Welcome to the third installment of the Sunday Spotlights. I appreciate all the love and messages that I got in my Soundcloud inbox from the list last week–really, there are some amazing people with taste out there. So, without further, ado let’s delve into this week’s set which finds us recapturing the attention of our errant minds and pushing them towards bigger and better things in the New Year.

(1) Josef Salvat finds the hope in melancholia, positioning himself as an optimist of the most dangerous kind (unable to be crushed even when the trenches seem unable to be climbed)–a sentiment and identity I surely share. I’m throwing down the gauntlet right now and saying this will be on my year-end list already. It’s that amazing.

(2) I never fell for Frank Ocean‘s charm–he was way too maudlin and sentimental for my tastes–but this Wiseman remix makes you wish (even if you don’t) that you had a mother to be proud of the person you’ve become. And that’s the case even if you are mired in an economic stagnation as the (3) Chairlift track finds itself in. Chairlift give voice to the Lost Generation of 20 somethings in “Grownup Blues” who are forced to use the Carnivalesque as means to escape a not so bright future, with (4) αtμ‘s “Way I feel” smooth track acting as a perfect outro for the track.

(5)Maxxi Soundsystem have us heading into the New Year casting aside “Regrets we Have No Use For” in a high energy dance floor anthem, while (6) Medium Troy allows us to still get high, when we get low.  Our host, Kris Kish, wrote that the Medium Troy track sounds like a ‘grimy Parov Stellar’ to which I wholeheartedly concur.

(7) Sky Ferreira finds us lost in our heads, lost in our bedrooms—and this week drops news of her debut album, which I’m excited for.  (8) Total Warr continue our search for sanity by sampling ‘Empire State of Mind’ in their cover of the Pixies’ infamous Fight Club soundtrack anthem. This gets my vote for second best track of the week, and the guys were nice enough to upload it to Soundcloud for our use.

(9) Love Thy Brother remix extraordinaires take Swim Deep’s ‘Honey’ and add some airy synths that start us on our search for purusing dreams thisyear ‘outside our dreamworld’, while (10) AlunaGeorge give us the balls (or brass ovaries, if you wish) to dive right into them. (11) While Flume (one of my new favorite artists) find us inevitably sleepless in that pursuit.

(12) Our last song by Ryan Hemsworth has the honor of being the first indie track release of the year, and if you listen closely you’ll notice its actually a pretty inventive remix of M83’s Moon Child. Hemsworth set the bar for musical creativity this year, and I’m looking forward to discovering new tracks with you all each Sunday on our Spotlights.

As always, feel free to send tips for tracks to my Soundcloud.

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