Nearly the end of summer. One last bank holiday weekend until Christmas. Lengthening nights, shortened days. A whiff of knitwear in the air. £4k energy bills. A General Strike. Cosplay Thatcher in power.
For Edition 30 of Laughing Stock, our regular contributors have a reminisce about their soundtracks of hazy summers gone by, and offer up some personal suggestions for this year’s Sound of the Summer, just in time for it to come to an end. Stick an extra jumper on and listen to the playlist, it might help you get through our upcoming winter of discontent.
I think it started in 1997 with ‘You’re Not Alone’ by Olive. Since that moment, as we were witness to the slowly dying embers of the Britpop bonfire, my go to sound of the summer has tended to be a sad banger. There’s something perfect about the sad banger as a song of the summer: the communal effect of hugging your mates whilst shouting along to pseudo-emo lyrics, and still being able to have a boogie; the way in which at the giddy height of summer it can be uplifting, but is also perfect for the the lengthening of nights and the realisation that the balmy days are coming to an end for another year; the way it can make you soar if you’re coming up, and also comfort you as you’re coming down.
Since then there have been a plethora of sad bangers to see me through various summers, from the ubiquitous likes of ‘Another Chance’ and ‘With Every Heartbeat’, through less well trodden ones like ‘Turn Into’ and ‘Soul Belongs 2 U’, each one in their own way providing thrilling highs and comforting blankets along the way. This year however, I’ve eschewed the sad banger completely, and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe there isn’t one that quite cuts it this time round, nothing that hits that sweet spot between euphoria and melancholy. Maybe given the shitshow we find ourselves in *waves hands in general direction of the world* I just don’t want something that can inspire a dose of sadness, even if it does provide some highs. Instead my undisputed SotS ‘22 is the behemoth that is Pariah’s ‘Caterpillar’.
Fuck me it’s a beast. It’s all nasty and malevolent, thunderously twisted, and it doesn’t relent for a single second of its 7 minutes, it just goes, and then goes some more. I first heard it right at the start of summer on Ben UFO’s Radio 1 Residency, and was instantly hooked. RA described its huge, defining bassline as ‘bringing to mind sandworms from the Dune ecosystem rather than a caterpillar’ which is hard to argue with - this is foundation shaking stuff. Pariah is responsible for some of my favourite music, be it pummelling techno alongside Blawan in Karenn, or on his gorgeous ambient leaning album Here From Where We Are, but nothing has quite scratched that ‘complete abandon’ itch like ‘Caterpillar’ has. Be gone, sad bois, the filthy summer shaker era is upon us.
It’s easy to fall in the trap of the ‘big summer anthems’ that become the ones everyone likes. Sucked in because of the universal appeal. You can put them on anywhere, to anyone, and no doubt they’ll smile and say something like, “ooo I like this one.” There’s been a lost track in the past few years. Zigg Gonsalezz - ‘Sunday (3pm)’. Produced by Shed under his house-style alias, it’s a dream track with two perfect breaks coming at the right time, making it euphoric while you’re standing in a field of dead grass.
Shed has kept his place within dance music over the last 15 or so years. He rolls in every so often and reminds everyone why the simplicity of his productions are so hard to execute. Never one to be involved in fads, he’s there constantly. A DJ tool for tough times. A reliable rock. I think ‘Sunday (3pm)’ is one of his most “accessible” tracks and should have crossed the boundaries. Landed in Pete Tong’s inbox. Hopefully it’s been played out this summer and will continually do so for years to come…
It’s whatever Ibiza ready donk Danny Howard tells me at 6pm every Friday right? That’s no actual disrespect, one of my tracks that will follow is full Cafe Mambo. There’s probably an initial assumption the sound of summer needs to be some collectively approved tune that ties you to time, people and place. Laced with nostalgic fondness. It is all those things, but that can just as easily occur within the confinement of your own head.
I’ll start with what is my quintessential variation on the theme; the dance banger. The one you stick on a speaker when strewn out at the park or in a garden supping cans. It brings multiple nods of approval and the validation of a ‘who put this one? Tune’. The one that can’t hit the same spot if you were cooped up indoors at a November pre-drinks. Jayda G’s early EPs contained some serious promise, but 2020’s ‘Both of Us’ propelled her to new heights. Those keys, the fluctuating tempo, the sweet summery release of the beat. She’s also got a degree in Environmental Toxicology Management, which is a neat but tenuous link to the seasons. I got into Romare in the early summer of 2017, having not long moved into a shared house with my mates from home. I’d blare him out when making tea, before the then novelty of a work night pub trip. That time represented all sorts of post-uni promise and finally some minor disposable income, which owed largely to the low-rent-justifying state of our gaff. ‘Je T’amie’ from 2016’s Love Songs Part 2 encapsulated that perfectly. It’s all components and progressive infusions of funk, blues and house to begin with. Everything fizzing together like a lively summer's day, before night descends with a glorious and freeing drop. Shoutout to DJ Koze’s ‘Operator’ which I first heard at a garden party prior to Field Day 2018 and is an infectiously good must-dance hit. Hot Natured’s ‘Benediction’ probably ticks off my University summers, a period where I was regretfully negligent of anything that wasn’t serotonin enabling house music. What a sunset anthem though.
