This past January, the Unrecorded team chose a collection of albums that we felt best suited the icy emotions associated with winter. Now with the cold beginning to fade away, and springtime turning its pretty head, we’ve selected a list of albums that complement the season’s feeling of rebirth. With their themes of redemption and refreshingly cool songs, these albums will provide you with a stellar soundtrack for your spring adventures.
Air France – No Way Down
After a long winter slumber, you let out a good yawn and wake up to a bright spring morning. Although not quite in full bloom, the world feels a bit warmer and life outside has more color. In essence, this is the newfound feeling of spring that the No Way Down EP by Air France defines, and few other records accompany the season as incredibly as the one by the long gone Swedish duo.
Air France wake up with a groggy start on No Way Down, but after the melancholy wave, birds soon begin to tweet and a woman is heard welcoming the change in season. “Spring has arrived early here; a time for lovers”, the woman says. While this track is titled “June Evenings”, the cheerful horns and rising celebratory spirit feels closer to a fresh March afternoon. The frost and loneliness of winter soon melts away as Air France lets its signature tropic grooves soothe throughout the track.
Beyond sound and style, No Way Down expresses the exciting feeling of discovery and curiosity present in the season. Air France creates an uncharted new world through their songs, where the sun never sets and darkness never comes. The continuously vibrant flow of the EP suggests a constant search for life and excitement, as if the new land is once again for the taking. You can actually feel the discovery in real time as a dispatch exclaiming, “This place… it’s amazing!” is heard in the middle of “Collapse at Your Doorstep”.
Spring is a transitional season that gradually fades into summer, and for some places like my home in Southern California where seasons don’t really exist, the time during spring can feel brief. Listening to No Way Down feels a similar way. The record flies by as it only lasts about 20 minutes. The difference is that No Way Down loops indefinitely with the final song, “Windmill Wedding”, naturally bleeding back into the beginning before you know it’s over. The joyful time of spring lasts forever on No Way Down, and Air France ensures the season always feels like a dream – no, better. – Ryo Miyauchi
Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver
If For Emma, Forever Ago captured the iciness of winter, Bon Iver, Bon Iver welcomes in the slowly radiating warmth of spring. Everything about Bon Iver’s second effort evokes a new life; from the gorgeous cover art to the beautifully made videos, to the becoming guitars that open “Perth” to the synth textures that close the incredible “Beth/Rest”, it’s difficult not to picture the blossoming the year’s second season brings.
Swapping out a cabin in the woods for his own April Base Studios, Justin Vernon set out on the difficult task of following up one of his more beloved albums by bringing in new full-time Bon Iver members and expanding the instrumentation of his bare-boned debut. The result is an impossibly lush album that retains the emotional core of its predecessor while somehow building on its mystique.
“Holocene” perfectly encompasses the core of the album. From its title we know it’s meant to be transcendent, and the combination of the cycling guitars and Vernon’s characteristic falsetto (without ignoring the many, many elements that lie underneath) manage to invoke both the simple pleasure of lying in the grass on a late spring day and the intangible feeling of warmth that new life brings. When Vernon sings, “And at once I knew I was not magnificent”, it’s hard not to feel both omnipresent and insignificant; both weightless with the possibility of the new, and weighty with the past. It’s a sentiment at once life-affirming and hopelessly devastating. In a sense, “Holocene” can be seen as the very essence of life itself, laid out for us in the span of five minutes and thirty seconds.
Throughout the rest of the album, Vernon and his collaborators take us on a (sonic) journey through Bon Iver, Bon Iver; the mythical geographical location where one goes to usher in new beginnings. Colin Stetson’s saxophone serves as the vehicle driving us forward on moments like the seemingly rocky beginnings of “Minnesota, WI” (nobody said starting new was easy), but at no point are we at a risk of falling: “Never gonna break, never gonna break”. Even the most aggressive region of this wonderland, “Calgary”, is not long-lasting, with Vernon again serving as the comfort at the end of the journey.
