Featuring tracks from Cassian, Calvin Harris, Caribou, Flight Facilities, SAFIA, Glass Animals and Porter Robinson.
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This episode comes amidst a significant upheaval here at The Breakdown. As regular subscribers already know, The Breakdown has been run by one guy, Ben, for about 4 years now. As good as the product has been for a long time, it is difficult for one person to keep their ear on the scene all over the world without missing some gold from time to time. As a result, we have decided to take on correspondents from the best indie music producing areas of the world to help with unearthing the huge amount of fantastic music that emerges every day. So far we have recruited Julia to represent Europe and Scandinavia; Joel for Western USA; Stratos for the Greek scene; Jamie to keep an eye on the Canadians; and Daniel and John to canvas the fantastic Australian scene. All these people have a proven ear for unearthing good new music of their own accord, and as such, The Breakdown can only get better from here. Happy days.
As for this episode, we continue our love affair with two of the best albums to be released this year, in Caribou’s Our Love, and Flight Facilities’ Down To Earth. Both of these albums are currently lock-ins to make The Breakdown’s top 5 albums releases for 2014. Caribou is an old hand, with Our Love being his 6th album. It is his most polished, precise, sonically deep and catchy release yet, in our humble opinion. All the songs on it have their own personalities, that take time to get to know and surprise you along the way with parts you didn’t previously know about. They are so different from one another and yet fit seamlessly together to create the one stunning piece of art that Our Love is.
Much the same can be said for Down To Earth, except that this is Flight Facilities’ first studio album. If this is what they can achieve in their first outing, lord knows what the future holds for our lucky ears if we’re to stay in touch with these guys. Top marks and mad respect to both of these incredible artists.
We must offer apologies to the indie purists out there, having opened this episode with a song that is sure to become a mainstream hit and be blaring at us from televisions, supermarkets and the very commercial radio stations that we aspire to take down. Calvin Harris just has a way of placating the masses and indie fans at the same time. He teams up on this new track with Haim, whose 3 track debut EP, Better, was popular on The Breakdown a few years ago, but who lost us with their album. Haim’s lead singer has, in some hooks, an eerie similarity to Michael Jackson’s vocals, which is enough to keep us interested in them.
In addition to Flight Facilities, Australian electro artists are well represented in this episode, with tunes from Cassian, Godwolf and SAFIA included. The Aussie scene is incredibly healthy at present, well evidenced by these accomplished and promising groups.
You may also notice a decidedly European flavour to this episode. This is due to our European correspondent Julia. She is a prolific music researcher, possessing impeccable taste. A chance meeting at one of The Breakdown’s live radio shows in Canada back in 2012 resulted in sporadic musical contact with the occasional suggestion from time to time. This existing aptitude has now been harnessed and we can look forward to many more European gems finding their way onto future Breakdown playlists thanks to her taste.
We hope you enjoy this epic playlist. Remember to get behind the artists. Without our support, they can’t do what we love them doing, so play it loud while doing the things you love doing! Until next episode, friends.
Tracklist
- Calvin Harris – Pray To God (ft. Haim) (00:00)
- Cassian – Running (03:31)
- Porter Robinson – Lionhearted (08:02)
- Brave Shores – Never Come Down (12:21)
- Godwolf – See It Through (14:46)
- Klangkarussell – Symmetry (18:31)
- Reveries – Rows (22:26)
- The Creases – Gradient (25:56)
- Fever The Ghost – Source (30:07)
- Halos – Dust (34:27)
- Caribou – Julia Brightly (39:04)
- Flight Facilities – Heart Attack (41:06)
- Wolf Tide – Spoke the Words (47:35)
- Glass Animals – Hazey (52:31)
- Beirut – Santa Fe (56:26)
- Pierce Fulton – Kuaga (Sonny Alven remix) (1:00:41)
- Jan Blomqvist – Time Again (1:04:41)
- Wallflower – Say You Won’t Ever (Deetron remix) (1:08:31)
- Lia Mice – Our Heavy Heart (1:12:04)
- Caribou – Can’t Do Without You (1:16:18)
- SAFIA – You Are The One (1:20:20)
- Kid Wave – Gloom (1:24:01)
- FM Belfast – Underwear (1:27:23)
- Navvi – Perfect Speed (1:30:30)
- K.S. Rhoads – Harvest (1:33:40)
- Blackbird Blackbird – Beasts (1:37:30)
The Indie Electro Breakdown 