Enon is a band from Brooklyn and Philadelphia. John Schmersal, Toko Yasuda, and Matt Schulz, have all been in a bunch of bands, and are still in a bunch of bands. But all that doesn’t really matter, right? What does matter is that these three, together, are Enon, always, and they’re always amazing. Some bands are content to develop a ‘trademark sound’. Enon continuously expands on every aspect of their music, managing to bring something new to the table with each release while still weaving a common thread through all of them.
Brigitte Fontaine / Brigitte It makes me feel calm when I put this song on.
With his latest album, All My Strangest Companions, Freddie Stevenson returns from Nashville, Tennessee a little older and a little wiser. So how did this Scottish afro’d punk poet end up in Music City, USA? Accidentally. But that’s another story altogether. Stevenson’s music catches everything from acoutsic melancholia to lap steel scratch, at times abrasive, at others so gently lulling it wraps you up and stroked you like you were a twelve day old child. His Secret Playlist is fittingly scattered. A bit of this, a lot of that.
Levon Helm / The Mountain I first heard this song on the record Steve Earle did with Del McCoury, but this version is just heartbreaking. There is something so ancient and authentic about Levon’s voice. It transports you to the lonely, broken mountain he’s singing about in this song.
We suspected that the covert listening habits of The Mekons frontman, Jon Langford, would be … errr … eclectic, and we weren’t wrong. The UK punk legends have been thrashing stages since 1977 and still going strong. Their latest album, Natural, is as exciting and dynamic as their debut one — The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strnen — was.
Chris Ligon / Knocked Up French Girl From his self-produced, self composed, self-distributed album, Halfwit. Chris is thankfully back in Chicago, where he is close enough for me to keep an eye on him.
My Secret Playlist is a music discovery website and weekly email publication. We invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. These are their words on the music that inspires them.
