Just in time for summer, we have a new musical discovery for you. Not to be confused with the NYC actress, Sydney-based musician, visual artist, and fashion designer Annie Hamilton made her name playing with indie-folk bands like Little May before venturing out as a solo artist. With help from co-producers Pete Covington and Methyl Ethel’s Jake Webb, her debut album the future is here but it feels kinda like the past fits somewhere in between dream-pop and indie rock, with vivid texture and sonic layering. The record is out now — check out, along with Annie’s playlist below.
—Keenan Kush, Talkhouse Director of Operations
A good song has the power to transport you instantly into another time and place: a distant memory, a long-forgotten history, or a magic imagined future. Sometimes, just the opening chord of your favorite song from years ago can hit so hard that you’re all-of-a-sudden back in the passenger seat of your high school crush’s car, hurtling down the highway like nothing else exists — or wandering the streets of some faraway city in drizzling rain at dusk, watching your breath float away into the cold air as you exhale — or sitting on your childhood bed, discovering your new favorite song, feeling like finally someone else in the whole world actually gets you. I wrote you a list of my favorite songs to get lost in, to get carried away in, to escape into… I hope you enjoy the portal.
—Annie Hamilton
Samia — “Pool”
I think this song is my favorite musical discovery of the last year. When I find a song that really captures me, I will listen to it on repeat for hours, and this song got me good. It feels like floating in a pool into the early hours of the morning, weightless, timeless, removed from reality — “How much longer ‘til I’m taller? How much longer ‘til the morning?”
Amyl & The Sniffers — “Hertz”
A change of pace to jolt you out of the daydream and into a turbo-charged jump-up-and-down-on-the-hotel-bed kinda karaoke session. This was my scream-along lockdown anthem of 2021. Amy Taylor’s energy is infectious — “I tell you, time is not linear, especially when we’re here in this car”
Big Thief — “Mary”
This is a magic song. It feels like being carried away in a shimmering nursery-rhyme of nostalgia, distant memory and longing. Adrienne Lenker is one of my all-time favorite lyricists and this song is a perfect example of why: “And my heart is playing hide and seek, wait and count to four, will you love me like you loved me and I’ll never ask for more.” It’s heart-breaking and hopeful all at once.
Animal Collective — “In The Flowers”
Escape from the boring confines of your extremely human body for a few minutes of pure and explosive elation — “if I could just leave my body for the night, then we could be dancing, no more missing you while I’m gone…” This song travels through time, space, a field of flowers, early hours, rising light, delivering you back to where you started, just in time for sunrise.
Björk — “Big Time Sensuality”
This one’s for spinning around your kitchen with a disgusting homemade tequila cocktail pretending you’re deep in a hazy electric blue crowd, dancing, quite literally, like nobody is watching. “I don’t know my future after this weekend and I don’t want to.”
The Mamas And The Papas — “Twelve Thirty”
Turn on this song, go find a window to gaze out of and transport yourself to a sunny late-1960s morning in Laurel Canyon. Say “good morning” and really mean it. So many times I have played this song on repeat, turned up to 11 in my car, belting out harmonies. It’s impossible to feel sad when this song is playing — “I can no longer keep my blinds drawn.”
Portishead — “The Rip”
Here we enter the hypnotic zoning-out region of this playlist. This is a rip I love to get swept away in — “Wild white horses, they will take me away.”
Weyes Blood — “Movies”
Listening to this song is like time-traveling through the screen of a dusty little old television set and popping out the other side, finding yourself in a golden hazy cloud of old-time Hollywood romance where anything is possible. “I wanna be the star of my own movie.”
Mitski — “Texas Reznikoff”
This is an old Mitski one but one of my favorites. It feels intensely private, like she’s singing a love letter written only for you. You can basically feel the sweltering Texan heat when she sings, “you’re the breeze in my Austin nights.”
Beach House — “On The Sea”
Drift off into the eternity of the open ocean on a gently-rocking boat, sun on your skin and wind in your hair. I love this song so much. “Shadows bend and suddenly, the world becomes and swallows me.”
(Photo Credit: Jordan Kirk, XingerXanger)
