Life is Like A Box Of Records is back for 2016! Our guests pick tracks that have soundtracked moments of their lives so far.
Today is the turn of Tuff Love‘s Suse Bear. A band that don’t need much of an introduction, Tuff Love have been on an incredible journey and are now one of Scotland’s finest alternative bands. Their debut album Resort is released 29th January via Lost Map. TYCI present their album launch at Glasgow’s Stereo Cafe Bar 5th February. Ticket information here!
Check out the band’s latest video Crocodile.
Enya – Caribbean Blue
People sometimes laugh when I say I like Enya. But her songs and melodies are really really amazing I reckon. If they were arranged differently with different instrumentation maybe everrrryone would love Enya. Maybe Ryan Adams should do an Enya cover album? Anyway I love this song and it reminds me of listening to music in my old house’s living room with my dad when I was pre-10. He liked Enya too.
Llama Farmers – Jessica
When I was 12 or so, my brother wanted me to stop listening to the music he liked all the time and find my own music. So I went on Amazon and somehow found a band called the Llama Farmers and bought their album (with the permission of my mum to use her credit card I hope/think) for no particular reason. I listened to that album for like a year and a half most nights. I still like it, it’s engrained in my brain now forever. This was the song that I liked off of it first, it’s so immediate. It makes me think of my royal blue bedroom I had when I was 11/12.
Ash – Kung Fu
I was really really into Ash as a teenager. I wanted to put two Ash songs in here because I have all their old CD singles and they remind me of my childhood so much, but I stopped myself :/ I just listened to Kung Fu right there awwwhhh yeas it’s still good. I suppose this was a breath of fresh air because I’d spent years listening to my brother’s music: Oasis, Richard Ashcroft etc and in comparison this was a lot more fun and light-hearted.
The Organ – Memorise The City
I think this was the first band with girls in it that I really really loved and it made me think hmm yes I can do this – I CAN DOOO THIS TOO! – because all other music I listened to really was mostly by men, which is fine but it’s nice to look around and see people similar to you, or how you want to be, doing the things you want to do, yknow? Especially when you’re young and a bit scared, like I was. I had been making music and playing in bands for a bit but I was self-conscious and felt weird about performing. I went to see them at King Tuts, I snuck in because it was over 18s. It was such a great gig.
Tegan and Sara – Living Room
I was lucky enough to go to Vancouver on a family holiday when I was 16, I stumbled across a Tegan and Sara CD in a record shop in a mall there when I went off wondering by myself. I picked it because the people on the cover looked like lesbians, but ended up really loving the music. I spent most of the holiday listening to the album on my walkman and not interacting with anyone because I was a teenager… whoops. Anyways, this album set off my teenage Tegan and Sara mild obsession, which later died down.
Animal Collective – Grass
My first flatmate was this guy who had, to me at the time, a really cool eclectic experimental taste in music. I’d mainly listened to pop rock and hardcore like mostly straight up sounding stuff I suppose before I met him. But he liked things like Battles and Holy Fuck and more noisey weird stuff that I hadn’t really heard before and would play Animal Collective lots in the flat. It reminds me of that whole time in my life when I hear it. I had a birthday party at that flat that he DJ’d at, and I invited some people from a place I used to work. Someone engraved “worst party ever” on the table ahah! When I think about that time it’s as if I’m thinking of someone else, not myself – weird.
Uffie – First Love
I started going to clubs lots when I was 20 or so and it felt reaaalllly exciting to go out and p.a.r.t.y and meet new people cos I hadn’t really done that before. I met some people who liked clubbing somehow and they all loved Ed Banger records, who Uffie was signed to. This song particularly reminds me of Death Disco at the Arches and kinda sums up a year or two of my life, in my head.
Aphex Twin – Alberto Balsam
I hadn’t heard a lot of electronic music like this before I heard this song, but it made me want to hear more. It’s so great, it sounds like it’s being played in a big empty bright space. When I thought of electronic music I thought of DANCE MUSIC and this is not music for dancing too, I suppose I mean ‘club music’ because you can dance to whatever you want really. This felt like human sounding electronic music, if that makes sense, which I think was new and very exciting thing when I heard it. It took me down a hole of listening to & enjoying new types of sounds and wanting to record some radiator samples then make a song out of it.
Alex G – Cards
This was the first Alex G song I heard, on GoldFlakePaint. I heard it recently compared to the other songs on this list. Tom (goldflakepaint) posted a link to an interview he did with him and I clicked on it and heard this song Cards. I think it got me excited about music again, at a time when I was feeling quite fed up about stuff and wasn’t even sure if I still liked music… or anything really. But then I heard this and remembered that I definitely do – PHEW!
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