WARMER MIXTAPES #276 | by Ola Innset of My Little Pony

Our next album will, just like our first one, be structured like a vinyl record with an A-side and a B-side.
Regardless of whether people buy the album on vinyl, CD or just download the mp3's
we have a secret wish that they will stop and wait a little bit between tracks 5 and 6 (there are only ten tracks in the album of course).
We think it's a good way to listen to music, and my playlist will be structured in the same way.
Should you choose to listen to it, please take a little breath between Säkert and Chet Baker.

1. Simon & Garfunkel | Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.
The Definitive Simon And Garfunkel was the first album I ever really LISTENED to. I'm guessing I was around nine or ten, and my parents had this CD. I brought it into my room, climbed into the top of my bunk bed before turning it on with the remote control (I got that fancy mini stereo with the remote control for my tenth birthday come to think of it, so it must have been after that). Anyway, I think that was the first time I somehow understood what music could really be.

2. Damien Jurado | Gillian Was A Horse
We turn up the tempo a bit now, without losing that pure, naked sound of acoustic guitars. Damien Jurado is an amazing artist whose music have meant a lot to me. His voice is hauntingly beautiful and so are his songs. I once saw him live, and it was everything I could have hoped for it to be.

3. Cold Mailman | Pull Yourself Together And Fall In Love With Me
I had to put this track in here. Cold Mailman are based in Oslo just like us, and after a great good debut album a few years ago, their second full length is out now and this was the first single. In fact Ivar, the main mailman, has been around for years and years and his music just keeps getting better. I went to the release concert last night here in Oslo and it was absolutely brilliant.

4. Prefab Sprout | Appetite
Now cue the synthesizers! After being introduced to music with Simon & Garfunkel I stayed on a clear minimalist path of singer songwriters and so called organic sounds for many, many years. Synthesizers have never really been anything for me until lately when I've realized that they are not all that bad, in fact they can be pretty great. This in turn opened up the door to the 80's for me. This track, from the excellent album Steve McQueen is a great example of one of those great pop tracks that I wasn't really able to appreciate until recently because of my troubles with synthesizers. I am glad to have lost my inhibitions in this field.

5. Säkert | Vi Kommer At Dö Samtidigt
Some great music experiences come alone in a room with a headset on, others on concerts, and others again on dancefloors. I am not much of a dancer, but thanks to Simen in My Little Pony and his DJ-friend Kristine and their club concept Get Dancy! I have been allowed to move around in ridiculous ways in sweaty Oslo clubs to some of my favourite songs the last few years. This excellent song from Hello Saferide-Annika Norlin's Swedish speaking project Säkert brings back lots of memories from nights like that.

6. Chet Baker | Just Friends
This is probably not considered pop music, but one of the great things about the pop genre is just the enormous flexibility of and ability to incorporate elements from all kinds of other music. In this case it might could be said that Chet Baker does the opposite in incorporating these simple, truthful pop lyrics into a jazz song. It's really beautiful anyway, and we've all been there.

7. The Beach Boys | Wouldn't It Be Nice
This song is quite something, Brian Wilson is really the father of pop music in the purest sense of the word. I once got this track on an e-mail from some one very special who was living far away. I already knew the song, but pretended not to so that I could feel like I was being introduced to the song and it's fitting lyrics by her.

8. Françoise Hardy | Ce Petit Coeur
Paris in the 60's. Is there anywhere else anyone would ever want to be? With beautiful people in beautiful clothes walking around in Nouvelle Vague-films and listening to classic pop music that could only be made at that place in that time. This is simple in such an advanced way . I try to be an intelligent, clever guy, but some times I just feel like running away into stylishness and pure pop bliss.

9. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros | Home
This hippie-country-folky track reminds me of this year's Øya festival here in Oslo. This band didn't play, but we would listen to the song from the YouTube-clip that a friend from Sweden had just discovered every night after coming home from a long day of concerts, friends and parties. This is the friendliest song I know of.

10. Girls | Hellhole Ratrace
We keep the reverbed guitars from the last track but not much else as we finish off in the bittersweet way with Girls. They actually played in the Øya festival this summer, and they were great. It was raining so-called cats and dogs when they got on stage at 1pm, and everyone who had bothered to show up that early seemed quite hung over. Then of course, The Sun came out to warm us, the lead singer sang his heart out, and we all got the strength to keep going for one more day.