“Listen In” is a weekly feature in which we ask musicians to curate a mixtape-length YouTube playlist of songs they’re currently digging.
Small Black’s “Listen In” playlist, compiled by singer Josh Kolenik, is a crash course in arted-up new wave and outsider folk, with cuts from acid-fried Moby Grape singer Skip Spence, San Francisco street performer the Space Lady aka Suzy Soundz, and yes, an especially epic live version of Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight.” Kolenik told us he “got deep on the net for this,” and it shows. Click the big play button above to hear the whole playlist, and scroll down to see and play individual songs.
Small Black begins a U.S. tour tomorrow, and will play Music Hall of Williamsburg with Heavenly beat June 30.
“Plain and Sane and Simple Melody,” Ted Lucas, 1975
“The Romance of the Telescope,” Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, 1983
“The Second Act,” The Blue Nile, 1981
“Media,” Roberto Cacciapaglia/Ann Steel, 1979
“In the Air Tonight (Live at Perkins Palace),” Phil Collins, 1982
“Carey (Live at Carnegie Hall),” Joni Mitchell, 1972
“Little Hands,” Skip Spence, 1968
“Tomorrow Started (Live at Montreux),” Talk Talk, 1986
“Major Tom,” The Space Lady aka Suzy Soundz, 1990
“The Dance #2,” Brian Eno and Laraaji, 1980
(Mixtape art: Nate Cepis/ANIMALNewYork)
