Hi, all! I hope this CD finds everyone well, and that everyone is having a great summer.
When first thinking about this collection, I considered multiple themes – “music about music”, “music with place names in the title”, “music by children of more famous musicians” – but, I ultimately decided to go with no real theme.
However, I still wanted a bit of a challenge. My instinct when putting together collections of music is always to go right to indie rock, so I knew I wanted to go a bit of a different route. Consequently, this collection has a bit of an alt-country flavour to it. See, since joining an alt-country band a while ago, I’ve been listening to a lot of music I never really paid much attention to before, and found that there’s a lot of really great stuff out there.
This is a collection of songs from those albums which have really stuck with me, songs which carry all of the same qualities that I’m drawn to in songs from any other genre: great musicianship, clever, well-written lyrics, and substance. Songs with beautiful stories like Damien Jurado’s “Abilene”, a song so well-written and recorded that it manages to trigger a bit of synaesthesia in me as I actually hear dark blues and blacks. Songs that find a unique way to tell us about love, like Hayes Carll’s charming song “Girl Downtown”. Songs that tickle my existential anxiety, such as First Aid Kit’s haunting cover of the Fleet Foxes tune “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”, proving that it is possible to take an already great song and turn it into something even better.
In addition to songs I’ve been listening to more recently, I did manage to include a number of old favourites in this collection, as well; selected songs that I feel fit. Among others, there’s the Silver Jews’ whimsical “Honk If You’re Lonely”, the Kinks’ timeless “Strangers”, and a fitting outro with Will Oldham’s “I Am Goodbye”.
Thanks to Eleventilicious, I’ve had a really interesting year in music, and I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of the contributions. I hope everyone enjoys this collection as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
