WARMER MIXTAPES #1136 | by Josephine Vander Gucht [LAYLA]
1. Feist | The Bad In Each Other
I adore Feist. She is a powerhouse of talent. Her most recent album Metals is simply spectacular; the production and arrangement is so original in a classic way, lots of vocals, strings... It feels really live and real. This was a big influence on me when I wrote and recorded my very first LAYLA EP.
2. Death Cab For Cutie | Brothers On A Hotel Bed
This song has stuck with me for 10 years and still remains one of my favourites. It's about growing old and changing as a human, something that we all go through. My favourite lyric is On the back of a motor bike with your arms outstretched trying to take flight, leaving everything behind. But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete. That inability to change, to fly, to be free, to do what our heart wants - that is something we must all go through at one point in our lives... I can only imagine how harrowing and paralysing that must be.
3. The Cinematic Orchestra | To Build A Home (with Patrick Watson)
I fell in love to this song. I was lying on the floor of the studio with my producer after we'd finished recording my EP. It was about 3am, and we were so tired, but euphoric. And we just lay in silence listening to this song. That's a moment I will never forget.
4. Max Richter | Spring 1 (Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Recomposed, Performed with Daniel Hope/Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin/André De Ridder)
When I was mastering my EP with Mandy Parnell I saw a record lying on the side that said Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons. My heart stopped. I love Max Richter. I adore Vivaldi. I learnt how to play the violin just because of Vivaldi. How had this escaped me! Richter recomposed Vivaldi's Four Seasons and it's just EPIC and achingly beautiful.
5. The Books | Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again
These guys are cool as anything. I saw them live a while back, and they explained how they had amassed all these old tapes from charity shops across the USA and taken samples from them to make Music. Recycling people's trash and forgotten memories into new ones. It's genius. This song has my favourite 10 seconds of Music in ever. The climactic bit after the woman talking about having a heart condition. It kills me.
6. Joni Mitchell | A Case Of You
Wow, what a song. What songwriting. What a voice! This is magic in its purest form. I grew up listening to Joni, and I am grateful to my Dad every day for encouraging me to listen to Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Carole King and Simon And Garfunkel, instead of Hear Say. He helped me understand from a young age what a well written song feels like.
7. Polly Paulusma | Over The Hill
My favourite song in the world from my favourite record in the world. This is what got me into songwriting, into believing, into reading, into studying English Literature. Without this record I would be nothing.
8. James Blake | Retrograde
I went to Amsterdam last year to write some songs and one night sat listening to this album in a hazy state... The perfect accompaniment to accessing another part of yourself. James Blake's music is unlike anything else.
9. Bon Iver | Perth
I don't know how Justin Vernon does it. His music is just - there are no words. For me, it epitomises what Music is, how it should make you feel, how it should hurt you, and make you nostalgic, and empower you, and make you feel invincible, all in the same breath.
10. Benjamin Gibbard | When The Sun Goes Down (Arthur Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
I'm not sure I even want to get married, but if I did, this is the song I'd want at my wedding. Under a moon that hangs from silver strings, we know not what this darkness brings. The stars all gleam with possibilities...
