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CMU Playlists
Playlist: Amateur Best
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 7 February 2013
Joe Flory, so the story goes, reached a point with his former project, Primary 1, where he felt he’d lost all interest in music. To satisfy his creative urges, he began writing and drawing comic books, and soon found himself inspired by them to write music again.
This week saw the release of the first Amateur Best album, ‘No Thrills’, through Double Denim. Although the electro-pop within is mostly handled by Flory, he drafts in Chilly Gonzales and Outfit’s Nick Hunt as guests. This Friday Flory plays his live debut as Amateur Best with a show at Rough Trade East in London.
Before all that, we asked him to put together a playlist for us, of which he said: “This playlist is a mix of stuff I recently discovered and love, and the tunes I come back to again and again”.
AMATEUR BEST’S TEN
Subscribe to this playlist on Spotify, and then read on to find out more about Josh’s choices:
01 Gilbert O’Sullivan – Alone Again (Naturally)
This is the kind of tune you would call ‘evergreen’. It is never truly ‘cool’, but it’s a beautiful melody, and if you actually listen to the lyrics it’s so personal yet totally universal. I hope to one day write a song like this because it’s really really good.
02 Momus – Hypnoprisum
I discovered Momus last year, and he’s an excellent find because he’s the kind of artist I can get obsessed by. He’s so weird and interesting, and runs a great blog (http://imomus.com/) where I understand about 20% of what he’s on about. What’s wonderful about him is that he is a megafan of many things as well as an artist, so you get to find out about all kinds of strange stuff. This song is really beautiful, and samples all kinds of strange music in a way nobody else would.
03 Ghetto Brothers You Say You Are My Friend
I only just heard this, but I like it.
04 XTC – Wake Up
Where do you start with XTC? I don’t know but this song makes me feel like doing a weird dance featuring mainly elbows.
05 Cassius – Under Influence
This is from the massively influential and totally overlooked album ‘Au Reve’. This song to me is the perfect balance of electronic and live instruments, and actually very subtle in it’s organic techno song way.
06 Redman – I’ll Be Dat
Redman is my fave, he’s such a good dancer.
07 White Town – Your Woman
The ultimate one hit wonder. I heard this when I was about thirteen and was haunted by it for years, thinking it might be by some strange Swedish band or something. It’s actually by one guy from England called Jyoti Prakash Mishra.
08 Suzanne Ciani – The Fourth Wave: Wind In The Sea
This is really beautiful ‘new age’ music from the early 80s, and Suzanne Ciani seems like a really cool lady who knows everything ever about synths and computers.
09 Zomby – Alothea
I love that this isn’t more than a year old and already sounds totally classic. Great music for walking around town to.
10 Jackson And His Computer Band – Radio Caca
Another influential and overlooked Frenchman. This tune is amazing and I used to swerve and veer around my bedroom to it.
