Echo Beach Radio 3 + Skye

Come for the music, stay for random thoughts about Scotland

As always, the music is what’s important here. Here are two ways to consume the music. The first is Radio Show style, which includes some rambling from me and introductions, but has an ad or two from YouTube (which at least goes to the artists, somehow). Here’s the link (will take you to YouTube, Substack can’t embed playlists, sadly)

and you can get the ordered playlist, just the music, on Spotify here:

The Art of a Roadtrip Playlist

My wife and I have always loved a good road trip. We met travelling in the 1990s, and have spent as much time hiking, diving, climbing, swimming, eating, driving and exploring as we can. For the first time in 20 years, we carved enough resources out of the universe to spend 2 weeks just the two of us on the road. In this case, a largely-hiking based trip in Scotland.

But despite the intent to walk 7-10 miles a day in remote wilderness, we also knew we were going to have many hours driving backroads from place to place, and the responsibility for making playlists was firmly on me. What follows was where I landed meeting certain key criteria:

• All new music — which to me means at least 2024, but ideally in the last month or so. Most of these songs dropped since mid-April.

• Music that lands in the Venn Diagram overlap between us, which tends to be mellower, lyrical stuff, house music, and “harder” stuff only if it skews more towards celtic punk (she’s a first-gen Young Dubliners fan, back when people moshed to them).

• Viable on repeat, while in mellow, probably rainy scenery.

• A good seed for the algorithm to bring us more music (it worked).

With that preamble, here’s the jam:

“Forever 2” by Confidence Man and DJ Boring

Pulling out of the Edinburgh airport rental car terminal in the smallest car we could get (we’ve driven in Scotland before, it’s a lot of single-lane, two-direction driving with laybys so you don’t wanna be wide!) I knew we wanted a bit of a jam to get rolling.

Confidence Man is a cool Australian electro-pop/house act I first ran across in the pandemic. Their 2022 album “Tilt” was on repeat for a while when I needed some oonz oonz oonz to work out to. This mix is a lovely little danceable groove and it worked to get us rolling. Was never sad when it came back on.

“Jesse” by Hazel English and Day Wave

Getting some airplay, mostly I thought this was a Day Wave song when I first heard it— Day Wave is a project of one dude, Jackson Phillips, that’s got some jangly Shins-like dreampop sensibilities. But combining Phillips’ musical style with Hazel English (who I’d totally missed, but has strong dreampop chops), makes for a really lovely background for wide open spaces, like say, this view off the northern tip of the Isle of Skye at the end of an hour bog-walk.

“Affection” by Bullion

A band that seems to show up on algo playlists for me more often than I’d expect, Bullion is soft-pop. London electro. Their songs are almost always vibetastic, and this recent drop earwormed me hard. Nathan Jenkins, the dude behind the music, has produced a circle of similar electropop acts like Carly Rae Jepsen and Nilufer Yanya. It’s not a masterpiece, but, it’s definitely a chill vibe for a rainy day.

“Like I Say” by Nilufer Yanya

Speaking of that scene, here’s the latest from Nilufer Yanya. The guitar wall in the chorus is just Amazing. There’s a restraint in the production that’s super hard to get when you lean into guitars in a pop song like this. As always, her stuff has great rhythm hooks. If you dig this at all, I highly recommend her 2022 album Painless.

“Empty and Silent” by Mount Kimbie and King Krule

Speaking of Vibes, this longer track from another Brit electro group has a wild sub-rhythm ambient pad that runs across a straightforward bop. For some reason the combo of the subtle prog-like rhythm mixup and King Krule’s smoky low singing makes this hard for me to resist. I keep finding interesting little choices in the mix, from funky little guitar riffs to the backing vocals to some weird low-in-the-mix sound effects. I hope these two make a lot more music together.

This song lived in my head as we hiked the Glencoe Valley in the Scottish Highlands. It’s as remote and unpopulated as most of the places I’ve hiked in Iceland, but with more wildlife. Not pictured: countless birds (ptarmigan, grouse) and Red Deer.

“Free Treasure” by Adrianne Lenker

Eventually I’ll run out of Adrianne Lenker tracks from her amazing solo album from March. Today is not that day, and she’s so great live, I had to use the clip above. Between this playlist, a few other algo playlists, and SiriusXMU Blog Radio shows, this song got a ton of airplay in our week of driving the highlands. Every time the chorus came on, my wife and I sang out loud to each other in much less good harmony:

You show me
Understanding
Patience and pleasure
Time and attention
Love without measure
Love without measure

I’m obviously a sucker for love songs, but especially for duets. This song will forever be glued in my head from this trip, a celebration of time with the love of my life. One of the great joys of being on Skye this early is that we were there for the start of Lambing season. Growing up on a farm and around animals, spring has always meant “baby animals” to me. We saw thousands, and I mean thousands of young lambs, some straight from their mothers wombs, some still curled up, red and slimy in hollows in the fields, but mostly, just basking in the unseasonable warmth and sun.