If spring is a time for starting anew, it would be remiss to not mention “Beth/Rest”. The most radical track Bon Iver has ever done, it also serves as a radical declaration of love. (For further proof, check out the insane video which Vernon has described as being about “two people who are truly meant for each other and what happens to their essence”.) The start of love is a chance to grow into ourselves, and the potential of beginning a new life alongside someone new.
Bon Iver, Bon Iver invokes spring more than just on a sonic or visual level. Contained within are 10 journeys that invite us to reflect on our past so as to step firmly into our future. Holocene. - Jorge Mir
The Cure – Disintegration
When stuck in the middle of winter, it’s easy to think of spring as a season filled with nothing but sunny days, light breezes and good vibes. But when viewed from the right angle, spring can be just as much of a bummer as its colder cousin. This angle happens to be the one that Robert Smith views the world with year round, and so it should be no surprise that Disintegration is more reminiscent of April showers than May flowers.
It’s easy to see why many consider the sprawling Disintegration to be The Cure’s crowning achievement. The album is a perfect blend between the dour gothic rock of the band’s early records and the blissful pop that they embraced after reforming in the mid 80’s. This fusion of styles allows them to balance joy and melancholy in equal amounts. Spring signals the return of life to the world, but those new beginnings invariably carry with them the pain of old endings. This same sense of nostalgia and hope is pervasive on Disintegration. Over a lush bed of chorus heavy guitars and soft synthesizer pads, Robert Smith pines for love long lost on “Pictures Of You” and “Last Dance” before being caught up in the euphoria of a budding romance on “Lovesong”.
These early tracks are the ones that usually get mentioned when discussing the power of Disintegration, but, in my opinion, the second half of the record is even better. Starting with “Fascination Street”, the mood takes a gloomy turn. The pace slows and the songs stretch out for six minutes or longer, but the impeccable production and expertly crafted melodies keep the record from feeling like a chore to get through. If the first half of the album is a sunny but brisk day in the park, songs like “Same Deep Water as You” or “Homesick” are a rainy one trapped inside. These songs are morose to be sure, but never cross the line into petulant territory, and Smith never lets his sense of melody or flair for shimmering guitars fade away. After all, summer is right around the corner. – Ian Cory
Fleetwood Mac – Rumours
This past winter I posited that different facets of instrumental music perfectly capture the seasonal essence; pairing winter with post-rock, springtime with funk, summer with jam bands, and autumn with jazz. While I maintain this position and believe that modern funk bands like Lettuce and Galactic represent certain elements of springtime, I also cannot look past Fleetwood Mac’s timeless Rumours as the ultimate spring record.
Unlike most, I didn’t really have that pivotal “classic rock” (read: rock music pre-1985) phase in middle school – or rather it was much more narrow, consisting primarily of my parents’ Beatles 1 and Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits albums. Unlike the rest of my fellow music-obsessed peers, there was no Led Zeppelin, no Rolling Stones, and no Tom Petty in my CD collection (and I only knew “Back In Black” and “Comfortably Numb” as I began learning guitar). I was merely concerned with the present; what was happening in music right then and there. Fast forward five years later, I was finally being exposed to classic rock with everything from Van Halen and ZZ Top to Pat Benatar and Cream. That’s when I finally came across Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” and sometime after, the entirety of Rumours. But Fleetwood Mac was so much more than just “classic rock”.
Blending elements of rock & roll, folk, and acoustic music, and switching between male and female vocals, Fleetwood Mac’s seminal record captures the transition between the wintry snow and the burning sun. From happy-go-lucky opener “Second Hand News” to lap-steel and harmony-filled closer “Gold Dust Woman”, Rumours is absolutely brilliant. To me it seems as if it was created to serve as the ideal springtime soundtrack with the light breezy “Dreams”, the sun-kissed “You Make Loving Fun”, the drizzling “Songbird”, and, of course, the epically blazing “Go Your Own Way”. As I type this on this atypically sunny spring day in upstate New York, I can hear my roommate blasting Rumours in the kitchen.
