The Wooden Finger Five: January 2013

Summer is the season for listening to girls singing sweet, summery tunes. These are five of the songs currently soundtracking my days in the sun.
 
1. Origins - Tennis 
 

To date, wife-and-husband duo Tennis have fit more in the category of bands that I would want to like. But this song is a gem; reminiscent of The Sundays’ similarly excellent hit ‘Summertime’. It’s part-‘60s pop tune, part substitute Captain Planet theme music (‘Have you confused your power with mine?’)   

 2. All Your Gold – Bat For Lashes

Natasha Khan’s ‘Laura’ is getting more plaudits, and while it’s a good song it’s a bit bare for my tastes. ‘All Your Gold’ recaptures the bells and whistles of Natasha’s ‘Two Suns’ album, but with somewhat of a spookier overtone.  

3.  Forever – Haim

Does this song remind anybody else of that Donna Lewis hit from the mid-90s ‘I Love You Always Forever’? Perhaps Ms Lewis would now be considered as cool as these three sisters if she too looked like she stepped off the set of ‘Portlandia’. The video to this song has made it on to my YouTube favourites list (just above the similarly cool and summery Friends track ‘I’m His Girl’).

4. Serpents – Sharon Van Etten

This is one of those songs that gradually builds and builds, but not really in the conventional U2 kind of way. The sounds kind of spiral around before they reach their full force, and without announcing it the song becomes a very different beast to how it started off.    

5. Shiver – Lucy Rose

I first heard of Lucy Rose in an NME article that was trying to convince people that this pixie-like folk singer is actually something of a hellraiser. Don’t expect to hear that in her music however; her album ‘Like I Used To’ is as every bit as soft and melodic as you think. This is the best track from that record.