1. Meet me at our spot by THE ANXIETY (WILLOW, Tyler Cole)
A few months ago when WILLOW’s hit Wait a Minute! was on my SotW, I wrote about how few of her songs actually have discernable melodies and cohesive lyrics. And while that remains true, this week I heard another to add to the short list.
Earlier this year she paired up with fellow MSFTS artist Tyler Cole through the collaborative project they named “THE ANXIETY”. They've described it as a portrayal of “the anxiety that both Willow and Tyler endure on a day to day basis and how they cope with it. [It] sonically embodies the meaning of that personal unease, seeking to express the overwhelming feeling of a person on the brink of an attack.”
For their first album as a duo, they released the project’s self-titled debut this past March – and let’s first note how perfectly ironic it is for an album called “The Anxiety” to be released a week before the world went nuts.
The best of the bunch, Meet Me At Our Spot, is lighthearted and bouncy without distracting from the unsettled energy of the song, as Willow and Cole sing about restless, anxiety-driven midnight insomnia. Though I'm not a huge fan of Cole’s voice (a bit whiny, no?), the eccentricity of Willow’s never disappoints and carries the song through.
2. Alloway Grove – Live at Isle of Wight Festival by Paolo Nutini
I first came across Paolo Nutini a few years ago when Candy came on in the lounge of the Bulldog Hostel in Amsterdam, and was instantly hooked by his vocals --- so full and coarse.
A friend recently sent me Alloway Grove, the 14-minute-long closer of his hit album These Streets --- but it's really 3-songs-in-one: hidden behind the upbeat Alloway Grove comes a hidden gem, Northern Skies, followed by Last Request (another version of which appears as a single earlier on the album). Though the whole song is great, there’s an annoying 2.5 minutes of pure silence around minute 8 that I never have the patience to sit through.
So for a fresh taste of Alloway Grove alone (by far the best of the three anyway) with no need to fast forward, Nutini's live version at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2007 is perfect. Besides being a high quality recording of the track, the live take also gives us a bit of his animated onstage persona. The energy he performs with is infectious, teasing happily in the song’s chorus – “However much you use me baby, come on use me more…”
3. Fire/Fear by The Head and the Heart
The Head and the Heart’s music has been among my most played on Spotify for years, and every once in a while I have the joy of rediscovering an old favourite. Most recently that's been Fire/Fear, one of 13 equally phenomenal numbers on their second album Let’s Be Still.
Fire/Fear paints the story of parents left in the ruins of their relationship once “the kids are gone." The verses show both perspectives, both people feeling completely helpless and alone in the situation (“You look at me, as cold as a stone / There’s no way to write what’s been done wrong), and my heart always starts racing a bit when the band takes off singing in the bridge (“So hold me down if I’m running off…”). A feat of songwriting in my books.
4. Strange Froot by TOKiMONSTA, Ambré
TOKiMONSTA has been on the rise in recent years, becoming the first Asian-American female Grammy-nominated producer for her album Lune Rouge in 2019. The nomination was a particularly meaningful one for the producer: she created the album after two brain surgeries in 2016 left her unable to speak, listen to or create music for a long period of time.
I’ve only recently started exploring her music but Strange Froot immediately caught my ear. The song features Ambré, whose soft and soulful voice fully directs the flow of the song, as if the rest of the instrumentation only follows her movement.
Listen on Spotify to all 'Songs of the Week' here.
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