While I would love to see the classic rockers surrounded by trees and a cool breeze in an outdoor, relatively-smaller arena in late spring, it’s still pretty damn exciting that Fleetwood Mac will be hitting the road this coming fall for a worldwide tour – their first featuring Christine McVie in sixteen years. You’ll bet I’ll be there in a quintessential spring outfit, ready to be transported a few months earlier.
I may have been a little late to the Fleetwood Mac game, I think I’ve made up for it by listening to Rumours for weeks straight every year once the snow has dried up and the sun has finally decided to show its face. – Melissa Scheinberg
Fun. – Aim and Ignite
In 2006, The Format released what would be their last album, Dog Problems. The response was positive, but not enough to stop the band disbanding a short while later. Lead singer, Nate Reuss, decided to form a new group, recruiting Andrew Dost from Anathallo and Jack Antonoff from Steel Train. And so, just as spring follows a cold winter, offering the promise of a new start and giving warmth as its bond, Fun was born out of the end of one project, and came alive and kicking into the world, packed full of upbeat pop-melodies.
Aim and Ignite is unashamedly feel-good. That’s not to say that it is blazingly blinkered; it is painfully aware that the good times are only so because of the bad times which have preceded it. Take “I Wanna be the One”, a song about making something positive: “Take every single tear for all the world to hear/I wanna be the one to put it in a song and make it last forever”. And when there’s not much to feel good about? “At Least I’m Not as Sad (as I Used to be)” is the jam for the apathetic. I think you could probably call Aim and Ignite a summer record too, but it does seem to be more about getting through to the other side of something, and coming out unscathed. This is an album about change. On “Barlights”, Reuss sings, “But I don’t need to be reminded a change is gonna come/I can feel it on the tip of your tongue/And I feel alive.”
It helps that the instrumentation is as loud and brash as the pronouncements made in the lyrics. There are times where it feels like they are being used to drown out negativity, and there are times when they are used to accentuate the optimistic undertones against what looks like a looming presence. “The Gambler” is a track that sticks out for these latter reasons, with two lovers seeing the world grow around them, and each other growing old with sickness, but end by going “out to the garden, look(ing) at everything we’ve grown”. This isn’t a record blinded by happiness, but one that tries to drown out sadness.
“Be Calm”, the opening track, is a record I’ll throw on if ever it’s been ‘one of those days’. “Be calm/Be calm/I know you feel like you are breaking down/I know that it gets so hard sometimes/Be calm”. It’s a song that sets the album up as well as any other great opening tracks. It levels the field the album starts from. It empties that negativity out, and it’s from these “be calm” refrains that the album starts to swell into its signature bursts of sound. I guess the real reason why the album works as well as it does is because you feel like Nate Reuss is on your side throughout it all. “Take it from me, I’ve been there a thousand times/You hate your pulse because it still thinks you’re alive”. He empathizes at every turn, and tries to win you round. He makes it into an easy fight. He becomes your guide from winter through to spring, and it is his sheer force of personality that bursts from the seams of Aim and Ignite that allows it to work as well as it does. - Barnabas Abraham
Heavenly Beat – Talent
I first listened to Heavenly Beat’s debut album in the spring of 2013. As an English girl living in New York, I felt like a goldfish swallowed up by the mouth of a tidal wave; stricken by the city’s violent judder, drunk on its cruel concrete. Springtime was beautiful, though, and I spent many afternoons listening to music under a canopy of leaves in Prospect Park. One of the albums I most associate with this soporific time is Talent. I had never heard of Heavenly Beat before then, but I was soon enticed by its pastel pink cover and the band’s kitsch title.
