Waking Life: A Music Mix For August 2016

<p>(Photo: courtesy of the artist)</p>
<p>Justice</p>
Photo: Justice press photo
Justice

Luckily, as with every life situation good, bad and indifferent, music is here to see us through. There are plenty of songs from new and upcoming releases ripe for picking, and that’s where Waking Life for August is aiming.

We’ve been talking about our "Song of the Summer" recently on the air. I thought it finally found me recently in the form of Justice’s first new song in five years, “Safe And Sound."

I’ve also been joking that I might declare my 2016 choice to be the entire new Avalanches record, "Wildflower." It’s that good, that transporting, that immersive. It’s also a classic headphones record and a classic summertime album, meant to be heard from start to finish.

Elsewhere, perhaps in an effort to wash himself of his recent agitated, lost weekend, Father John Misty gets in just under the deadline with the breezy “Real Love Baby,” a song he originally uploaded to SoundCloud back in May but just released in its fully mixed and mastered glory this week. It features The Budos Band’s Thomas Brenneck on guitar.

There’s also plenty from the future to hold you down. Hear songs from upcoming releases from Jamie Lidell, Goat, Ages and Ages and Angel Olsen.

And finally, in the latest evidence that suggests you are, indeed, living a charmed life: Bill Callahan lends his velvet croon to a song on the new Echocentrics album. Such are the tools to keep your Waking Life woke.