every intention of doing that on the regular but alas … here we are in March 2022, and I’ve finally got around to doing another one, better late than never!
I was chatting to my cousin Susanne the other day and she encouraged me to share more of my music blogs as she enjoys listening to the new music that I share. Hence, I have been inspired to share this blog and I have also committed to doing these every 3 months and write about what music I’ve been listening to for the previous season …. we’ll wait and see how long I’ll keep it up for.
So now that summer is officially over, here’s my soundtrack from the summer of ‘21/22.
NEW MUSIC
Barkaa
Barkaa released her first EP, Blak Matriarchy in December and its been a regular on my playlists over summer and I’m sure one of its songs will feature in my Hottest 100 top ten (unless she releases something better this year). At the moment, my favourite track would be the Groovy Remix which also features Briggs, Nookie, Birdz and Kobie Dee. According to Spotify the original version of Groovy was one of the top 5 songs that I listened to last year and it was very close to being in my Hottest 100 Top Ten but I chose her song, King Brown, which is also on the EP instead.
Other songs in the mix for my top ten from the EP include Blak Matriarchy, Godz, Bow Down and Come Back.
I can’t wait until Womad as I will get to see Barkaa perform live for the first time.
Christmas Time
Of course, summer coincides with Christmas and there were two new Christmas albums that got some spins while we shared time with family and friends and generally ate too much.
Paul Kelly released Paul Kelly’s Christmas Train which includes 22 Christmas tracks, picking some standouts is difficult but I reckon the best tracks are Christmas, Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) which he did with Linda Bull, The Virgin Mary Had One Son which features Emma Donovan, Shalom Aleichem with Lior, Alice Keath and Emily Lubitz and of course his seminal Christmas song How To Make Gravy (the new video clip he did for this is cool too).
Paul is also performing at Womad and I can’t wait to see him play live again.
Urthboy released Jangle Bells. My favourite track on this album is the one Urthy did with Joyride called You’re Not Actually Mad At Me, The World Is Just Getting Progressively Warmer.
P Smurf
P Smurf teamed up with Roleo and released an album called 2020 VISION on New Year’s Eve, and I’ve listened to it a bit this year. The concept of the album was Smurf and Roleo wrote a track during each month of 2020 and chronicles the year. Each track is named after the month when it was created. My favourite is June.
Smurf also did a Rapper Tag, P.Smurf – Rappertag #25 and absolutely smashed it! I’ve been disappointed by Season 2 of Rapper Tag, apart from a couple of the early ones such as JK-47 – Rappertag #03. I was getting disheartened but this year it’s been redeemed by Joe Snow – Rappertag #24 and P.Smurf – Rappertag #25. Better still, Barkaa has been tagged in, so I am looking forward to hear what she comes up with.
Aurora
Aurora released her third studio album in January, The Gods We Can Touch and so far, it’s my favourite album of the year and as such I’ve used the album cover as the featured image of this blog. I love every song and finding a favourite from the album for my top ten will be a challenge. Some of my favourite tracks include A Temporary High, A Dangerous Thing, Everything Matters and A Little Place Called The Moon, as well as Exist for Love, which was released as a single in 2020 and made my top ten of that year and Cure For Me which was released in 2021 and was also in my top ten last year.
Aurora has become one of my favourite ever artists and her new album has been a big part of my summer soundtrack.
Rapaport
On 21st January Rapaport released his new EP, Dodo. His last album Village Idiot was released in 2018 and was one of my favourite albums from that year.
I love all the tracks on the EP, but my favourite track would be Rain Clouds.
Lisa Mitchell
Lisa released a single, I Believe In Kindness on 27th January, and if it is anything to go by I think her 4th studio album, ‘A Place to Fall Apart’, which is due to be released in April, is going to be a cracker.
I’m looking forward to the release of the album and I’m sure it will feature in my Autumn 2022 soundtrack. But for now, I will keep enjoying I Believe In Kindness.
