Estival Flings
This one was fun!
I threw together a dump-list a couple weeks ago with a bunch of old favourites in no particular order. After listening on-and-off for a couple commutes, I had some changes in mind but nothing solid about a concept for the playlist—no real idea of a journey I wanted to take it on. It was on my mind every time I opened Spotify.
When I finally sat down to edit, I fell into a nice groove and managed to find a cohesive line through most of the songs right away. I had ideas about which songs should end sections and what some key transitions should sound like and filled in the gaps. I even managed a pretty nice A-side B-side transition right in the middle of the playlist without intending to. Nice!
Estival Flings was a nice challenge because I had thrown together the original mix really hastily and there was a huge variety of music. I wanted to keep almost all of the tracks I had originally chosen, so there was a lot of trial and error as I tried to find every song its place. I also added a lot of new music, trying to flesh out my mix and afford myself the opportunity to make memories with some new songs.
Estival flings
To fall, from spring
Silhouettes
Against a radiant sky
Soft curves,
excellent brushwork.
Walking Tour
A-side starts with some ALL-CAPS SUMMER BANGERS. Crisp pop and modern club production follows before making a detour into some R&B and finishing the first quarter with a heartbreaker in Ginuwine’s So Anxious. Notable hometown heroes include the indomitable CHEFDIRTY with a swirly club mix in game of luv, Sunshine Makers’ sparkly new release of Baby It’s Yours with Shad and Saveria, and a moment of respite in Eleanor’s So So.
Second quarter brings us into the land of rock and twang. We start with some of my favourite late 90s-early 00s rock groups before detuning guitars, getting modern, and turning up the gain with The Crime Family, The Boo Radley Project, Susans, StoneFree, Mvll Crimes, Polluted, LOVERS, and finally smashing out of side A by way of Bounce with This by Klokwise. These are some of my favourite bands out of Southwestern Ontario right now.
B-side begins before you can take a breath, interrupting your train of thought with Rango II by Vulfpeck. We immediately dive into a quick history of mid-century American music with bluegrass, country, and soul. This brings things down a notch, ready to be amped back up by Stevie Wonder, Ben L’Oncle Soul, Prince, and the Jacob Mann Big Band. The third quarter closes out with a tight transition from No Woman, No Cry into PJ' Morton’s two-song run of tight guitar and keyboard tones.
The final quarter begins with strings in the lesser-known Corinne Bailey Rae song Call Me When You Get This. We get low-volume with Ms. Lauryn Hill and Vulfpeck before heading for a chaotic modern jazz, instrumental hip-hop, and glitch-pop finale. I like to end my playlists with a “signal song” to let you know it’s over (time to pick a new playlist), and this time the obvious choice was Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon by Queen.
A Little Method
I often consider song length. The songs hover around the 3:00-4:30 mark—not so short! I didn’t exclude anything on the basis of being too short, but there were a couple that just felt too long. It can be challenging to fit longer songs into the mix unless they have a really engaging arc. Pain by De La Soul, for example, has a sick groove but is hard to justify in an almost 4-hour mix. It’s too long, and doesn’t have the same scope of some of the longer songs in this playlist, like Nothing Even Matters, Atari, Head in the Clouds or Port Tobacco.
Also, in my experience, exceptionally long songs fit in better near the beginning or end of a section. When plotting everything out I simply had too many 6+ minute songs and had to toss a couple. Sorry Stairway, your time has passed.
Aside from that, I did my usual thing: listen to all the transitions between songs and try and find through-lines of energy or ideas. Some star transitions in this mix were Bounce with This to Rango II (utter whiplash), Religion to Call Me When You Get This, and the Atari, Interlude, venus fly trap sequence near the end.
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Thanks for reading! Listen to Estival Flings.