all the crap i listened to this summer

So, what I do, when I finish a review or an interview or a show write-up, is I pick my favorite song from the relevant album and dump it into a file which is usually named after a month. Then, at the end of the month, I spend several blissful, useless hours trying to arrange those songs in a way that makes sense. It is more difficult some months than others.

Anyway, a bunch of things happened this summer. Both Dusted and Blurt were, at different times, on hiatus. Sean was leaving for college. I was working more than usual on my financial writing business. So I ended up with a "June 2013" playlist that went on for several months, and which I have just stopped adding songs to, like yesterday, well into September.

I also did not spend the usual amount of time fiddling with transitions...in fact I spent no time on it. Caveat emptor.

I did put the whole thing -- or the whole thing minus a couple that aren't available -- on Spotify. Have a go if you like:

New back to school...nine years after 9/11 mix

Not that it has anything to do with either. I'm still not sure about the order. I had to put the Neu! track last, because it's got about 20 seconds of dead silence at the end, and Swans didn't seem to play very well with any of the other kids...there's a weird, weird transition going into Baths...but the songs are pretty good, some of them damned good. Enjoy if you can....it's only music after all.

Download

Tracks
1: Swans, "My Birth"
2. Rangda "Sarcophagi"
3. James Blackshaw "Part 6"
4. Sharon van Etten "Don't Do It"
5. Tortoise, "Charteroak Foundation"
6. Baths, "Indoorsy"
7. Menomena, "TAOS"
8. TV Buddhas "Fun Girls"
9. Major Stars, "Portable Freak Factory"
10. Superchunk "Learned to Surf"
11. Jeremy Messersmith, "Dillinger Eyes"
12. The Extra Lens, "How I Left the Ministry"
13. Neu! "Negativland"

End of summer? Time for a mix

Hey, who am i kidding...this mix has nothing to do with the end of summer, except that it's mostly stuff I was listening to at the end of this particular summer of 2010. It gets a little disco-y in the middle, but hold on for the strong finish.

Tracks:
1. "I'll Be Runnin'" Woven Bones
2. "Rusty Old Clock" Limes
3. "Five Foot Category Five" The Graves Brothers Deluxe
4. "The Mistress," Amelia Curran
5. "Downward Road" Mavis Staples
6. "Draw the Stars," Andreya Triana
7. "A Day at the Carnival" Dam-Funk
8. "Round and Round," Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
9. "Supergirl" Stereo Total
10. "I Hate the 80s" The Vaselines
11. "Baby I Got News for You," Kelley Stoltz
12. "Buried By the Blues," Black Mountain
13. "Big Sun Falling in the River," Richard Thompson
14. "Kiss Them All" Bottomless Pit
15. "Cicada" Versus

Download here

Enjoy. I made this before I went to Indiana and never upped it, so I've got almost enough for another one by this point.

600 posts…how about a new mix to celebrate?

My 600th post has arrived, so I thought I’d use the occasion to share some tunes that I’ve been listening to lately.

DL the mix here


Tracks
1. !!!’s “The Hammer”: the darkest, spookiest cut on !!!’s fourth full-length, an album which is quite a bit lighter, more disco, less funk, than earlier efforts, but still pretty rad.

2. The Streets on Fire’s “Astronaut Love Triangle”: Been really liking this post-punk-ish outfit from Chicago, who are angsty and ragged in a way that bespeaks not premeditated edge as a marketing strategy but actual almost-coming-apart-at-the-seams. Which I prefer, obviously.

3. Mahjongg’s “Devry”: My favorite dance/afro-beat/techno/free improv band went a little nuts with the autotune on their latest, The Long Shadow of the Paper Tiger, but I really like this song.

4. Acid Eater’s “Searching for Love”: Like Guitar Wolf with farfisa. Those crazy j-punks.

5. So Cow’s “So Cow Vs. the Future”: Freaking LOVE this band, here live on WFMU presenting their obligatory one-song-with-the-band-name-in-it.

6. Ty Segall’s “Girlfriend”: Best song off Melted, quite possibly best Ty so far. (I’d say ever, but he’s moving so fast it’s hard to get a handle on him.)

7. Batusis, “Big Cat Stomp”: Surprisingly hair metal instrumental from the new collaboration between Cheetah Chrome and Sylvain Sylvain.

8. Adam Franklin and Bolts of Melody’s “She’s Closer Than I’ve Ever Been”: Breathtakingly beautiful fuzz from the Swervedriver frontman’s latest album.

9. Wild Nothing’s “Chinatown”: Very nice dreamy guitat pop from hotly tipped VA songwriter with a new album out on Captured Tracks.

10. Carissa’s Weird’s “Blue Champagne Glass”: In which you can hear Mat Brooke try out the vaulting hooks and dreamy tunefulness that later turned up on Band of Horses and, especially, Grand Archives.

11. Mountain Man’s “Mouthwings”: Very lovely a capella harmonies from this three woman alt-folk outfit who met at nearby Bennington College.

12. Current 93’s “Tanks of Flies”: Who knew that the end of the world would be so god-damned pretty?

13. Shannon Stephens’ “Panic”: Sufjan protégé has a self-titled record out, the follow up to last year’s excellent Breadwinner, and I don’t know about you, but I’m hearing a little bit of Linda Perhacs here.

14. Brett Eugene Ralph’s “Kentucky Chrome”: one of those novel-in-a-song phenomenons, from an actual writer of fiction, with the help of a couple of neighbors from Kentucky, like Will Oldham.

15. Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, “Silver Shirt”: The undisputed highlight of the pair’s new all-covers album, a bittersweet take on no-hit-wonder Plummet Airlines’ mid-1970s a-side.