23 Tracks to Take You from Spring to Summer

The warmer weather has finally arrived! Here is a new wave of fresh sound for your earbuds:

Many of these tracks are a summation of my SXSW experience which kicked off Spring in early March. Other tracks found their way onto this list from excellent live performances (Matthew E. White), recommendations from friends (Sturgill Simpson), or trolling the internet until I found something worthy (Twerps).

The playlist features a wide array of genres and features tracks off several notable new albums. Here are a few personal recommendations for the 2015 albums with songs featured in this playlist:

Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
If the Chronic 2001 album holds a special place in your heart, To Pimp a Butterfly is the album for you. It even has a few skits!

Matthew E. White – Fresh Blood
This entire album is nothing short of a dream, complete with soulful gospel rock and simple-yet-heavy lyrics. He’s even better live, so if you have the chance to hit his show, you will not be disappointed. I want to get all up in that man’s beard. All up in it.

The London Souls – Here Come the Girls
A truly awesome, groovy rock album that takes you on a musical journey through distorted guitars to ukuleles. The album finally dropped after being delayed due to a hit and run accident leaving one of the members in a coma.

Emile Haynie – We Fall
Really nice album from an interesting guy that’s gone relatively under-the-radar. There is a lot of big name talent sprinkled throughout the album (Lana Del Ray, Rufus Wainwright, Nate Ruess, Adrew Wyatt, Lykke Li, Randy Newman).