The mischievous, frolicsome style is made clear from the intro of opening track ‘Beach House’, the pseudo-ironic title announcement (“The co-oh-ne!“) preceding a plucky and playful opening verse. There’s an innocence to the sound, but one more adolescent than childlike, the vocals balanced between earnestness and vulnerability and edged with antagonism too. But the latter is as much in self-defence as spite, a kind of school years jostling for fun and friendship with in-jokes abound, the days of falling out and making up within the same day, creating abstract loyalties on a whim that change as often as the direction of the wind.

The style extends right down to the way the tracks are put together. Often short and boisterous, these are songs of fickle rhythms, heading in one direction then pivoting in another on a flight of fancy. The guitars meander one moment and bounce off in jagged arcs the next, the vocals at times sugar sweet one and others confrontational. Songs that want to be your best friend but then do a double take, looking you up and down, twirling gum around around their finger with a cool detachment.

Photo by Julia Leiby

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Various Swell Sounds is a new collaborative playlist series from Shana Hartzel of Swell Tone, Jon Chin of Cereal and Sounds, and myself. Instead of constantly exchanging tracks amongst each other, we have decided to work together to bring them to more ears. Every month, we will match a selection of our old and brand new favourites to a specific theme, as decided on a revolving basis month by month.

It only comes around every four years, so this month we’ve hopped aboard the World Cup hype train. We encountered a bit of a hitch when realising that there aren’t a wealth of football/soccer related indie tunes, especially when 2/3 of the curating team reside in the US. Thus, Beautiful Games was born, a playlist that widens the net to encompass all sports, and plays a little loose with the sound and style, meaning this might not the most cohesive list you’ll ever get from us. Still, that’s cool. The World Cup is all about a diverse clash of styles, after all.

Find the tracklisting below, though due to Spotify’s limited library, that version isn’t quite complete.

1. Parquet Courts – Total Football
2. Speedy Ortiz – Basketball
3. Ex Hex – Don’t Wanna Lose
4. Amyl and The Sniffers – Cup of Destiny
5. Queen Moo – Goals
6. Darla – Hey Ref, Let the Boys Play!
7. Varsity – Smash
8. Gulfer – Baseball
9. The Lagoonas – Beach Golf Course
10. Summer Flake – Shoot and Score
11. Methyl Ethel – Shadowboxing
12. John Maus – Touchdown
13. The Fall – Kicker Conspiracy
14. Slow Ref – Playing the Game
15. Stephen Malkus and The Jicks – Chartjunk
16. Hello Shark – Big Game
17. The Mountain Goats – Song for Sasha Banks
18. Another Michael – Football
19. Deerhoof – Basketball Get Your Groove Back
20. Super Furry Animals – Venus & Serena
21. Sports Coach – I’d Trade My Whole Team for a Dog
22. Ian Sweet – #23
23. Mothers – No Crying in Baseball
24. Spartan Jet-Plex – Sport
25. Strange Ranger – Sioux Falls
26. Her’s – Speed Racer
27. Frog – Nancy Kerrigan
28. Belle & Sebastian – The Stars of Track and Field
29. Natalie Prass – Short Court Style
30. Songs: Ohia – The Big Game is Every Night

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