It’s tough to come up with only five tracks, but sure that’s what pretty much everyone says at the start of these things, so I’ll leave it at that. What I will do is choose the songs I’ve been listening to the most at the moment, in case anyone gives a shite on where I’m plucking these from.

Chill Gonzales – Super Villain Music

Right, so normally when I look at other people’s top five yokes, I usually listen to one or two of them, so I’m pretty sure people will do the same for this one. If you are going to watch one of these tunes, make it be this one. This guy is amazing, and also off his rocker crazy. This is a one movement piece for chamber orchestra and rap vocal. Need I say more? He’s coming to Dublin too in December, I found out today. One of the best pianists around and just a general greasy hero.

Nils Frahm – Said and Done

Nils Frahm is probably my favorite pianist around. I’ve lapped up all his releases since getting into him a year or so ago. He’s a German musician who was classically trained but got sick of all the strict guidelines needed for classical performance, and so he went off making electronic music for years in his room and nobody really gave a shite about it, poor fella. Anyway, he was discovered playing piano on a small show in Berlin by another musician, Peter Broderick, who managed to get him signed to Erased Tapes and now he’s well-known and everyone thinks he’s cool. What a good news story.

Efterklang – Raincoats

These guys are legends. Their upcoming album is definitely my most anticipated release of the year, and this video is class. They’re all on a truck going through the danish countryside or something. Pretty cool basically. Peter Broderick who I mentioned earlier and his sister Heather (who is a bit of alright to be fair) join them on this track. It’s just a really cool video too which always adds to it. These guys also have the added bonus of possessing some of Northern Europe’s best collections of jumpers and mustaches. There are too many cool things about this band.

Brontide – Matador

This is obviously nothing like anything I make with north side drive, but my band Former Monarchs have just finished writing our album and I’ve been listening to as many different types of music and production techniques as possible and this one stands out a mile. It is a big huge dirty math rock song and it ticks all the boxes. I saw them in the UK two weeks ago too, and they were an absolute weapon. The drummer throws some pretty sweet shapes throughout as well.

Sufjan Stevens – The predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us

This is off my favorite album of time, and the video is particularly mental so I wanted to include it. Sufjan is one of today’s most prolific songwriters, and I think everyone should get into him. He’s big chums with the lord, but that doesn’t make him a christian artist or anything. Actually, for anyone who cringes at Christmas songs should pick up his Christmas album, it’s unreal. His music is just incredibly layered, tasteful and clever. Overall, he’s pretty top notch.

Pearson launches his debut EP tonight in The Roundy. Doors are at 9pm and the tax is €5.

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