THE COLLECTOR'S GUIDE - Hanging Poolside

Sometimes you just need the perfect song to lie down with. This selection of old and new tunes have been cherry-picked with a horizontal pool side vibe in mind; you’ll find soft, pillowy songs tempered by an occasional psychedelic dazzle lurking underneath alongside music made for lounger dancing. Watch out for splashes on your iPod!

Bat For Lashes ‘The Wizard’ (dis records) Bat For Lashes come from Brighton, on England’s south coast and make strange, gothic songs that sound like Kate Bush’s dreams. Devendra Banhardt likes them so much he asked them to play All Tomorrow’s Parties – and chances are you’ll fall hard in love with this song too.

Arthur Russell ‘Another Thought’ (Point Music) Disco’s only cello-playing Buddhist is more famously known for his punk-funk classics as Dinosaur L and Loose Joints. But when not putting together dance tunes, he was making songs like this soft, strange piece of perfection.

Euros Child ‘Costa Rita’ (Wichita) Welsh group Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci are less well-known than their countrymen, Super Furry Animals, but are equally inventive. This solo outing from their lead singer is lonely summer incarnate – a song that manages to cram ice-cream, peanuts, the sea-front and lost love into the first thirty seconds.

Jamie T ‘Back In The Game’ (Virgin) Twenty-year-old Londoner Jamie T manages to take hints of The Streets, Billy Bragg and Arctic Monkeys and make it all sound brand, spanking new. There’s quite a trick to making music this shambolic and so utterly rewindable. 2006’s best batch of audio crack.

Hot Chip ‘The Warning’ (Moshi Moshi) And you thought gangster rap had the monopoly on lyrical violence? Try Hot Chip’s endlessly charming take on GBH. You’ll hear starry electronics and downy beeps ’n’ pulses as well as unequivocal – if pillowy – lyrics: ‘Hot Chip will break your legs/ Snap off your head/ Hot Chip will cut you down/ Under the ground.’ Charming.

Marva Josie ‘He Does It Better’ (Thimble) You can’t beat a good Gilles Peterson compilation. Last Spring’s ‘Digs America’ compilation for Ubiquity contained this seductive, soulful pinnacle of feminine power (and a brilliant Jon Lucien track called ‘Search For The Inner Self’). Forget all those ‘cheatin’ man’ standards – in this song Josie and songwriter Earl Hines vocalised a really joyful last word.

Spank Rock ‘Sweet Talk’ (Big Dada) So we all know that Baltimore’s cranking out a whole bunch of great tunes at the moment, and where better to get a taste of their smash and grab sampledelia – and stomping tunes – than the city’s best known export? You’ll find hard funk, Brazilian undertones and a blinding girl-group soul chorus. Upwards! Grace Jones ‘La Vie En Rose’ (Island) Ah, Grace – überwoman of überwomen. Most of Miss Jones’ time on vinyl was represented by her Jamaican and New York sides; those Sly and Robbie licks, that hardcore disco dynamite. But on this sublime cover, her years in Paris stream through. It’s Edith Piaff transmogrified into brutal, beautiful disco. It rules.

New Buffalo ‘I’ve Got You And You’ve Got Me’ (Arts & Crafts) When you’ve got woozy brass, slo-mo, time-travel electronics and dreamy, woozy singing from Melbourne’s Sally Seltmann, you don’t need much else. It’s just one of those songs that bears repeated listening, especially under the hot rays of holiday sun. Strange and beautiful.

Erik Satie ‘Berceuse’ (Decca) The final choice was going to be Aphex Twin’s ‘Avril 14’, but aside from the fact that it appeared in last issue’s Alternative Love Songs, here’s a glimpse of
where RDJ got those narcotic piano lines from. He called them ‘prepared piano pieces’. We call them damn lovely.

Text: Emma Warren