Travelmarx Music Picks - Fall 2021

A composite of 25 album covers used to create a playlist.

So much good music and so little time. We create seasonal playlists to capture what we are listening to. These playlists are on Spotify, like this one: Travelmarx Music Picks - Fall 2021.

How do we keep track of music? Our normal way of keeping track of music is to create playlists either based on a "seed" song or with a feeling or genre. Here are some of our actual playlist names "slow and plodding", "prickly pear penguin", "sad chat noir", "instrumenty", "baroque pop", and "3 am eternal – chill out".

How do we discover music? When we are out, we'll hear something and sample the music (Shazam or other app) and get the track and add it to a playlist. Or, more commonly for us, Spotify surfaces something new for us. Our playlists have anywhere between a couple of hours of music to over 30 hours in a few. We have over three dozen playlists. It's from these playlists that we draw from to create these season picks.

Elbow – "Little Fictions" (2017). We select the unlikely but very pleasant duet between Elbow (Guy Garvey and John Grant, "Kindling (Flicker Falme)".

Jay-Jay Johanson – "Kings Cross" (2019). We include the catch track "Heard Somebody Whistle" from this Swedish artist. Lyrics: "Surrounded by the city noise / Machines and screaming cars / A tiny sound my attention caught / Out from a crowded bar / I heard somebody whistle / I had to stop and listen".

Puma Blue – "Blood Loss" (2018). "Bruise Cruise" is one of our favorite tracks from Puma Blue, the name of the solo project of South East Londoner Jacob Allen.

Sault – "Untitled (Rise)" (2020). We include in this playlist "Street Fighter" from this British group.

Gentlemen Losers – "Permanently Midnight" (2017). We love the track "The Good Bird Singin' in the Twilight Tree" from this Finnish group. (Sometimes it feels like the world is in a permanent midnight.)

Warpaint – "The Fool" (2010). We couldn't help ourselves and include two tracks "Undertow" and "Billie Holiday" from this indie rock band from Los Angeles.

Lucien & The Kimono Orchestra – "Piano Matinée" (2020). We include a remix of a track of this album " Piano Matinée (Jimmy Whoo Remix)".

K-Lone – "Cape Cira" (2020). From this British producer we include the track "Yelli".

Kishi Bashi – "Omoiyari" (2019). This NYT article says of the album: " The songwriter Kaoru Ishibashi’s fourth album, “Omoiyari,” filters lyrics about the Japanese-American internment through sounds rooted in Laurel Canyon pop." We include the track "A Meal for Leaves".

Jamie Drake – "Everything's Fine" (2019). We like exotica-tinged "Redwood Tree" from this Los Angeles-based artist.

Quantic – "Atlantic Oscillations" (2019). Our guilty pleasure is the track "Atlantic Oscillations". Good running music.

Against All Logic (Nicolas Jaar) – "2012 – 2017". The track "This Old House is All I Have" with it's deep symphonic rumble-hits gets us everytime. Jaar is a Chilean-American composer and recording artist based in New York.

Thrupence – "Ideas of Aesthetics" (2017). The track "Conversations" is included on our playlist. Thrupence is a music progject by the Australian Jack Vanzet.

Andy Stott – "Too Many Voices" (2016). From this British electronic musician, we include tje track "Too Many Voices".

Loma – "Don't Shy Away" (2020). The track "Ocotillo" is included in our playlist. Got to love a song that uses "creosote" in it, which is one of our favorite smells after a rain in the desert. The lyrics in the song are: "Roll me down the center line / Run me through the changes / Hold me in the summer light / Creosote /Ocotillo".

Jame Supercave – "Better Strange" (2016). The track "With You" caught our attention.

Mildlife – "The Magnificent Moon" (2017). All the tracks from this Australian band's first release are great. We select the track "Phase" for our playlist.

Islet – "Eyelet" (2020). We include on this playlist the track "Geese" from this band from Wales.

C Duncan – "Architect" (2015). The title track "Architect" is included here. C. Duncan is a Scottish composer and muscian.

Low Roar – "ross." (2019). Low Roar is an Icelandic post-rock/electronica project by American immigrant Ryan Karazija. We include the track "Empty House" on our playlist.

Goldfrapp – "Hairy Trees" (2003). We go back to the second album from the English electronic music duo Goldfrapp with the track "Black Cherry".

Juana Molina – "Son" (2006). The track we includfrom this Argentine singer, songwriter, and actress is "Micael".

Damon Albarn – "Everyday Robots" (2014). The debut album from the British musician you've likely know as the frontman for Blur and Gorillaz. The whole album is good making a selection hard, but we'll go with the track "Mr Tembo".

Meshell Ndegeocello, Doyle Bramhall, Jonathan Wilson – "Comet, Come to Me" (2014). The track "Good Day Bad" on this playlist starts with this lyric – that we feel like saying to people sometimes: "I'm surprised every sunrise / The earth would have me back / Surprised my knees hold me up / That's it not all gone black / And I'm sure by nightfall / I will burn up all I have / So don't go out your way / To make a good day bad".

Deerhunter –"Halcyon Digest" (2010). From the fifth studio album of this Atlanta rock band, we include "He Would Have Laughed".