I’ve decided to start keeping a monthly music diary. This is more for myself than anyone else, so I can look back in future on what was going on in my musical world. It includes a playlist of the songs I’ve been enjoying this month, the shows I’ve been to, and commentary on musical events and discourse.

I managed to listen to a surprisingly large amount of new music in June considering all the usual life stuff was going on as well as the football world cup, and various music challenges on BlueSky. These are some of my favourite discoveries:

Alexis Taylor’s latest song sounds so instantly classic that I had to keep checking to make sure it wasn’t a cover version. To be fair he’s written a few classics for Hot Chip in his time, but this one is tucked away as the second song on a collaboration with Mike Simonetti. It deserves to be much more widely deserved than it seems destined to be.

Matias Aguayo reminds us that, away from the chin-strokers, techno can be funny and fun.

Sundae May Club are new to me but make delightful Japanese indie-pop

This track for dgoHn is drum n bass/breakbeat/electronica in the Squarepusher mould, one of the best electronic tracks I’ve heard this year

There’s also a lot of jazz on my list this month both old (Sonny Rollins who sadly passed recently, and Dnald Byrd) and new (Hannah Marks, Nicholas Payton & Butcher Brown). There’s even some free jazz from Karen Borca. Free jazz has always scared me off previously, but I think actually I quite like it.

I also somehow managed to write more than usual with 5 blogs published during the month, although admittedly some were just finishing off pieces I’d previously started. Always nice to hit that publish button though

There were 3 in my ‘Every Song I Love’ series

Fischerspooner – Emerge
Lambchop – The Man Who Loved Beer
Kenickie – Punka

1 in my ‘Every Album I Love’ series

Belle and Sebastian – If You’re Feeling Sinister

And a one off piece on the (exaggerated) death of the album

I also went to my first live show since March, Belle and Sebastian and Saint Etienne at The Piece Hall in Halifax. I talk about Belle and Sebastian’s set in my piece linked above, but Saint Etienne were also excellent, once they had overcome some sound issues early on. ‘He’s On The Phone’ was both conclusion and highlight, and I’m now slightly obsessed with a song that mainly passed me by when it was first released.

Linked is my playlist of the month, on Apple Music, but you can use Tunemymusic.com to convert to a streaming service of your choice should you wish.