Winter Sun: A Reader

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1. Boston - More Than a Feeling

Hard Rock; FM Rock; Classic Rock; Dad Rock. Dodge it for being perennially uncool and you'll be missing out. This song reminds me of the winter of 2009. It also reminds me of a Barclaycard advert: a man rides a rollercoaster through the city; he's backlit by exactly the kind of sunlight I'm thinking of.

2. Bruce Springsteen - 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

A track that captures the same kind of sunlight as Astral Weeks: bucolic yet bleak; the New Jersey boardwalks and seedy characters reading like a stateside transposition of Madame George. A yearning accordion is always, of course, going to work well in the winter sunshine.

3. Phoebe Bridgers - Kyoto

No real reasoning here. I just love the energy. Changed the pace of the playlist nicely.

4. Hall & Oates - Las Vegas Turnaround (The Stewardess Song)

Try and tell me that the opening plucky guitars don't sound like coziest pair of trackies you've ever had the pleasure of slipping into. 

5. Miguel - Coffee

This album came out in 2015; I bought it in the summer and sat on listening to it till the autumn I started at SOAS. The bright production and shimmering harmonies that disappear into the ether remind me eternally of walks through Bloomsbury, sun bursting through the bare trees in Russell Square. 

6. Donald Byrd - Cristo Redentor

My dad played this for me in his record shed at the bottom of his garden when my parents lived in De Beauvoir. The leaves had all begun to fall and the light that hit through the pine needles was tinged that gorgeous orange-brown synonymous with this most excellent season. The harmonies on this track epitomise enveloping. There is nothing challenging or avant-garde here, nor is it trite and compromised as other smooth jazz can be. The best jazz song of all time; one of the best songs of all time, period. 

7. The Jam - Man In the Corner Shop

A song that jangles with the sound of summer; the guitars bring to mind the Byrds or Stone Roses. Despite this, it is quintessentially a cold weather track. The fading "la la la la la..." makes this inescapable; the reverb traps it in the frost of autumn. 

8. Dan Deacon - Fell Into the Ocean

More a nostalgia connection than this song truly representing winter. I came home from China in January 2020. This album came out shortly after and I listened to it on a bright winter's walk down to the Tate Britain. This song chimed in just as the clouds broke and I was bathed in white light. 

9. Ichiko Aoba - A Hill of the Moon

One of the most soothing artists I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. This album is almost like Bossa Nova by way of Japanese Ambient. Unlike most ambient, evoking enveloping cloud banks, this feels more like a holding hand on a frosty morning walk in the park: sun high; shoes ever so slightly dampening with dew.

10. Phoebe Bridgers - Kyoto (Copycat Killer Version)

Not too much reasoning here beyond the fact that I love a reprise.

11. Open Mike Eagle - 95 Radios (feat. Has-Lo)

This track reminds me so much of the autumn of my final year of uni. The beat has a gentle lullaby quality to it; this is rap that won't interrupt the still of the day. Has-Lo's voice, as well, may just be the most soothing I have ever heard in hip-hop. In the best way possible, it's enough to send you to sleep. 

12. Noname - Shadow Man (feat. Saba, Smino & Phoelix)

Noname will always remind me of the coming winter. No matter how much her music shimmers with warmth. This song is the perfect send off to this playlist: sunny yet imbibed with an inescapable winter melancholy.