We’re stoked to feature Sainthood Reps, Weatherbox, and staff designer Grace Lutz in this PropertyOfZack Playlist series! Sainthood Reps and Weatherbox are currently wrapping up a US tour in support of both of their fantastic 2011 releases. Check out the Playlists and listen to the songs while reading everyone’s thoughts!

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This playlist roughly sums up my past year. No shortage of emotion, heartbreak, loss, and confusion but with sprinkles of dance beats, cute love songs, acoustic covers, and big band music thrown in there too. - Grace Lutz

 
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All the musicians in the Weatherbox of Now have varied tastes and listen to a lot of music, so picking ten songs and putting them in order would take a lot of time and arm-twisting. In the weeks leading up to tour, we were talking a lot about doing a cover song, but never really followed through with any of our ideas. So I thought that would be interesting to share. These were the best ten ideas. Hopefully we’ll get around to covering at least one of these. They’re all great. - Brian Warren

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Kicking off this playlist are two female fronted bands with more balls than most bands with bearded dudes could ever dream of mustering. While Kylesa has been pegged with the ever intuitive stoner metal label, PJ Harvey is just as responsible for the “grunge” explosion that killed off all that bad music from the eighties. Steve Albini recorded “Rid of Me.” He also recorded a little record called “In Utero” by some band from Aberdeen, Washington. Maybe you heard of it. Maybe you heard of “Goat” as well, as it was also recorded by Albini. 
I threw in Monkey Trick by Jesus Lizard, which I still maintain as the best sounding record of it’s kind, especially in the drum and bass department. When you try to create music as abrasive as Jesus Lizard did, you need your drums and your bass to sound filthy. Staying in the same era, I threw in one of my favorite tracks from one of my favorite bands from one of my favorite records. These three tracks are examples of why music was recorded better in the nineties than it is today. The recording quality only gets better the louder you set your stereo. Try that with many of today’s recordings and what you get is what sounds like a thousand instruments vomitting from your speakers. Lightening up a bit, the next several tracks span the last twenty years or so and there are some tracks that I haven’t listened to in ages. “I’m Expanding My Mind” is the first track off one of the most underappreciated records of the last twenty years, Superdrag’s “Head Trip In Every Key.” I threw in Widowspeak because they are a band I have been listening to a bunch lately and I think I like them so much because they sound a lot like the next artist Mazzy Star, whose voice sounds like what I imagine a velvet robe would sound like if it could sing. Hope Sandoval’s voice has the same textural qualities that make Elliott Smith and Thom Yorke so appealing. Thom Yorke once called Oxford his home, which is where Swervedriver is from. They’re one of those bands that won’t get the recognition of My Bloody Valentine or Catherine Wheel in the shoegaze world, but none the less rule equally hard. 
For the last three tracks, I decided to include some more contemporary bands like Telekinesis, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Modern Life is War. There’s no story behind the two former tracks, I just think they’re pretty good. The last track, D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S. is a classic song that is a picture perfect introspect into why all of us band dudes and chicks do what we do. Lyrically, I don’t think I’ve ever connected with a song so much as this one. 
Before I wrap this up, I want to include that “Swamped and Agitated” by Young Widows would be on this playlist had the “Old Wounds” version been on Spotify. So, play this playlist loud at an unreasonable volume and offend everyone you know. - Francesco Montesanto