Top 5 Songs of 2013 - March/April (& the first half of May)

It's Thursday night and too late to be thinking about writing a new top five from scratch, but it's been far too long since my last and I reckon I can do this one quickly. 2013 has continued to offer up exciting and brilliant new music so I'm fairly positive I can keep this going as a semi-regular post.

1. Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer "Willies Lady (Child 6)" - I'd not clicked with Anaïs Mitchell until I heard this track on a Cerys Matthews session. The Child Ballads are a series of traditional ballads originating from England and Scotland and collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century. Mitchell & Hamer's album of selected tunes really bring them to live and Willie's Lady is the tune that most captures my imagination. It tells a great story, features some spellbinding guitar picking and is beautifully sung.
http://anaismitchell.com/
http://www.jeffersonhamer.com/



2. Wire "Love Bends" - Marc Riley's influence over my musical taste is becoming all encompassing. I'm not a long standing Wire fan (I do have a compilation tucked somewhere in the dark recesses of my CD collection but I never really took to it) but the lead single from their excellent new album, Change Becomes Us, really caught my attention. There's a corking bass line rumbling along throughout and some wonderfully angular guitar and keyboard noises flying about in between.
http://www.pinkflag.com/



3. Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs "Things We Be" - More 6music goodness. Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs not only have a good look and a cool name they also have an impossibly thin front man. I've a feeling I'm going to feel massively out of place if I ever catch them live, not that that's ever stopped me, but I love this tune especially the 12 string guitar riffage.
http://charlieboyerandthevoyeurs.bandcamp.com/



4. Public Service Broadcasting "Signal 30" - British Sea Power pick the best support acts you're likely to see. Unfortunately I missed PSB play with BSP but their name caught my eye and when I finally heard their music (2012's Spitfire) I wasn't disappointed. Public Service Broadcasting use samples from archive public information films and splice these seamlessly into their music. This track rocks out inbetween some brilliant dialogue - "No drinking & driving", "Not even beer?", "Not even water!"
http://publicservicebroadcasting.net/



5. Purson "Leaning On A Bear - Another band it took me a while to like, another band introduced to me by Marc Riley and another band who have supported. This song sounds like some long lost rock classic from the seventies. It's a bit of a psychadelic wall of sound but the tune shines through.
https://www.facebook.com/pursontheband



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