Heavenly Beat is the stage name of John Peña, the former bassist of Beach Fossils who helped the band reach gorgeous heights before they parted ways. Like many of the staff have pointed out on this feature: to embody the feeling of spring you must first turn a new leaf, and Peña’s tentative step at going solo shimmers with this promise. It’s a collection of songs inspired by the first inklings of desire; depicting the warmth that pools in your stomach when you meet someone you can’t peel your eyes from. It follows Peña as he sheds stories of promiscuity as one would outgrow a past skin, hoping to find love in places he once only sought sex. “Lust” begins the album in a cinematic swirl as Peña spins in circles, giddy with attraction. This continues on “Tolerance”, where Peña sings, “I dream about how you’re so soft / Laughing off the things I want to do to you”, and on the scrumptious “Elite”.
Talent is perfect for the season because it sounds like spring sunshine. It’s an elegantly composed album that exudes a quiet intelligence and sensitivity at odds with many men of Peña’s age. Its beauty lies in its small flourishes, some of which include Peña’s breathy exhales at the end of “Tolerance”, the tropical-pop strings on “Faithless”, the poignant repetition of “hurting for a chance” on “Hurting”, and the dreamlike swell of “Messiah”. The album is far from saccharine, however. There’s a jaded undertone to many of these songs, a hint of self-loathing in Peña’s fey falsetto, but even these are elevated by the sultry island melodies of “Talent” and “Influence”. Overall, Peña’s poetic debut uncurls like the petals of a shy flower, and will make a lovely companion for the warm months ahead, where you should forgive yourself of any past mistakes and begin again. – Kimberley Ballard
Patrick Wolf – Lupercalia
I personally don’t put much stock in ‘seasonal’ albums. I’m more of a music-is-what-you-want-it-to-be type of guy, the kind that thinks all albums are worthy companions to all the seasons and it’s for each listener to associate with the music whatever memories, emotions or even time of year they wish. But in attempting to encapsulate the spirit of spring, Patrick Wolf’s Lupercalia achieves just that – and in sublime fashion, too. It’s a bit of a cheat. After all it’s an album named after a Roman rite of purification and fertility; a metaphor for the cleansing power of love and renewal of the self. But to reference all of Lupercalia’s lyrics to highlight just how spring-like the album is would be a futile exercise. It sets its case out simply and unequivocally. It’s an album steeped in acceptance (“Bermondsey Street”) and joy – giving it, receiving it, and basking in it (“House”). It’s an album steeped in the finding of love (“Slow Motion”) and the discovery of strength (“Time of My Life”) and resolve (“The City”). It’s an album that’s so over-flowing with positivity that it could quite possibly take on the combined misery of The Smiths, The National AND Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt”.
Moreover, the album represents a total transformation for Patrick Wolf. Quite unlike anything he’s done before, Lupercalia is Wolf shrugging off the gloomy desolation and dark cynicism of tracks like “Oblivion” or “The Vulture” (titles are such give-aways sometimes) and embracing the light and delighting in it. For all its happiness and hope, Lupercalia doesn’t wholly lose itself to that bliss. Playing devil’s advocate, tracks like “The Days” provide a counterbalance for the abounding joy – but even on the wistfully pining track, it’s composed and delivered with an air of self-awareness, of coming to terms with loss that even at its least positive, Lupercalia rejects the slightest hint of negativity. And with Patrick Wolf, that’s a remarkable feat in itself.
