Autumn playlist: The Walkmen, Bob Dylan and Elliott Smith

Autumn is upon us, and that means music that matches the weather. For me, I enjoy getting fully immersed in the seasons. It allows me to appreciate the difference throughout the year. I tend to gravitate towards sadder, more ponderous music as the nights draw in. Here's a few!

The Rat - The Walkmen

The 2004 hit is a rising, noughties time capsule, marrying stricken conscience with pulsating, vital music from an influential scene. The Walkmen, bursting out of the rich creative seam of turn-of-the-century New York, manage to distinguish themselves from their peers and still sound fresh 25 years hence.

Vocalist Hamilton Leithauser presides with eerie clarity, bemoaning someone he's lost but does not want to find again. It's played at breakneck speed, while maintaining sonic restraint.

Tangled up in Blue - Bob Dylan

I have no idea where I read it, but someone once described Blood on the Tracks as 'making them want to get divorced aged seven'. The opening to the classic is Dylan at his bristly finest - bitter but connected, ready to dip in and explore his current feelings with brutally honest artistry.

Whether it be the album version, or the more ponderous sessions after it was released, the ultimate breakup album still manages to deliver.

Say Yes - Elliott Smith

It can never be topped. I first heard Either/Or as a teenager, and the final track stopped me in my tracks. Elliott Smith manages to identify a feeling in the most basic of ways, and develop it into being the authority on the subject. Grief, longing, loss and endurance - all captured just above two minutes, tacked onto the end of a near flawless album.

Birds - Electrelane

Beginning weakly, and finishing in a heap of sadness, Birds is the keystone of Electrelane's deeply underrated album Gone Under Sea. Frontwoman Verity Susman attempts to mount a defence to the enveloping symphony of grief, before becoming furiously at one with it, lamenting a lost love.

'It's not that I can't go on without you / got a lot of things to do / I'm busy, busy all the time / but I can't stop thinking about you'. A familiar feeling.

Hey - Nilufer Yanya

Managing to outcool the Pixies is quite something, and I think this track achieves it. A modern, airy version of the 90s classic is a winner for autumn - whether you're winding down in the evening or walking around for some sunlight. The familarity of the song is matched with Yanya's full and honest vocal.

It's a song suitable for all sorts of settings, and especially autumn. Exploratory, distinctive and a heavy dose of longing. That's October to me!