Songs To Brush Your Teeth To (12th January)
Welcome to our first official edition of Songs To Brush Your Teeth To (formally Take Five). The concept hasn’t changed, this is still the home of our weekly music recommendations. We’re still bringing you five great new tracks to listen to each week, we’ve just given the name a little refresh.
Songs To Brush Your Teeth To came about initially as a bit of a personal project. I sometimes find myself stuck in a musical rut, just listening to the same favourites over and over. I always listen to music when I wake up, so I decided to make a playlist of tracks that popped up from friend recommendations, on social media or stuff that hit my inbox, and listen to one or two tracks every morning while I was getting ready.
It slots effortlessly into my routine, and hopefully will do the same for you. I don’t need to find time for it or have to remember to do it because it’s just become a part of my morning now. Also, if there’s an artist I really connect with, I have the entire rest of my day to listen to more of their back catalogue.
Obviously, the list you get each week is a much more curated version than how it originally started. These are the tracks that stuck, the ones I listened to over again, and the artists I’m keen to hear more by. There’s no particular genre and this week’s list is actually heavily filled with international artists, which is unusual as I’m often very Aussie music focused, but I’m trusting the process and these tracks are the ones that stood out.
The tracks that make this list are the ones that get uploaded to our official Songs To Brush Your Teeth To playlist available on Tidal, Apple Music and Spotify (scroll to the end for links to these) along with past weeks’ tracks.
For those of you heavily invested in my morning routine, don’t worry, I still start most days with a bit of Chappell (H.O.T.T.O.G.O is my current get out of bed song), then I move on to the new music once I’m actually awake.
Anyway, on to this week’s recommendations.
Charli Lucas – FKN EMBARRASSING
So our first track on the list is actually a last minute addition (don’t worry the original track I had in this spot will be on a future edition of Songs To Brush Your Teeth To where it’ll be a better fit). We caught Charli Lucas live over the weekend and were captivated by her stage presence and catchy pop tunes and I just had to add her in here. Her latest release FKN EMBARASSING is about crushing on the person and then their behaviour just makes you realise they’re a bad choice. It’s super relatable, it’s got these gorgeous little lyrically ear-wormy moments (technical term, I swear) like “Oh My God it’s a tragedy” and honestly, it’s just a bop.
Find out more about Charli Lucas here.
Grace Enger – All My Songs
Yearning yet jaunty All My Songs is the latest release from LA based singer/songwriting Grace Enger. I love Grace’s pretty, harmonious vocals and the pleasant surprise of the brass instrumental section. It’s a great example of how to do a track on heartbreak or romantic struggles without it becoming a melancholic, overly emotional song.
Find out more about Grace Enger here.
Cavetown – Sailboat (featuring Chloe Moriondo)
Blended atop a textured, noisy hyperpop backdrop Cavetown and Chloe Moriondo’s vocals complement each other perfectly on this release about the start of a new relationship. Sailboat’s catchy chorus really cements the memorability of this track: “Maybe that’s the reason I’m so nervous when you ask me for a tattoo” and the musical ebb and flow mimics the energy of the story; the desire to be close and progress the relationship at times shown in the louder, higher energy moments, but then you feel the emotional withdrawal born from tentative nervousness in the breaks and quieter spaces on the song.
Find out more about Cavetown here.
Erin LeCount – I Believe
I love a good alternative pop track, and Erin LeCount’s I Believe is such a fab example of this genre done well. It’s centred around her lush, smooth vocals, it’s incredibly catchy and just that little bit edgy. It’s thematically deep, but musically light.
Speaking about I BELIEVE Erin LeCount said, “‘I BELIEVE’ is a cynical, existential song about apathy, passiveness in your own life, disillusionment with the state of the world, what it feels like to turning to every possible external source to tell you how to feel and exist – religion, self help books, magazines, astrology, lovers, antidepressants. I wrote it about a pursuit of perfection, faith and meaning soundtracked to relentless synth pop production.”
Find out more about Erin here.
Meadowglade – Magnolia
Magnolia is the latest release from Nashville based Meadowglade. This indie rock number builds slowly before hitting it’s full energy in the second half of the song. It draws on many of the sonic elements of shoegaze to blend softness with big sound breaks, and it’s just about emo enough to give you the feels, without treading too far into that alt-rock territory which I think would evaporate it’s emotional intensity.
Find out more about Meadowglade here.
All our Songs To Brush Your Teeth to can be found on our playlist for new music:
Apple Music and Spotify versions of the playlist here.
Let us know in the comments which track is your fave!