After two years of writing, road testing, recording and re-recording new songs, on September 16, 2016 Canadian indie pop quartet, Paper Lions, delivered an injection of bright and spirited musical gems like “Call Back,” “If You Ever” and “Don’t Wanna Dance” on their new album, Full Colour
And with a new album, inevitably, comes a new tour and hours on end spent together in a tour van (for their sakes, let there be air conditioning involved), so Colin compiled this playlist of songs in heavy rotation while on the road:
1: BADBADNOTGOOD – “Lavender” Ft. Kaytranada
We played a showcase at TIFF with BBNG a few years ago and they totally blew me away. Everything I loved about the band live has been refined a bit more on their latest album IV. There are quite a few guests on the album, but this is the collaboration I think works the best. Totally trippy and fucked up but also juicy, which I assume is the Kaytranada touch.
2: Bill Callahan – “Jim Cain”
I always find myself listing to this song on the road. It’s simple and just sort of float, which works really well when you are driving down a highway.
3: Chance The Rapper – “Angels” ft. Saba
Chance’s last album ‘Acid Rap’ was my favourite record of 2013. I knew he was destined for super stardom and he’s now there with his latest album. He pulls off soulful/churchy hip hop without seeming cheesy and it’s just so damn good. Also, his album is called ‘Coloring Book’ and ours is ‘Full Colour’, which literally has a colouring book as the album insert. So thats pretty cool.
4: Japanese Breakfast – “The Woman That Loves You”
Came across this band when I was researching SXSW artists this year. The recording of the the whole album is super cool. Again, really good for rollin down the highway.
5: Mija & Vindata – “Better”
I don’t usually like a lot of the current ‘hyper pop’ electronic music that is coming out now, but this track is sweet. It’s just basically the same two parts over and over, but it doesn’t get old for me. The drum production is killer!
6: Nathan Wiley – “Queen Of The Road”
Another band I play bass in covers this song. Real simple rocker. The name kind of say it all. Very road worthy.
7: Whitney – “Golden Days”
A friend of mine tipped me off to these guys when I was in Halifax Nova Scotia a few months ago. They had only released two songs at that point, but both were killer. I loved their previous band (The Smithwesterns) so I was pretty ready to dig this band too. Real nice summer jams.
8: Tatsuro Yamashita – “Love Talkin’”
One of my favourite finds of the last two years. Great Japanese soul funk. I never go a tour without putting Tatsuro on.
9: Phil Collins – “Don’t Lose My Number”
We listened to a ton of Phil while we were making ‘Full Colour’, the album could be called ‘Phil Colour’ really. So many great songs to choose from. This one is a real dark horse from No Jacket Required.
10: Miguel – “Do You…”
I never got into Miguel until his latest album (Wildheart). I’ve been going back to his previous records lately and it’s been well worth it. Prince is one of favourite artist of all time, so Miguel is a pretty easy sell for me.