In no particular order, I've selected the favorite tracks from 2016's playlists for our fifteenth annual Choice Cuts end-of-year mix. Here are the first five songs:
1. "Never Going Back" -- Caveman
Kicked off this year's Choice Cuts mix with a catchy tune by Brooklyn-based Caveman. "Never Going Back," the lead single from their third album, "Otero War," has been accused of sounding too much like War On Drugs' 2014 track "Red Eyes." But I think it sounds just fine on its own.
2. "Rising Water" -- James Vincent McMorrow
Powerful song made even more profound by this video. From McMorrow's third album, "We Move."
3. "Fountain Of Youth" -- Local Natives
"We can do whatever we want!" our local natives, Local Natives, sing. Great performance here, recorded at KCRW's basement studios.
4. "Blood On Me" -- Sampha
Off his new album "Process," U.K. artist Sampha weaves a story of paranoia and action in this complex tune.
5. "Here in Spirit" -- Jim James
A song for our times. Jim James' "Here in Spirit" evokes the Black Lives Matter movement in this video (shot in downtown Los Angeles), but the song also speaks to the power of resistance, and needing to speak up in a time where injustice is all around us:
If you don't speak out
We can't hear it
The next five songs tomorrow!
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