Then there’s the utterly gorgeous “Armistice”. The album’s simplest and most mellow song, it’s also Lupercalia’s most glorious gem. In its genteel meekness Wolf’s new-found strength of character shines through. It’s a song about acceptance; acceptance of one’s weaknesses and fears and the acceptance of life’s hardships. It’s a song about trust: having faith in one’s own resolve and the entrusting yourself unto the hands of another. “Armistice” sees Wolf bear his soul to find strength in his flaws from which he draws hope and peace and love. Spring isn’t necessarily about all these things, but it’s a season that celebrates life – in the blossoming of the flowers, the increased animal activity or the connotations of budding love. Spring dusts off of the cold and sometimes harsh hold of winter to reawaken with new life and relish in it. And Lupercalia represents just that, amidst all the flowery platitudes and blossoming odes, at its core is a celebration – a celebration of life. – Ramon Romano
The Radio Dept. – Clinging to a Scheme
Spring, to me, is that little glint of emotional rest that comes from the sun peeking out and waking you up from a long winter’s hibernation. It’s not the annoying sunny burn of summer, and no longer the harsh winds of winter – Spring is my favorite season, it’s alive but still with a tendency for sleepy gloom. This is exactly how I feel about Clinging to a Scheme by The Radio Dept. It’s got the flow, time, and feeling reminiscent of spring.
Starting out with “Domestic Scene”, The Radio Dept. open the album with a heavy eyed track – the perfect track to ease you into a record that is filled with beautifully soft vocals and the iconic dream pop sound they are known for. Beautifully sad, drawing you in with “leaving just in time” on repeat – you already hunger for more.
Second track, “Heaven’s On Fire”, is arguably my favorite track on this album. Reminiscent of happy Belle and Sebastian, this song makes me want to put on a polka dotted dress and spin around in circles until I fall back into my bed. Wiping the sleep from your eyes on “Domestic Scene”, you start to step outside while dancing to “Heaven’s on Fire”. This same feeling continues into the filet of this album.
Overtones of opinionated dialogue bring you back into a state of unrest. “Never Follow Suit” brings you to a place where a Swedish pop sound is baked under a sample of a graffiti artist out of the Style Wars documentary. As you transcend in and out of speaker waves, you step into “David”; a celebration of renewed sexuality and open expression. What better represents spring than a revival of love, sex, and new perspectives? This plays well into “Four Months in the Shade”, which, by title alone, already denotes the transition into spring. Noisy in all of it’s shoegaze glory, we find solace in the lack of beautiful chord and vocal. The album finishes on a light note – singing us back to sleep for an afternoon nap outside.
Though the band have seen their time of unrest through volatile band members and the transition into who they are today – the idea of Clinging to a Scheme embodies the very feeling of spring. – Leisha Bereson
Stornoway – Beachcomber’s Windowsill
This winter was a bit harsher than most here in the midwest, with record low temperatures and more snow than we knew what to do with. It’s a joke in Ohio that our weather is utterly unpredictable, changing dramatically from day to day, but this winter never had that bewildering day of shorts-weather in the middle of a winter month. If the polar vortex made the ideas of blankets, hot chocolate, and fireplaces appealing for the past five months, the weather turning has brought green grass, verdant vegetation, and (blessed) sunshine.
The invitation to, finally, take a trek outside knows no better soundtrack than British naturalists Stornoway and their 2010 album, Beachcomber’s Windowsill. Indeed, its opening moments streak with the promise and optimism that encompasses every romantic idea of spring. “The storm has broken/Heaven’s open”, Brian Briggs croons on “Zorbing”, and, like every good thing written about spring, it’s as much about having sex as it is about the new season. The frenetic “Watching Birds” remains a classic among my friends for its time-stamped chorus – there really isn’t a better song to lose it to on one of June’s Monday nights – and infectious energy. “We Are the Battery Human,” though a bit heavy-handed in its message, is about as good a case as you can make for, well, going outside.
In truth, if we were being strict about the seasonality of an album like this, the tracklisting could be worked around. (“The Coldharbour Road” is a great song for shaking off the last scrapes of winter, but it shows up right after the contemplative brightness of “Fuel Up”, for example.) But what makes it perfect for spring is that Beachcomber’s Windowsill is, through and through, a deeply uplifting album. Even on its slower tracks, a romantic optimism boils through. “Fuel Up” could be called a ballad, but even it’s written in the second-person, with the narrator peddling a moving on – hope is still there, but you must go towards it, and now is the time! Look at how nice it is outside! Go! – Sam Rutherford