Mallrat
Mallrat released a single, Your Love on the 3rd February.
Her last single before that was Rockstar in 2020 and her last EP Driving Music was released in 2019, let’s hope there is another EP or an album in the pipeline for 2022.
Benee
Benee also released a new single on the 3rd February, Beach Boy. This follows up her single Doesn’t Matter, which was released last year and made my top ten.
Hopefully she has a new album in the offing this year too. Her last album, Hey u x, was released in 2020.
Bias B
Somehow I completed missed that Bias released an album last year, but thankfully around New Year’s I came across his latest, and 6th studio album, Above & Beyond, and its been a regular on the playlist this year.
My favourite tracks from the album include Dope Shit, Driving Me Insane, Days of Our Lives and Check the Cuisine.
King Stingray
I was a bit late getting onto this band too, but I’ve been listening to them quite a bit of late. They have released three single, Milkumana, Hey Wanhaka and Get Me Out.
I can’t wait to see them perform at Womad.
Midnight Oil
The latest new music to hit my ears is Midnight Oils 13th studio album, RESIST. It was released on the 18th February and I’ve listened to it a few times over the last 2 weeks.
It’s another classic Oils album and it’s hard to select some favourite tracks however at the moment they are probably the opening track Rising Seas as well as We Resist, Lost At Sea, and We Are Not Afraid.
WOMAD 2022
I am soooo looking forward to Womad this year, it’s the event I look forward to most and I just love it. In preparation I created a playlist on my Spotify which includes a handful of songs from all the artists I am looking forward to seeing perform … which is everyone listed below. This playlist has been on high rotation for the last couple of weeks.
I can’t wait to see Baker Boy, L-FRESH The LION, A.B. Original, The Cat Empire and Paul Kelly perform again.
I’m also excited to be seeing Barkaa, King Stingray and Goanna perform for the first time.
We are also keen to see Parvyn, Grace Barbe, Ausecuma Beats, Haiku Hands, Balkan Ethno Orchestra, Reb Fountain, BULLHORN and Elephant Sessions. I hadn’t heard of these artists until the Womad line up was released. Prior to each Womad we start sussing out who we’d like to see and we also home in on the artists performing on our favourite stage, which is Stage 3, as this is where we tend to set up base camp for the festival.
It’s always amongst the artists you hadn’t heard of before that you find a new favourite artist, at the last Womad in 2020 it was Spinifex Gum. Even last year when our Womad experience was just attending the Midnight Oil concert we enjoyed The Teskey Brothers for the first time. I hadn’t ever listened to them before, and they were really good.
I wonder who of this year’s line-up will become a new favourite artist … the discovery of new artists always excites me.
We also get pretty excited about the food offerings at Womad and I recently wrote about all things food (including my favourite foods at Womad) in my blog Food Glorious Food.
OLD FAVOURITES
Whilst much of my listening pleasure over summer has been consumed by new music and preparing for Womad, I have found time to listen to a few old favourites, including:
Peter Tosh
The ‘Bush Doctor’ is always a regular in my ears and over summer I’ve been listening to the live album Time Is Now (Live 1979) quite often.
Jane Tyrrell
Her album Echoes in the Aviary has been played a few times. This album has been a favourite to listen to at bedtime ever since it was released in 2014.
Leonard Cohen
I have listened to his songs Everybody Knows and If It Be Your Will, a bit. Everybody Knows was the soundtrack to my blog, Some Thoughts About Politics which I published last week.
Seth Sentry
Seth Sentry released his album Super Cool Tree House in June last year and most of the songs are from a series of YouTube songs he did during 2020. These songs are cool, especially I’m Not Sad, Titan, Denial, Wing Dings and Gatorade Bong, and they’ve been in my ears a bit over summer as well.
The Descendents
Of course, I always slip Weinerschnitel by The Descendents into my playlists. It always makes me laugh.
So, there you go, that’s what’s been in my ears and feeding my soul for the last few months, so what’s been in your ears?