The Zine UK

There was no playlist this past September, everything was busy, busy, busy - but these tunes for October should be more than enough to make up for it.

Starting off strong with everyone’s favourite searching-for-a-stadium-big-enough band, MOSES and ‘Raining for Days’ #TheZineUK favourites bring the inspiring hug in a lyrical package they’re known for with big guitars and drums. Oi, Miss Emily Eavis! MOSES x Glastonbury, when?

Wake Up! It’s ‘BIG’ by The X Collective, Jamel Franklin, Celaviedmai, Shanny et al. I have to thank previous playlister BlueNiall for the heads up on this one. It’s hiphop with an electronic twist-pop and it’s catchy as heck. Celaviedmai, by the way is a definite #OneToWatch.

Girl Tones next (loved by Cage The Elephant btw), with ‘Fade Away’. Merging the best of second generation riot grrl with crashing guitars and indie goodness, it’s a BELTA.

Sleeping Together with ‘Daisy (Marc Jacobs)’ - I’m usually more of a Dot girl, but this song may just convert me. Bluesy, almost-Stones-y, lamenting lost love in a gloriously indie package…What’s not to love? Sleeping Together really wouldn’t be out of place on a This Feeling bill.

There’s something wicked about Blood Wizard and ‘Devil Dressed in Disguise’. A musical paranoia trip with post-punk guitar and somehow a touch of Momus. I dare you to listen without bopping or tapping something.

The ZineUK go Nashville bound with next track ‘We The People’ by Jacy Zay. Traces of Sheryl Crow with a classic rock n roll twist calling for equality in a time of mass division? It’s a yes from us.

‘Expiry Date’ by Finland’s Maggie’s Band is the song Ex-Girlfriend wanted to be. An Anthem to doomed love (Why would you play a love song/look me in the eye/then sing along?) It’s glorious femme-power-pop.

TASH continues the trend with ‘MAKE ME MAD’, an artist found through the ladies at Vanadian Avenue, I believe. Genre jumping yet somehow making it flow without jarring, Make Me Mad is a lament to those pretty, bad boys who break our hearts over and over again, with added crashing guitars and electronica, of course.

Daphzie brings ‘Trashy Gossip Mag’ all the way from Australia - a pick from a well travelled friend of mine. I’m amazed this song isn’t bigger. It’s glorious. The song starts in a way that you’ll never guess how it’ll end, it’s a trip. Make sense? It will when you listen to it. That super catchy chorus too…

Fightmilk (We see what you did there.) and ‘No Souvenirs’ next. There’s an echo of For Squirrels in this song, which I like. Lyrically, it captures loss in a way that most three minute-ish songs can’t, and this emotional intelligence is against a backdrop of crashing indie-pop guitars, it stays with you as a pleasurable audio-haunting after first listen.

Now then, The Klittens ‘Universal Experience’. Despite having a bloody genius name which somehow can only have come from a band in Amsterdam, fuzzy art-punk with pop sensibilities - a juxtaposition of what should be sombre lyrics and a bouncing guitar and drum backing track, makes this a favourite song of the year at TheZineUK.

‘Remember When’ by Paper Ashtray on track 12. Another on-pointe recommendation from my well travelled thespian friend. There’s so much musically to this track that takes you on an such an adventure that it takes a few (enjoyable) listens to take in everything that is happening in the song. It’s an epic.

Track 13, ‘Prisms’ by Temples. Something about the lyrics makes me want to dance around TheZineUK HQ like Stevie Nicks in the hippiest of clothes. “Happiness is free/It wanders in my mind.” It’s wonderfully psychedelic, but feels so authentic psychedelic, not boys-in-paisley-shirts-trying-to-get-girls psychedelic… and the drums!!

Finally, I would be a-miss not to include the last track on the playlist as we mark an entire year of the latest genocidal operation in Palestine. We’re often accused of being loony lefty here at TheZineUK, but we just think… I dunno, maybe we’re just human? …And so, evidently is Macklemore and follow up to Hind’s Hall, ‘Hind’s Hall 2’ (feat. Anees, MC Abdul, & Amer Zahr). Probably one of the best verses we’ve had from Macklemore, the addition to the track of Palestinian artists adds depth that perhaps the original track missed, but there’s not a line in the track, you can disagree with.

Fancy being on the #ZeenageDaydreams playlist for November? Just click here to email me with a link to your Spotify.