2014 is already off to a racing start with incredible new releases from Mogwai, Warpaint, I Break Horses, Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks, not to mention Alcest and Damien Jurado – and it’s only January.
We’ve started to curate a 2014 Tunes (so far) playlist on Spotify so you can play along as songs get added, deleted and re-shuffled back onto the list as the year goes on. You can find the link on our homepage. Please let us know what we are missing as new music gets released this year. For those following on Spotify (“tunes4ourtimes”) there is a more expansive “listening to now” playlist to dig into as well.
We’ve added a “wished we hadn’t missed” playlist on Spotify for music that caught our attention after we moved into the New Year and had already released 2013 Tunes. It’s always good to go back and revisit what might otherwise have made last year’s playlist. There is brilliant music by Múm, The Wave Pictures, Timothy Bloom, Adam Green & Binki Shapiro, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Rosanne Cash, Besides Daniel, George Ezra, Jake Bugg and John Newman – any of which might easily have made last year’s cut, had we found them earlier.
There was an unbelievable multi-disc release called “Purple Snow: Forecasting the Minneapolis Sound” from 2013 that shouldn’t be missed either. It covers early-to-mid 1970s R&B and Funk from the Twin Cities that managed to stand on its own and inspire some of the regional talent that came out of Minneapolis as the 1970s gave way to more synth-inspired 1980s funk.
Happy listening. Ready, Steady, Go!