Autumn albums: The 10 greatest records to soundtrack the season with
Every season has its cliches, but dear me autumn certainly falls into some terrible ones. Apparently the leaves falling from the trees are seemingly symbolic of the disintegration of our own integrity as we flock towards obscure drinks flavours and oddly romanticize oversized knitwear. While I too, enjoy the changing of the seasons and am not ashamed to admit, find the summer transition into autumn one of the most comforting, I won’t be making a show of pumpkin spiced anything.
I will however be running through some of the greatest albums to get you through this season. Whether you like the introduction of the colder months, or sob as the last rays of summer sunshine wave us goodbye, you surely have to admit that there is a distinct personality to this yearly segment that lends itself to a certain kind of music.
Because each season has a sound, and in autumn, it’s largely whistling winds, crunching leaves and the pitter patter of raindrops. In that soundtrack exists a slower pace of life, maybe housebound, that lends itself to a heightened sense of introspection. A time to view the world as it is during this season, changing, and so use the music to make important evaluations of your life around you.
Naturally, many critics associate this profile of thought with the introspection of folk, and where the autumn is concerned, I think there is validity in doing so. But something about the delicate footsteps of folk feel connected to early autumn, where the sun still pokes through and the browning leaves bask in the lasting light. Come the end of the season, the landscape is far more miserable, dark and murky. Does folk still have a place here, or does the music need to shift into something more brooding and industrial? I like to think that somewhere across my list of 10 autumn albums, exists a record that suitably soundtracks each changing step of this divisive season.
‘Lost In The Dream’ – The War On Drugs
A true album of isolation. Adam Granduciel poured every ounce of his own depression into a beautifully crafted record that never shied away from the darkness. It was a record truly for those moments when the curtains close and all that you are left with is your own reflection.
But in doing so, it wasn’t one-dimensional. Sonically, it wasn’t a deep plunge into sonic destitute; no, Granduciel offset his own introspective musings with flecks of musical hope. Be it a keyboard melody that heaved against the darkness through major chord progressions or a desperate yell of “woo” before the bridge. This was an album of defiant independence, one that was purpose-built to help its listeners through whatever loneliness they may feel in the darker depths of the year.
‘6 Feet Beneath The Moon’ – King Krule
Okay, so not all autumn months are about pumpkin-spiced lattes and log-burning fires. As the autumn months chip away, so does the romanticism and what is left, is the dark and damp reality of modern life. Life isn’t, in fact, a Hollywood movie, and what awaits is the everyday mundanity that exists in the unseen corridors of romanticised life.
6ft Beneath The Moon perfectly soundtracks this. It’s industrial one minute and delicate the next, with Archy Marshall’s modern London voice providing the perfect narration for an album delving into the thoughts of the late-night cityscape. It’s the album you play while walking through dark corners of a city, peaking through gaps in buildings to see the horizon of a city that plays host to a myriad of stories.
‘Twin Heavy’ – Willie J Healey
In an article written by Far Out’s managing editor, Jack Whatley, Healey’s 2023 record Bunny was described as a record perfect for someone looking for a “canal-side accompaniment to a sunny walk with an iced coffee and a pep in your step”. A nail on the head assessment of the album for sure, but were you looking for a crisp pint of Guinness in a warm British pub, I’d turn you onto his preceding 2020 record, Twin Heavy.
In my opinion, his finest work, each song is delicately crafted to hit all the notes one would be looking for in an autumn album. Folk tinged chorus lines, grunge-inspired solos, and on the odd song, twisting synthesised melodies that mirror the cold skies of an ethereal autumn afternoon. It’s charming, warming and introspective all in one.
‘Song For Our Daughter’ – Laura Marling
For many fans, including myself, this album soundtracked the bleak and isolated months of Covid-19. A time that, in many ways, felt like an endless autumn, with no real knowing of when the sun would reappear. We were forced to take stock, slow down and ruminate over the lives we are currently living and if it’s what we want.
Song For Our Daughter uses this soft overarching theme of parenthood and guidance to evaluate a sense of self, and what tales our own life will leave later down the line. Perfectly reflective in narrative terms, an idea suitably bolstered by the album’s composition that is patient and considered. Marling’s guitar playing sweeps behind her vocals like a gentle breeze, and allows the cosy warmth of autumn to envelope the listener.
‘Blue’ – Joni Mitchell
Many of my choices support the idea that autumnal records are about tightly packed arrangements, that envelope you like a warm blanket in which you throw on. But Joni Mitchell’s Blue contradicts that, reverting back to the idea that in the brisker months exists a sense of thoughtful expanse.
Her sparse arrangements amplify this idea and force the listener not to shy away from whatever heartbreak, pain or melancholy exists in their life and instead encourages them to sit with in stillness. Because the introspection of autumn is for some, a painstaking period and no amount of pumpkin spice can distract you from that. But Blue addresses it, concerns itself with your pain and makes you feel a little less alone.
‘Astral Weeks’ – Van Morrison
If I was to label any individual instrument as the definitive autumnal instrument, then it would have to be the flute. It almost feels purpose-built to soundtrack the twisting descent of leaves from their trees, and the whistling winds that swirl around them.
On Astral Weeks, it almost feels as though Van Morrison’s inclusion of a flute, is embarking on a very similar twisting journey to those leaves, spiralling around the melodies he has crafted with separate instruments. The densely packed compositions that spiral between the flute, acoustic guitar and pattering drums is almost like the shimmering of light that exists in this changing season, to then be perfectly accompanied by Morrison’s deeply romantic lyrics.
‘Plastic Ono Band’ – John Lennon
The very image on the album artwork of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, sat beneath a tree, soaking up the last few rays of summer sun, goes a long way to portraying this record as an autumnal companion. But once you open up the sleeve and listen to the music, the stylistic choices seem to fit a listener in a suitably introspective and autumnal mood.
But crucially for Lennon, the narrative speaks to times gone past and how learning to shed traits of the past is imperative for moving forward. Psychological suffering, parental abandonment, and the process of individual healing are all on order in Plastic Ono Band, not only making it a deep album of introspection, but an important mission statement to take forward into a new seasonal cycle.
‘Helplessness Blues’ – Fleet Foxes
At last, let’s address the word we all associate with autumn music: harmonies. Maybe the camaraderie of the shared voice speaks to our fear of isolation during the autumn months. The last siren call of community that becomes absent as the sun goes down, and so helps soften into a deep pit of introspection. Or maybe the harmony comforts us like the gentle breeze of the later months?
Either way, Fleet Foxes ensure they are on hand to provide them with whatever purpose they may be. But while our interpretation of their comfort is up for grabs, the palette in which they present them has already been decided by the band. Finger-picked melodies and soft drum rolls on Helplessness Blues are all designed to create an autumn soundscape that connects us with nature and intrigues us with ancient folklore that seeks to engage with the seasons in a way modernity can’t.
‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ – Bon Iver
The quiet of Bon Iver’s voice on his first two records could have made either of them picks for this autumnal list. It defines the very introspection we synonymise with autumn and on some tracks, like ‘The Wolves (Act I and II)’, his voice whistles like the gentle wind we expect in the colder months. Sonically it’s cold, but comforting and ushers you into the slower pace of autumnal life.
But it goes one step further in cementing itself as the perfect autumnal record. Made in complete isolation in his father’s remote hunting cabin an hour northwest of his hometown, Eau Claire, Wisconsin in late 2006, Bon Iver immersed himself in the cold autumn months to create the album, undoubtedly influencing the stripped back, cold sound of the record.
‘Bryter Layter’ – Nick Drake
Nick Drake truly is the sound of comforting melancholy, and in essence, that is what those who truly love autumn hope to experience. Allowing the colder seasonto give way to a false sense of optimistic bliss that the summer may otherwise promote. Your mood is ever so slightly less energetic, less sociable, and that is okay, because the sunshine isn’t forcing you otherwise.
Clicking on Bryter Layter during this renewed sense of isolated relief feels as natural as any record might be in this instance, for the quiet calm of Drake’s voice is perfectly suited to this setting. Coupled with the orchestral arrangements that allow the songs melodies to lift off into the windy ether, it’s a record that captures that sense of stillness that exists in the crosshairs of seasonal change.
