Listening Post

Alex Cameron’s tram-conductor ‘business partner’ Roy Molloy has made this interstellar Primavera playlist

Top picks and top words from the saxophone playing Australian

Alex Cameron and Roy Molloy, the greatest comedy double act since Vic and Bob. That’s just a stone cold fact. Here’s some evidence, in case you need it.

The sleaze-pop pair make touring the world on a shoestring in a rented Ford Mondeo scrapping together a few quid to buy a petrol station pasty sound like an absolute hoot. Reading their on-the-road dispatches is almost as much fun as catching them do their thing live.

Anyway, Roy has taken precious time out from polishing his saxophone to put together this comprehensive and wonderful playlist. Next week, they’ll pass through customs into Spain to play Barcelona’s Primavera Sound. They’re playing Auditori Rockdelux at 21.00 on Saturday 3 June.

They’re the latest artist to put together a guest playlist in the run-up to the event. The Black AngelsJulia Jacklin, Noga Erez and Japandroids have already taken part in this mini-series.

Read Roy’s explanations – typed, we imagine, on a crusty iPhone somewhere in a motorway lay-by in eastern Europe – below and listen to his selections.

Mac DeMarco – Still Beating

Let’s get one thing straight: Mac’s new record is a motherfucken triumph. The guys got a tender heart and a way a giving equal footing to the good and bad in relationships and life, so as you come out believing every word he says. It’s happy and sad at once. He does it in such an artful and unpretentious way it leaves everything around you feelin’ beautiful and boyant, which I know I spelt wrong, but autocorrect wont help me, showin’ only the clumsiness a words and my own shameful lack a qualification to talk on these matters.

Kevin Morby – Come To Me Now

Kevin Morby’s got that hopeful and honest style that you gotta carry in your heart from the moment you’re born and a dick of a thickness you only develop via generations of mild inbreeding. I love his new record an I’m envious a the way he makes the words pile up or thin out in a verse as he pleases. He’s a damn motherfucker of songwriting in my opinion.

Weyes Blood – Be Free

I listened to Weyes Blood at my business partner’s insistence and found myself struck. I’m a small, petty man, in a lot a ways. Some fellers live in need of charity or mercy regarding their character and I am ashamed to be one of them, but there’s light and love surmounting these verses enough to leave my pride piled in ashes and myself feelin’ light and good like I used to.

Fatima Yamaha – What’s A Girl To Do

God damn this track bangs. If I had a dollar for each time I’d gotten a hold of the aux cord and made a party bang using this track, an acted low’key like “oh you never heard a this old number?”. So bare. So controlled. So cool. I don’t normally go in for instrumentals but when it’s perfect like this it’s hard to say no.

Angel Olsen – Not Gonna Kill You

There’s a feelin’ come over you when a songwriter sings something true of you. When they express something you didn’t know you knew about yourself and wouldn’t have the words to describe it if you did, or maybe it had to be said in song, or maybe it’s just a shade of a thought or a universal thing. Angel’s figured out the answers to stuff I wouldn’t know how to wonder in the first place. She’s possessed of an intellectual energy and songwriting brilliance and her voice is the best in the game, and she plays it all off like it’s nothing. Cool as shit.

Whitney – No Woman

These guy’s tracks are like little bags a gems. Good boys writin’ folk music with real soul. We toured with them for a while and they’ve got a tightness to their band that seemingly no amount of drugs or booze can undo, and I respect that.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – The River

We played support slot at a Sydney bowling alley for these boys back in 2014 or 2015, and I remember marvelling at this track specifically. I’d just hit a nang and for 10 minutes I was really flying. Terrifying, electric stuff. I heard their bands even grown in numbers, too.

Run The Jewels – Call Ticketron

I can’t think of another contemporary rap group that goes hard like these guys. Outrageous brag raps an the type a political rhymes that tell you the temperature without tellin’ you how to feel. The productions incredible too. I never seen ’em live and I’m insanely keen to.

Van Morrison – Dweller On The Threshold

’80s Van. Man. I heard he lives in a mansion and orders delivery pizza, and plays only a handful a shows a year. Fact is, he’s written 30 albums rammed with tracks like this – he can do whatever the fuck he wants. The high-hats and horn, the spirituality. What a belter.

Arcade Fire – Sprawl II

This one’s the type of track that with any kind a listen it’ll give ya shivers. I know not how you achieve this kind a energy in a song for if I did I’d be doing it. What a beauty. I don’t know what else to say about it.