“The Sink” by hey, nothing

Man I love finding new bands that are really just doin’ it. As far as I can tell this is just two incredibly talented folks from Athens, Georgia making interesting music. No artifice, no heavy production, just two people playing and singing their asses off. Also, in the microcosm of breakup songs, this one’s an absolute savage. Probably on the edge of “southern gothic” or “southern folk rock” with folks like Wednesday, but mostly I love the lyrics and their voices.

“Rude Girl on Rotation” by of Montreal

Speaking of Athens, Georgia, at this point of Montreal is kind of indie-OG, as I think I’ve been listening to them since the 1990s, but this new song has such interesting layered guitar parts I can’t stop listening to it. Very much in the of Montreal sound, it’s easy-breezy indie pop but in this case, with some really interesting musical choices under the hood.

“Mud” by Slow Pulp

Violating my “2024” rubric, this lovely tune by Wisconsin’s Slow Pulp is the very first song I heard from them back in the fall, and it’s one of those songs I just can’t turn off when it comes on. Laid back, layered, dreampoppy, with maybe a hint of the Breeders. While ostensibly about a troubled relationship, my head-canon on the opening is what sticks in my head (especially after my wife and I had been apart for a month dealing with extended family stuff).

I don't know what I'm still doing here
Yet another full moon that I missed this year
Do you miss me, dear?
Can't be this alone and stay so clear
Wanna be an astronaut and get out of here
'Cause I miss you, dear

Another thing that’s awesome about travelling with no real itinerary other than a bed to sleep in each day is all the weird things that just happen. Like stopping for a sandwich, where the view just happens to be, literally, Castle Arggggh from Holy Grail.

“Hanging by a Moment” by Slow Pulp

Already on the playlist once, as I was putting this together, Slow Pulp dropped this amazing cover of a classic Lifehouse song that I frankly like better than the original. It was already a song I knew my wife would dig, so getting more Slow Pulp in the mix was an easy call.

“My Fun” by Suki Waterhouse

Google tells me I should know Suki Waterhouse as an actor from all sorts of movies, but I only know the name in connection with some fun pop tunes over the last few years. This is a great one to jam on in the car.

“Can’t Be Still” by Illuminati Hotties

Out on the edge of the DIY style of production, I’m a huge Illuminati Hotties fan, and their 2021 album “Let Me Do One More” was on repeat around here a lot. To me, they manage to capture the energy and excitement of a DIY house show but with incredibly tight production (because the lead here, Sarah Tudzin, is a crazy good engineer and producer, having worked on, just since the pandemic, the KILLER albums from Weyes Blood, Coldplay, Porches, Slowdive, Boy Genius, Speedy Ortiz, and even working on the original Hamilton soundtrack back in the day. She knows how to make good music, and when it lands in her own work? Chef’s kiss.

I’m endlessly fascinated by music, and try and make some every day, even for a few minutes if I can. I’ve never been good enough (or had either the drive, focus or time) to play in a regular group (the best I’ve managed is a once-in-a-while get together with friends to play in the garage), but my wife had a secret plan — she scheduled our time at the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe (think the Prancing Pony but without impending doom) specifically when they were having open music sessions, and when we sat down to eat, someone handed me a guitar. It was pretty awesome, and I played “follow the chords” for hours into the night.

“Water Underground” by Real Estate

A bit of a cheat because this came out in the fall, I believe, but again, I knew it would be a boppy favorite in the car. Easy to sing along with, it’s hard to go wrong with the Indie Royalty that is Real Estate. The baseline is infectious. Chill vibes for chill days.

“Poppies” by La Luz

Very much part of the trend towards 1960s/1970s style production (from the orchestrations to the mix), This one gets points not just for their pretty unique surf-mellow sound, but all the interesting instrumental choices, from the vibraphones to the harpsichord patch.

There’s a lightness to it that honestly just fills me with the same kind of existential joy I get standing in front of endless nothing. The silence and enormity of nature just never stops filling me with wonder.

“Rag” by Porches

I knew this one wouldn’t land so much with my wife, but it’s been stuck in my head for a month. I’m already a Porches fan, but I like them most when they get discordant and sometimes nonsensical. There’s always a Beck-like precision to everything they do no matter how sloppy it seems in places. Part of what I love about this is the video where the whole backline just jumps on the couch while Aaron Maine just does his thing.

“Starburster” by Fontaines D.C.

I’m just an unabashed fan of Irish semi-punk band Fontaines D.C. and 2022’s album Skinty Fia burned a hole in my Spotify account for two years (check out Jackie Down the Line if you missed it somehow, it got lots of airplay). If I had any criticism of the last album is that it lacked some of the grit of 2020’s A Hero’s Death (while leaning more into the weird writing of frontman Grian Chatten, who I think is an incredible poet). Starburster get’s it back on track, and really, really makes me want to see them live. (Also a track that didn’t land as well with my wife, but was good for keeping me awake on a long drive home from a trailhead).

That’s it for this month. Go listen to something new!

Your friendly neighborhood dork, Dave.

Cheers