5 Songs I Love w/ Labrador Labratories

Some songs arrive carrying more than a melody. They arrive with history attached to them - fragments of past selves, unfinished conversations, and questions that have only become more relevant with time. For Labrador Labratories, ‘Coded to be Free’ feels like exactly that kind of return: not a comeback built on nostalgia, but a thoughtful reintroduction from a band revisiting their origins through a contemporary lens.

The story behind Labrador Labratories has always occupied an unusual space between fiction and reality. What began as a fabricated musical persona gradually evolved into a living, breathing creative project, accumulating albums, tours, and a loyal audience along the way. More than a decade later, that once-playful experiment feels unexpectedly prophetic in an era increasingly shaped by curated identities, digital avatars, and algorithmic self-expression. It is this tension that quietly informs ‘Coded to be Free’, lending the track an emotional weight that extends beyond its understated arrangement.

We had the chance to sit down with the creative forces behind Labrador Labratories, Tom Gottlieb and Noam Vardy, to learn all about his 5 songs he loves right now for FLEX. Check it out below!

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1. Caetano Veloso – You Don’t Know Me

It feels like a jam, like a party in London at the end of the 60s, with hippie runaways from all over the world sitting in a circle on the floor of someone’s messy, smokey apartment, when Caetano suddenly grabs the guitar and starts improvising it.

It feels so natural, creative, organic and honest, yet musically genius. Nothing about it sounds calculated. It just exists perfectly. There’s nothing else quite like it.

For me, Caetano Veloso stands in the same Olympus as Dylan, Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Lennon. He belongs right there beside them with complete pride.

2. Don Henley - The Boys Of Summer

Throws me into an 80s film. Empty roads near the beach, bicycles in the suburbs, sunset hitting dry hills somewhere in California.

This song is really about realising time moved forward without asking you. Lost love, youth disappearing, the scary feeling that entire worlds and versions of yourself are already gone forever. The line about the “Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” destroys me every time.

And Don’s vocals here are unbelievable. Tired, romantic, wounded, masculine. Together with the huge drums and shimmering guitars, this is exactly why the 80s are so amazing.

3. Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra - Summer Wine

Maybe the best duet ever recorded. Sounds completely taken out of some strange 70s western movie. The deep exhausted voice of Lee against Nancy’s soft hypnotic voice is just unreal. Like darkness and light flirting with each other for almost 4 minutes.

The emotional textures here are insane. Romance, danger, loneliness, seduction, optimism and doom all melting together inside one song.

And the lyrics are basically this beautiful little tragic story about temptation. A cowboy enters town, meets this mysterious woman offering “summer wine”, slowly loses control of himself, then wakes up robbed, dizzy, abandoned, but somehow still craving more of it. Like every bad decision people willingly walk into knowing exactly where it leads.

4. The Stone Roses - Waterfall

This song feels like youth itself. Not nostalgia about youth. The actual thing. The guitars sound liquid somehow, like sunlight reflecting from moving water.

We’re not from Britain, but this song makes us feel as if we are. You can actually sense the grey skies mixed with psychedelic colors. Standing with your friends somewhere near a field or a parking lot at age 19.

And the groove… wow!

The bass, the drums, the jangling guitars, everything breathing together like one animal.

Also probably one of the greatest intros ever recorded. The moment it starts, you’re already inside its world.

5. GIT - No Hieras Mi Corazón

Through my Argentinian wife I slowly entered this entire other universe.

Her father especially opened this world for me deeply. Long car rides with Argentine rock playing loudly, him explaining who mattered, what songs everyone knows by heart, what bands should I listen to.

And G.I.T. are basically Argentina’s Police. Power trio, from the 80s, the singer is on the bass.

This song feels huge to me. Romantic in a very unashamed way. No irony, no trying to look cool or detached. Just a heart completely exposed under neon 80s lights.

The lyrics are simple but devastating exactly because of that. “Don’t hurt my heart.” That’s basically the whole song. Somebody trying to hold on to love while everything between two people keeps spinning in circles endlessly.

Also Gustavo Santaolalla producing this somehow makes complete sense.

Don't forget to stream and watch Labrador Labratories' new single below: