Font pick their 10 favorite songs that are under 2 minutes

Austin band Font formed in 2022 and quickly gained a reputation as a fiery live act. Their debut album, Strange Burden, manages to bottle some of that live energy and you can almost feel the sweat on frontman Thom Waddill’s brow pouring down as he sings these songs. Read our review of the album and listen to it below.

While only one song on Strange Burden clocks in at less than three minutes, Font appreciate brevity and made us a playlist of their favorite songs that are under two minutes. They include tracks by Aphex Twin, The Police, Bob Dylan, Flying Lotus, Parquet Courts, The Books and more. Check out their list and read their commentary for each song below.

FONT PICKS 10 SONGS UNDER 2 MINUTES

“DISKREPT4” – Aphex Twin (1:52)
From Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2, released as a follow-up to Drukqs 14 years after and my favorite Aphex record. It’s like if Conlon Nancarrow’s Studies for Player Piano were listenable, too — not just conceptually interesting. The way James mics the mechanisms that are programmed to play the instruments along with the instruments themselves is satisfyingly uncanny. It reminds me of the sound of a music box. The presence of those artifacts also makes me think of Glenn Gould’s humming. I find it really beautiful. – Thom

“Getting There” – Flying Lotus (1:49)
There are many two-minute options on this record, but this one always strikes me as the most beautiful. There’s typically a rhythmic maximalism to his music I find intriguing, yet each part of the layers seems to hold a very specific function in the grid. And Niki Randa delivers one of the most beautiful vocal performances in his discography. Though the song is under two minutes, by the end of it you feel like you’ve been living in the song for much longer. – Jack

“In Hell” – Strange Ranger (1:42)
This opening track on Strange Ranger’s No Light In Heaven was one of the first I’d heard of theirs and it hooked me straight away. Screaming, pummeling distortion that seamlessly transitions to a more major-sounding melody is something you don’t hear often. Such a unique, evolved sound that I’m constantly in awe of. – Roman

“indoor type” – Ulla (1:50)
A song from an album that has great calming properties for me. It feels like the dragging of a digital lake, turning up the occasional vocal chop or piano line but never commanding too much attention. – Anthony

“Miss Gradenko” – The Police (1:59)
This is Stewart Copeland’s only songwriting credit on Synchronicity. I’ve returned to this record intermittently over the past few years, and “Miss Gradenko” tends to persist as a favorite. There’s a plastic whimsy to it offset by a vaguely Soviet nihilism. I love this song, especially in the context of the record as a whole, which is pretty dense. The song’s brevity and brightness is a counterpoint to the discordant and unhinged no-wave of “Mother,” the previous track, a song which I couldn’t believe was on the same album as “Every Breath You Take” and “Wrapped Around Your Finger” when I first heard it. – Thom

“Mud” – Alex G (2:00)
One of the simplest and most powerful songs on the album. That masterful, atom-splitting crescendo always leaves me wondering how such an impact can be achieved with so little and in only two minutes. – Roman

“Outside” – Parquet Courts (1:44)
One of my favorite melodies by this band laid over top of one of the strangest chord progressions they’ve written. Haunting, efficient. – Jack

“Polyurethane” – Lomelda (1:31)
Hannah Read has always had a talent for brief, vivid songs (M for Empathy is almost totally composed of songs under two minutes). This is something I’ve always admired about her — there’s something essentially gestural about her songwriting which lends the music an imagistic, crystalline quality. “Polyurethane” is one of my favorites from 2020’s Hannah. That record is so full of instinct and risk and range — easily one of my favorite albums from the past five years. – Thom

“River Theme” – Bob Dylan (1:27)
A theme from an aggressively mid cowboy movie Dylan scored in the 70s. [That would be Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid’ – Ed] As a whole the album maintains a breeziness that I associate with the final run of records made with Bob Johnston (Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait, New Morning), which is up there for my favorite Dylan era. This track also features that group melody hum/la-la thing he did around this time that I always found satisfying (songs “Wigwam” and “The Man in Me” are other examples). – Anthony

“Venice” – The Books (1:44)
Discovering The Books in early college marked a shift in how I thought about recorded music. An ideal intersection of early musique concrete, digital manipulation of organic sounds, without avoiding more traditional song arrangement/structure when called for. In the space between synthetic and natural is an uncanny warmth provided by technology and its accidents! – Anthony

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Font are on tour with Lifeguard now and they’ll play Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon (7/12) as part of Union Pool’s free Summer Thunder series. All dates:

Font – 2024 Tour Dates
Fri. July 12 – Montreal, QC @ Cabaret Foufounes %
Sat. July 13 – Somerville, MA @ Warehouse XI %
Sun. July 14 – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool (FREE) %
Mon. July 15 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA %
Tue. July 16 – Washington, DC @ Comet Ping Pong %
​​Wed. Jul 17 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Bottlerocket Social Hall%
Thu. July 18 – Cleveland, OH @ Mahall’s %
Sun. July 21 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle (Pitchfork Aftershow) %
Fri. Aug. 9 – Austin, TX @ Parish (Album Release Show)
Sat. Nov. 9 – London, UK @ EaRTH (Pitchfork London)

% with Lifeguard