connexion: the selector

Songs to Send Across the Ocean, Part Five

Unwrap me.

Download: Brendan Perry - Dream Letter
Buy the Album: Sing a Song for You: A Tribute to Tim Buckley

Songs to Melt into Everything, Part One

Last night, right before I fell asleep, I became acutely aware of everything, because I couldn’t really feel anything.

My mind was completely lucid, but it felt as if my body was humming, as if all the wires that keep me together were vibrating at three octaves too high, so I could barely be conscious of any tactile sensation other than just thinking. Do you experience thinking like that too?

I could hear people walk underneath my window, exactly what they were saying. Every time a particularly large raindrop fell off one of the bare trees it was as loud as thunder. Sometimes, it sounded like someone was tossing rocks up to crack on each of the buildings windows, starting at the far end and going all around the building.

The rock tossed up to me hit the window fan with a loud pistol-like crack.

I could sense Amelia walking back and forth across my legs, but not actually feel her steps.

I couldn’t open my eyes.

I think I was actually dreaming.

Download: Cocteau Twins & Harold Budd - Why Do You Love Me?
Buy the Album: Cocteau Twins & Harold Budd - The Moon and the Melodies

I won’t even say “forgive the schmaltzy sax” because I have no shame in saying it is turbo good. However, the real winning element of this insane Italodisco masterpeice is the synth-percussion break that is like a Gravitron for the ears. “Don’t Hurt Me’ has just about any detail that endears me in an over-the-top 80s pop song, but with a sound that is unmistakeably Italo and New Wave. The vocal melody is melodramatic, but not jarringly so; the piano is wistful, but almost tongue-in-cheek; and the song itself is a requiem for a turbulent love affair; Hell, even the sleeve has a rose that has been violently snapped, drooping downward like a tormented, defeated lover. But the Break is the kicker- its as if B-boys AND industrial scenesters in black come to crash the pity party.

I figured a mix and a new track might be nice for the food-gorged recovery of us newly corpulent.

This one’s from the new Metamatics CD and features John Foxx from Ultravox! on vocals. Old and new vanguards meet in a pleasingly retro way.

Now pass the mashed potatoes.

Download: Metamatics (with John Foxx) - Free Robot
Buy the Album: Metamatics - 3 Jak and Dive

A mix for the future denizens of ruined Earth.

Tracklist:
1. “Zenn La” ~ Deep Space Network from Deep Rooms (Source)
2. “Leuchtturm” ~ Triola from Im Funftonraum (Kompakt)
3. “Natural People” ~ Stasis from Inspiration (Peacefrog)
4. “End of Time” ~ The Black Dog from Spanners (Warp)
5. “Come” ~ Richard H. Kirk from Virtual State (Warp)
6. “This Can’t Be Happening” ~ Pub from Do You Ever Regret Pantomime? (Ampoule)
7. “Amalia” ~ As One from Objets D’art 92::95 (New Electronica)
8. “Zamami” ~ Plaid from Double Figure (Warp)
9. “Dx-Snth” ~ Jochem Paap from Vrs-Mbnt-Pcs 9598 II (Fax)
10. “Sunday” ~ Miles Tilmann from Underland ep (Sub:marine)
11. “Holy Dance” ~ Tetsu Inoue from Ambiant Otaku (Fax)
12. “As Long as I Can Hold My Breath” ~ Harold Budd from Avalon Sutra (Samadhi Sound)
13. “I Like Being Here” ~ Shuttle358 from Understanding Wildlife (Mille Plateaux)

Download: Mister Eden’s “The Future Past”

Songs to Send Across the Ocean, Part Four

I can feel myself pressing and twisting against my cocoon again.

Download: Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
Buy the Album: Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space

God, it’s not even December yet.

It seems like forever since I’ve really seen the sun.

Download: Julie Doiron - Seven, The Longest Winter
Buy the Album: Julie Doiron - And the Wooden Stars

Diane Arbus’ Teenage Couple on Hudson Street, NYC.

Lovely songs for a lovely photo. I feel so fortunate for visiting the Diane Arbus exhibition last weekend.

Songs to Send Across the Ocean, Part Three

Sometimes I want to record everything I see for you. Giving you the recordings would be easier than collecting all the letters that I never finish, that I can’t bring myself to send.

It’s the writing equivalent of a cat that’s perpetually got my tongue.