Then there is the more reflective, hazy side of this summer coin. Those tracks that are best suited for introspection during solo journeys beneath blue skies. Snail Mail’s breakthrough album Lush brought us ‘Pristine’, its outstanding raw sound deals with themes of youth, relationships and longing. Brilliantly summarising what I now see as the mostly futile ‘what ifs’ I occupied myself with at that age. For me Courtney Barnett’s ‘City Looks Pretty’ has come to channel the tantalising but sometimes over-bearing, muggy and stifling nature of summer in a big city. Though my winner for this category is Japanese Breakfast’s ‘Diving Woman’. In light of Jubilee’s deserved success, Soft Sounds from Another Planet has taken on an underrated edge. I saw her play the majority of it at Deaf Institute on a sultry June evening in 2018 and was instantly hooked. Despite being an album that lyrically deals in loss, struggle and endurance, its opening track is an uplifting mental road trip. The samey but captivating guitar melody and cosmic flourishes plunge you into thought, which feels restorative and refreshing. Like jumping into a pool on an intensely hot day.
I’m juicing the allocation now but my 2022 shout is Maggie Roger’s ‘That’s Where I Am’, if poolside pop rock was a thing then this is it. Finally, a couple of classics if you’re at a loose end this summer. Modjo’s ‘Lady’ is an all timer. As is Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move On Up’, which I first picked up from the iconic Bend It Like Beckham and was also the title track of some free Sunday paper ‘Summer driving classics’ CD my dad would stick on in the Vauxhall Vectra.
There’s a peculiar melancholy to these late summer days, a sadness that it’s all over too soon, blues of a season unfulfilled. Did I make the most of it? It’s why I tend to crave something quieter throughout those warmer months. Summer isn’t all bangers and euphoria. Sometimes it’s just stillness: a field in England with a church steeple and a gentle breeze, a winding train journey with a book, eating fish and chips as you drip dry on the beach. I want my summer soundtracks to bathe me in nostalgia, to take me back to summers of first love, of cider in the park, of endless days filled with beautiful boredom. Those boundless summers without constraint. Even popular dance tracks that became summer anthems yearn for this return to the recent past. A Rihanna banger from 2016 swiftly reminds me of halcyon days.
Last summer, I became obsessed with Emile Mosseri’s Minari Soundtrack. If you haven’t seen it, Minari is a wonderfully warm film about a South Korean family who move from suburban California to rural Arkansas. Emile’s soundtrack is tender and gorgeous, striking that summer sorrow just right. It’s a body of work that needs a full listen through to be properly experienced, but for the sake of this article, I’ll pick my top two. Jacob and the Stone hums and soars with orange skies, long grass and a cool breeze. It’s wistful and regretful and brimming with childlike wonder. On Big Country, a low choral thrum and some delicate piano work give a sense of approaching something unknowable, but there’s hope amongst the melancholy.
This summer, I’vefallen for Florist’s self-titled release from the end of July. It’s an album which wears all the trappings of brown leaves and jumper weather but has the dog days of August at its heart. Its opener, June 9th Nighttime, is summertime ASMR. Backed by the pulsating chirp of crickets, you can almost hear the crackle of a fire and the smell of smoke. It conjures an image of humid nights and chillier mornings, dew on the ground and light peeking through spindling trees. On Dandelion, Emily Sprague sings, ‘I've never seen summer like the summer this time’. Most of us haven’t: 40 degree days and sticky tarmac, it speaks to a new type of anxiety. Yet, it’s gentle with you, a song for figuring out life. Two Ways summons memories of grainy family videotapes, imaginged or otherwise. It’s the sound of distant splashing in a pool and a ‘99 stain on your t-shirt. My highlight is Sci-Fi Silence, an eclectic lullaby for journeys to anywhere and everywhere. Listen to it when you’re on your next twilight walk, or reading on a park bench, or drinking wine into the hours with your mates on a muggy evening
Summer is Dead; Long Live Summer - a playlist (Apple Music)
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