This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
CMU Playlists
On The CMU Stereo 2021 – Autumn
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 16 December 2021
Well then, here it is, the final part of our round up of our favourite tracks of 2021. We now have 40 tracks that prove without doubt that, despite everything, the pandemic hasn’t stopped people from making great music. Some of them even managed to get out and perform it live, which was a real treat after that enforced break from gigs.
Like the rest of the playlist, there are tracks here that are taken from some of our favourite albums of 2021. But a significant portion of this final batch also look forward to the future, with early tastes of things to come, in that the albums on which they appear are not yet out.
Los Bitchos open our autumn selections with their single ‘Las Panteras’. One of those bands we managed to catch live in the last few months, their celebratory music and performances really felt necessary and captured the moment. Their debut album, ‘Let The Festivities Begin!’, is out in February and will bring yet more brightness to the winter months.
One of those artists who already put out their album is James Blake, who once again outdid himself with ‘Friends That Break Your Heart’. The quality of his back catalogue is extraordinary and he continues to build on that and find new avenues to explore in his sound. On the track we’ve chosen here, ‘Coming Back’, he teams up with SZA, who’s also had a good year and will hopefully be back with her long awaited second album sooner rather than later.
Taking the prize for the heaviest track on the playlist (just pipping Converge, I think) are Rolo Tomassi with ‘Drip’. Although featuring a long melodic section, it also captures the band at their most punishing, and – almost fifteen years since their debut EP – sees them still utterly exhilarating. Their new album, ‘Where Myth Becomes Memory’, is also out in February.
Other acts with new music lined up for 2022 include Melt Yourself Down, Caleb Kunle and Yard Act, while our 2021 playlist draws to a gentle close with an amazing solo piano piece from Poppy Ackroyd’s recently released ‘Pause’ album.
Listen to these tracks, plus our other 2021 selections, on our Spotify playlist below. You can also go back and read all our write-ups here.
Here are the ten tracks on our autumn playlist:
Los Bitchos – Las Panteras
James Blake – Coming Back (feat SZA)
Melt Yourself Down – Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In
Elkka – Voices
Caleb Kunle – Could Be Good
Rolo Tomassi – Drip
Yard Act – Land Of The Blind
Converge & Chelsea Wolfe – Coil
Nnamdi – Backseat
Poppy Ackroyd – Murmurations
