After a summer season hotter and more pyromaniac than ever, summer is finally slipping away, taking with it the sunlit days, the starry nights and the blazing fire that drove us through those months of pure hedonism. As our holiday memories slowly fade, a deep, gentle nostalgia moves in and starts to promise renewal. No doubt about it: fall is poking its nose round the door, and we still take just as much pleasure in welcoming it with freshness and comfort.
To open this ode to a reddening nature, we’re offering our usual digest of the releases of the moment: a pick of 20 tracks that will, we hope, make you shiver through this transitional stretch. Plenty of artists we hold a particular affection for have prepared their returns carefully and shared beautiful new projects with us: the comeback of shoegaze heroes Slowdive, a second solo epic from Parquet Courts frontman A. Savage, and further confirmation of the psychedelic proto-punk strain from the untameable Frankie and the Witch Fingers.
It’s also with a certain mischievous pleasure that we hand this new playlist’s spotlight to our Californian friends in Allah-Las, who release their fifth and much-anticipated album, Zuma 85, in October. A new effort that, on the evidence of the first singles, already sounds like a best-of, and that confirms these four guys’ knack for shaping Californian garage surf rock anthems that fit them like a second skin.
On our end, we’ll see you in December to spoil you — for sure — ahead of the holidays. Stay tuned!
