Headphone Highlights

Washed Out

Weird World, Sub Pop, Atlanta

Ernest Greene first stepped into the digital limelight in 2009, when he posted some tracks he had been working on between his laptop and a microphone. His hazy, somewhat psychedelic take on classic songcraft, with a love for synthesizers that oscillates between eighties pop, nineties dance music and hip hop swagger, resonated in the musical landscape, garnering praise from Pitchfork to The Wire. But even though the press swiftly hurled a barrage of freshly made up genre names at him, he continued at his own pace, first recreating his sample based music into a live band show, and then re-evaluating his songwriting process on that basis. All this was done on his own time and money, so with no record label to rush or pressure him, he took all the time he needed for the debut album 'Within And Without', and by the time it hit, he had come up with a sound that transcends genre du jour classifications - just call it pop music. In this selection, Greene shares some tracks influential to him over the years.