WARMER MIXTAPES #1583 | by Vincent Stockholm [Early Spring Horses]

It's been hard to choose only 10 songs and I guess my choice would probably be very different if you would ask tomorrow. They are only reflecting my today's mood and in no particular order.

1. Mark Hollis | The Colour Of Spring 
I Love every song of Mark Hollis and Talk Talk. I Love how The Sound leads you to listen to The Music carefully. There's no escape. I can feel every part of The Nature, the wet grass, The Wind in the trees, The Storm going away... This is the kind of songs I didn't have to listen very often, it's in me forever. It is so beautiful and evocative.

2. Feist | Caught A Long Wind 
I had the chance to meet her when she started her solo carrer. I was touring with another Canadian artist and we did a few shows in France and Belgium with her. You know, every song for me is a memory, it can be good or bad. When I listen to Feist I can remember that morning in Nantes when she discovered her van has been taken by the Police because we were on the wrong parking lot... I remember so well the sound of her voice saying Fuck!. That was the last time I saw her.

3. CocoRosie | The Gallows
I'm not a super fan of CocoRosie, but this song is close to Perfection for me. Strings are beautiful, The Sound around The Music, the way each instrument is arranged and recorded. It is so romantic. I always thought that if the Brontë sisters were born today they would make Music like CocoRosie. That would be awesome! Oh, wait, Kate Bush did it already...

4. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins | Your Own Spell
I could have choosen every song of the album Diamond Mine. It has everything I love, a beautiful male voice, a very romantic text and an amazing recording. With only a few words... Save your water, kill the roses... The Poetry is already here. You start very close as if you are in the same room and then in the middle of the song you're traveling to The Milky Way. Gorgeous. From my point of view Diamond Mine is one of the best albums released during the last decade.

5. Emilianna Torrini | Nothing Brings Me Down
It's taken from her fourth album called Fisherman's Woman. I firstly didn't really like it, but it grew on me year after year. Now I really like listening to it in front of the fireplace, with a good glass of wine, telling old stories of my family (I have some fishermen in my ancestors too). When Winter is coming, it's time to sit down in front of the fireplace, grab a bottle of wine, my friend...



6. Shearwater | If I Was A Cloud 
It's hard for me to explain why I love this song, but Shearwater's Music is always very intimate for me. I don't like talking about their songs. I mean I never want to share their Music with anyone else. I'd love to keep it secret and close to me, close to my body like a winter coat, it's protecting me from the cold Winter, from the outside atrocities, from the Time that goes, etc. Maybe one of the most beautiful songs ever written in the past years. Also, I'm in love with the Sound Production of that album (Rook).

7. Owen Palett | Song For Five & Six 
I've been in Love with Owen Palett's Music for a long time now and I'm pretty sure he would be amused to know that I'm doing my weekly fitness on his Music... I guess saying that could sound like a declaration of Love. Owen? Can you PM me please?... More seriously, In Confict is an amazing album.

8. Arvo Pärt | Spiegel Im Spiegel (Performed by Vladimir Spivakov and Sergej Bezrodny)
I could have choosen any of the Minimalist Pärt, Reich or Glass, but Pärt has a very special place in my heart. I've been working a lot on the idea of Silence and Intervals for my own Music. For exemple, if you hear carefully the first three songs of my album What The Wood Whispers To Itself, you will realise that intervals and progressions on those songs are not usual or conventional. Chords are not where they are supposed to be, on Chaos In My House the left hand of the piano is very accidental but it's actually written and so hard to play... In Spiegel im Spiegel (The Mirror In The Mirror), variations, intervals and Symmetry are very important. The Music is composed around a symmetry, a bit like a Lynch movie. It's like a mathematical operation, Music is Math!

9. Björk | It's Not Up To You
I have contradictory feelings about Björk's Music. I feel so opposite to her main ideas and sometimes so close to her Music approach, even if we both share a kind of a Pagan Poetry, we have different ways of finding solutions. Vespertine is a true masterpiece, one of my favourite albums of all the times. I can feel so much Pleasure and so many emotions in that song! Sometimes she can really brings me to Heaven with a very classic melody!

10. Cocteau Twins | Great Spangled Fritillary 
I love all the Cocteau Twins songs, but this one is so violent to me. There's an urgency in it, a terrible one. I have no idea about what kind of urgency it is, but the speed of my heart rises and I can fall into a very weird trance. Melonella and Pale Clouded White, the following songs on the EP, are like LSD injections. I need the higher volume to be struck by the waves and when it leaves me I feel totally unharmed. There's Magic here!