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CMU Playlists
Playlist: Duncan Geere from Wired
By CMU Editorial | Published on Saturday 26 June 2010
Duncan Geere is a music and technology journalist, who, fittingly for this feature, was one of the first in the UK to cover Spotify back when it first launched. Currently he’s working as News Editor on Wired Magazine’s website, which means he’s still very much the go-to guy if you want to know about new developments in digital music.
As well as that, he does a bit of DJing and could once upon a time be found playing records at our CMU Social events. We’ve missed his song choices since then, so we thought we’d get him to put together a playlist for us.
Says Duncan: “I put together this playlist with a very specific goal in mind. One that’s shared by almost every mixtaper you’ve ever met. To try to make some kind of connection with the listener. But the problem with making a playlist for CMU readers, rather than some girl I want to impress, is that I don’t know you very well. In fact, I don’t know you at all. So instead I’ve gone for distraction tactics that I’m hoping will snare a few of you while you’re doing other things”.
“Play it while you work, and Electric Six’s wailing sirens might grab your attention when you’re alt-tabbing between spreadsheets and briefly dump you on a plane falling out of the sky into a cold sea in the middle of the night. Sync it to your iPhone and play it on the Tube home, and Karolina Komstedt’s vocals on the Club 8 track might distract you just enough from a stranger’s armpits that you find yourself walking down a beach near Stockholm in the snow. With any luck, you might get lucky with the timing on your morning drive to work, so that you crest a hill just as you hit the incredible moment in ‘There Goes The Fear’ where the song, which has been bumping along the runway, suddenly waves goodbye to the ground and jets up into the sky”.
“If there’s a theme between the songs, it’s perhaps memories of a better time. In some places that manifests as homesickness. In several, it’s missing a former lover, or a lover that you can’t reach. In at least one case, it’s your life flashing before your eyes. Everyone’s got those memories and there’s nothing wrong with them. So spare three quarters of an hour or so to wallow in it. Then get back to whatever you were doing beforehand”.
Well, we have nothing more to add to that.
DUNCAN GEERE’S TEN
Click here to listen to Duncan’s playlist in Spotify, and then read on to find out more about his selections.
01 Jason Lytle – Yours Truly, The Commuter
The Grandaddy frontman’s solo work has received relatively little attention, but it’s the opening track on the album that’s a highlight for me. There’s something fantastic about listening to this first thing it the morning. It makes you feel like you’ve achieved something.
02 Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman
I can’t hear this song without melting a little inside. It’s set in Oklahoma, where I spent a year studying, and relates the story of a lonely railway worker who hears the wind blowing over his telegraph wires and mistakes it for his lover’s voice.
03 Interpol – PDA
This was the song the convinced me, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that there was more to Interpol than just being a Joy Division covers band. While singer Paul Banks’ lyrics are frequently nonsensical, if you tune them out and treat them as just another instrument then there are few bands you could consider more atmospheric.
04 Electric Six – Transatlantic Flight
Since their monster hit, ‘Gay Bar’, in 2003, Electric Six have recorded six albums, and are in the process of making a seventh. All of them are featuring songs better than ‘Gay Bar’. If you like your rock dirty, sexy, and frequently hilarious, then treat yourself to listening to some of them. Start with ‘I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master’.
05 Club 8 – Whatever You Want
During 2009’s very disappointing clutch of releases, I sought solace in Swedish indie-pop. I’ve utterly fallen for Club 8’s ‘The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Dreaming’, thanks to this track’s soaring, faultless vocal.
06 Broken Social Scene – Sentimental X’s
I’ve never followed Broken Social Scene very closely, but on listening to the band’s latest album, this was the track that blew my head off. Keep your ears open around 4:05 for a crescendo that’ll blow yours off too.
07 The Great Depression – The Sargasso Sea
With its horn riff, orchestration and gently melancholy slant, you’d be forgiven for mistaking ‘The Sargasso Sea’ for an album track on a Divine Comedy record. But it’s not. It’s the sound of a post-rock act trying to write a pop song, and succeeding brilliantly.
08 Yo La Tengo – Cherry Chapstick
It was tough to choose a song by American indie legends Yo La Tengo, but in the end I plumped for ‘Cherry Chapstick’ with its layers of rhythm, heartfelt lyrics, and screeching feedback. If I could only listen to one band for the rest of my existence, it’d be Yo La Tengo.
09 Doves – There Goes The Fear
This is my favourite song in the world. I can’t explain why. It’s just the way it feels when it climaxes at 4:48 and it soars far above the clouds. It’s a pity that the band’s never been able to match it since.
10 Bob Crosby & The Bobcats – Way Back Home
I play a lot of videogames, and this is from the soundtrack of ‘Fallout 3’. It’s impossible to listen to it and not feel simultaneously comforted and homesick.
