This morning, we are delighted to welcome ray of sunshine JW Francis to MailTape for a playlist of flowing instrumentals and gentle melodies to ease into your Sunday morning. Two weeks ago, JW Francis released his full album, We Share a Similar Joy, describing it as the introduction to himself. Full of unique guitar melodies, striking lyrics, and an engaging melange of sampling, the album makes a little world of JW’s self reflections. It is truly a proper introduction to what walking around his brain must be like. The following carefully curated episode gifts you a space of musical comfort to meditate and let your mind wander.

JW Francis’s selection

Ash Soul, Inc. - I Do Love You

JW Francis: ” The whole POINT of music is to communicate feelings that can’t be expressed in words. The two biggest areas we have trouble verbalizing are ‘hurt’ and ‘love,’ and they’re so often intermingled. This track is a smooth Sunday morning gem that says a lot more than “I do love you. I really really do love you” in a beautiful way. I can’t recommend it enough. 10/10. “

Ruru - I Forgot

JW Francis: ” I don’t know much about Ruru except that she is from the Philippines and she makes music that I’m obsessed with. I’ve been living with this song in particular for a while now. Sometimes you have to make a tradeoff between interesting chords and a strong melody, but this song has both PLUS a backbeat that immediately draws you in. 10/10. “

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Stratus

JW Francis: ” I was first introduced to this song while I was horizontal on the ground looking up at the sky. My friend Mark Brathwaite said ‘hold on a minute’ and put this on. How to describe this track? I feel like I am decomposing. I feel like I am the waves washing up on a shore, but also the sand that is being molded by the waves (which is also me). Groundless and grounding. 10/10. “

MailTape’s selection

JW Francis – I’m Down, Whatever

Sarah: ” Listening over the new album, We Share A Similar Joy, I was struck by the overwhelmingly genuine presence JW Francis has in his songwriting. The deeply nostalgic confrontations with himself are beautifully intertwined with the music JW Francis wraps them around. Talking to JW about this track made me more fascinated with it, especially as he expressed that in this track, he felt the most free. “

Elan Noon – Honeyrose

Sarah: ” This track comes from Elan Noon’s fantastic new album, Colour Story. Chord and melody dissonance comes into play throughout the album in such an engaging ensemble of sound. The calculated dissonace in this track, like many of the album’s others, is carefully and gracefully threaded with Keenan Mittag-Degala’s velvet vocals. The balance of guitar dissonance, gentle synths, and hazy vocals bring out such sweet and spiraling harmonies. “

Mokina – Orfeu

Sarah: ” The bossa nova in the beginning of this track caught my ear, especially this contagious singing. The energy put me in such a fantastic mood. The electronic development later on thorougly surprised me, and maybe it will surprise you, too :) Love this mesh between genres done so seamlessly. “

lyam. – Pretty Pretty

Sarah: ” Songs like this track by Indonesian artist lyam. gift us the wonderful opportunity to forget ourselves. Ourselves and the ticking and the trembling of our lives, the heaviness nested on our shoulders, even our acceptance of such realities. With these bubbling basslines, mellow guitar strums, and soft falling vocals, we slip away from all of it. For a moment, we leave these areas of pressure and stark reality for greener pastures of romantic thinking, where every tedious feature of our lives might be poetry instead. Listen to these instrumentals and sink into the flowers of your mind (that, luckily, have been there the entire time). “

That’s it for this morning! We hope you enjoyed listening with us :) Thank you to JW Francis for his fresh meditative selection, we loved welcoming you to MailTape! Thank you to Camille Célestin for this episode’s stellar illustration, such a gift!! Until next time, and remember, MailTape loves you ;)