Top 8 Songs for an All-Local Autumn Playlist

Autumn is the most inherently-sensuous of seasons. A sharper vibrancy naturally abounds.

Colorful sights, tantalizing outdoorsy aromas, brisk breezes and leaf-crinkled-loudness underfoot; it’s like a soft symphony out there.

Thus, this is my favorite time of year to listen to music. It just feels like the most inherently musical time of year – a crescendo of evocations altogether nostalgic and embracing, poignant and soothing, melancholic and quaint.

So, each season, I’m moved to make an Autumn Mix.

In fact, this is the 10th proper year in a row where I’ve compiled such an anthology. *For The Trip, though, I am, of course, keeping it all local!

1. Electric Fire Babies - "Thriller"

Debuting this week, this track's more like a re-imagining of the immortal Michael Jackson jam, not a cover. It's much freakier (in a refreshing/stylistic sense) also. Even as it's been uploaded onto the internet, it's proven to appear "possessed" in some manner, as the band had their recording equipment malfunction once or twice in the final mixing.

It's definitely distinguished with the Ferndale trio's signature sense for primal post-disco kicks, garage-hewn hip-hop heat-ups and weird meldings of anthemic indie-rock to tripped-out funk. Indeed...new beats, samples, sounds, and lyrics loosely based off the "original" but definitely their own trip, sexy and scary all at once...carnal but too cool...and an effective, grooving opener to get things off and running...

2. Electric Lions Soundwave Experiment – “Autumn Statues”

Layers, fuzzed-out, slow-crashing waves of a swoon-able, ethereal psyche-rock – compliments of this Dearborn/Ferndalian quintet – and featured on their 2nd full length album slated to drop on November 6th (from new local label, Navdo).

When we’re talking sensory-swirling, spaced-out meditative-rock, this is the band to come to; it’s their M.O. and they do it well. They'll be playing a show in early December - stay tuned.

3. Computer Perfection – “Able Archer” (Video)

An oldie (wait, what? Okay, about 4-years-oldie…) but still a goodie! A true goodie! “…the trees have lost their leaves for good…and the skies become a carousel…” hits it on the nose for me. With that descending piano chiming so sweetly over grinning bass grooves, OH! it just struck such a chord with me (augmented, I"ll say, by listening to it while driving down the rainbow-tree-curtained highway of M-115. (Plus, check out that video…recognize Roosevelt Elementary as its backdrop?)

4. Future Slang – “Prometheus”

Fitting selection to consider...Not only fitting since Ridley Scott's confounding/epic/weirdo/Alien-reboot of the same title just came out on DVD, but also because we can direct attention to this band’s singer’s other little Autumn adventure – that being his (and fellow musician Brandon Frye's) launch of a monthly music subscription club / music-label / artist collective called Dead Letter Office (specializing in cassettes).

This jam’s a good moody/groovy mellow-post-punk musing, showcasing the band’s blend of sequenced beats, trippy/spacey-loops, shimmying bass grooves and intricate/errant guitar growls under McBee’s sooty, craning croon.

5. Old Empire – “Beach Noir”

The warmth of those pianos, like bare toes dragging through the sands of anyone’s idyllic shorelines, is over-glowed by that sweet surfing guitar…and then those harmonies swell in and those steady stepping beats lull you away and you just start missing the summertime, altogether.

That’s coming from someone who claims to vehemently prefer autumn’s cordial chills over summer’s serene steam…this song, by the Ferndale quintet, makes me long for one more impossible beach day. Its featured on an album titled Isn’t It Pretty To Think So? – look for it in early 2013.

6. At Willoughby – “Dream Of You”

First preview (of what might be an E.P.? an album?) by an up-and-coming singer/songwriter (Alan Sowinski). Sublime sock-hop swirlings, striking that rounding, sun-soaked guitar twang like it’s 1959 and I’m cursing my plight at being a teenager-in-love; charmed with that understated piano shuffle and airy synthesized strings sighing underneath. Float away…no drums needed…dreamy indeed.

This will be out around Thanksgiving on limited cassette via Checkers Records Collective (a label home to other notable locals like Ferndale Acid Scene).

7. Jeecy & the Jungle – “Crawl On My Floor”

Not necessarily autumnal-tinged…but, do yourself a favor and check it out; part of a recently-released EP by the Ferndale new-wave/spazz-blues/elegant-punk quartet.

8. Odd Hours – “Electric Soul” (Remix – Jesus Chainsaw Massacre X Midnight Sneak)

Maybe mad, murky, glitched-up, beat-bursting techno-punk doesn’t fit on a proper Autumn Mix… I’d like to think otherwise. These locals have another release via Checkers coming out on Nov. 2nd.

Until next week's Trip...