September Playlist: Gonna Be Young Again

September is a weird, transitional month that's half summer, half autumn, and doesn't really feel properly like either. That's also true of this month's playlist, which mingles the last faded rays of summer sunshine with the first crackles of autumn.

Or it's just 10 songs I listened to lots last month. You decide.

1. Paint with the Sun by Arc Iris

(from Moon Saloon)

The piano-led new single from Arc Iris is a truly majestic thing that's just the right side of psychedelic. Read my review of Moon Saloon here.

2. Please Don't Kill Me by Reptar

(from Body Faucet)

I got this album ages ago - Please Don't Kill Me itself was a staple of my summer 2013 playlist - but I revisited it last month for the first time in a while and was pleased to find it even more packed with sweet riffs and surprises than I remembered.

Goodbye Darlin'

Earlier today, everyone's favourite indie poppers Allo Darlin' announced on Facebook that they will be calling it quits after one final show in London this December. This news made me sad (not least because I was under the impression that they were currently in the studio, beavering away on a new album) and so I'd like to offer this short tribute to Allo Darlin' and, in particular, their superb second album Europe.

I am not a particularly keen traveller. My parents took me on many foreign holidays when I was little - Italy, Portugal, even Australia - but since I became an adult and assumed responsibility for my own movements, I've made little effort to continue adding pins to my map. In the last five years, I've been to exactly three places outside of Great Britain: Porto (for a music festival), Barcelona (ditto), and Copenhagen (where I ate at one of the best restaurants in the world courtesy of my uncle, who lives in Denmark and sometimes reads this blog - hi Mark!). While my friends have traversed the globe, slept in hostels and met all sorts of people in all sorts of places, I've mostly stayed put here in Cardiff and observed their adventures through the window of Facebook. And I've mostly been perfectly happy to do so, partially because I've got a lot of things keeping me here (a relationship, a full-time job, my family, a fantastic local record shop) and partially because I'm just not of a travelling nature.

All of that being said, there's one album that has proven consistently capable of making me forget my aversion to check-in desks and unfamiliar public transport systems, and that's Europe by Allo Darlin'. This record is like a key that unlocks a quite uncharacteristic feeling of wanderlust in me; it's very difficult to listen to songs like Northern Lights and the title track without wanting to zip over to the continent and see what's going on in all those other places you've heard about. Even the sad, spare Tallulah triggers a yearning for the sort of rich melancholy you can't really feel in your own homeland.

5 from My Wishlist

So the 2014 Welsh Music Prize shortlist was announced yesterday, and while (as predicted) American Interior and Futurology did indeed make the cut, so did ten other albums with which I am not familiar.

Here's the thing, though: I'd dearly love to repeat my WMP odyssey of 2013, but purchasing the nominated albums that I don't already own would cost me the best part of £100. I simply don't have that money lying around at the moment, and even if I did, there are several other CDs that are significantly further up my wishlist than anything on the shortlist.

So, no - barring the possibility of an unexpected windfall, I won't be reviewing each WMP-shortlisted album in turn like I did last year. Sorry, but if I spent all my money on Euros Childs and The Gentle Good, I'd have none left for...

My Favourite Faded Fantasy by Damien Rice

Mere weeks ago, the idea of a third Damien Rice album seemed like a pipe dream. We hadn't seen hide or hair of Mr Rice since 2006 (the year when the criminally underappreciated 9 first saw the light of day), and it was looking increasingly like we'd never hear from him again...until news of My Favourite Faded Fantasy broke and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

I've kept away from the album's single (I Don't Want to Change You, already available to hear online), simply because I want the album to be a surprise when I finally do hear it. I'm hoping for something that's just as good and as emotionally wallopy as 9 was.