Download: Red House Painters - Mistress (Piano Version)
Buy the Album: Red House Painters - Red House Painters [1]

Songs for Triumphant Singing into Voice Mails (Real and Imagined)

Oh yeah, look at that face.

That is the face of a girl who would later proudly proclaim, “David Bowie Sax Solos over Any Other Rock Sax Solos!”,

and who would get kind of emo when she hears “Absolute Beginners” (one of my favorite love songs OAT, especially since it is so cheesy, since love songs are, by nature, cheesy, and in my perfect world one day I will dance with a man I love to this song. I am rad.),

and who would find herself so shy that all the excitement and expression inside her comes out in explosive bursts when she is alone, where no one can see.

Because, friends, that stuff has to come out somehow.

In the pantheon of all things bright and beautiful in my world, David Bowie is a king.

I think I have sung more David Bowie into people’s voice mailboxes than any other artist.

Lucky them.

It’s just because listening to him makes me so happy, and feel, god, so cliche, but in the best way that rock can, free. I believe David Bowie loves me, and loves you, and loves himself, and loves us all.

Many (more) blessings upon your home, Mr. Jones.

Download: David Bowie - Absolute Beginners, Young Americans, Andy Warhol, Drive-In Saturday, Moonage Daydream, Under Pressure (with Queen, oh my god I still remember this video SO clearly and the breakdown still feels as triumphant now as it did when I first saw heard this song as a little kid), Queen Bitch, Rock N’ Roll Suicide
Buy the Album: David Bowie - Absolute Beginners (Single), Young Americans, Hunky Dory, Alladin Sane, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, Heathen, Changestwobowie

Songs to Send Across the Ocean, Part Two

artist unknown

This song is like flying too fast over water, too close.

It makes me think of the internal worlds we all carry around, which people have arid deserts with great big skies overhead, which people have lush, verdant, dark jungles with many ways to get tangled and lost.

Tonight I started looking at tickets to fly to europe.

I may never come back.

Download: David Bowie and Philip Glass - Heroes (Aphex Twin Remix)
Buy the Album: Aphex Twin - 26 Mixes for Cash

I have a distinct notion of what it means to be “weaving through the traffic”, but as far as “sweepin’ off the walls”, I am not certain as to what this exactly means. I imagine it may have been some sort of hip misappropriation of the English language used by Italians, referring to something good girls don’t do south of Rimini. At any rate, its the theme of this Italian-produced disco-funk track from 1983. The bass is thick, the synths are understated, sexy, the handclaps are infectious, and the vocals, while verging on shrill, or nonetheless irresistible, as they are riddled with these hooks, forming the backbone along with the aforementioned bass.

But what in Hell is High Resolution singing about? This is the everlasting quandary of Italo, Funk or otherwise- the lyrics, while sung in English, are most often indecipherable. “Bringing force to life?” “Sweeping off the walls, can allow you to be free?” “Forgetting all the dolls, and getting back to being alive?” “Holding everybody waiting to advance?” “This connecting force?” “Specks of Dust?” “Driving Turbo?” Whats even more puzzling is that there is absolutely no mention of an Ice Cream bar on a stick soaring over a desert. Lyrical conundra aside, its all about the claps, the bass, the feeling that this should be played hood down, subwoofers booming, and with me behind the wheel “getting back to being alive.”

Download: High Resolution - Sweepin’ Off

Regarding anniversaries of superstitious and otherwise meaningless importances.

Deep down, sightless, underwater, I felt, “I can hold on as long as I can hold my breath,” and it took me months to learn to open my eyes, exhale, and drift away, down deeper than I thought I’d ever go.

And now I am at the watery bottom, where the fish never developed eyes, and it has never seemed so bright or real before.

Download: Harold Budd - As Long As I Can Hold My Breath
Buy the Album: Harold Budd - Avalon Sutra

I am so dizzy.

Download: Minutemen - Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth
Buy the Album: Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime

Before I forget, and before I go to sleep.

Download: June of ‘44 - Arms Over Arteries
Buy the Album: June of ‘44 - Tropics and Meridians

Your letters will be left to fend for themselves, vibrating with the air.

Download: Beequeen - Fly Like an Eagle / Juno - Things Gone and Things Still Here
Buy the Album: Beequeen, from their White Tusk 7″ / Juno - A Future Lived in Past Tense

Songs of Secret Shames, Part One

This song reminds me of a time when I was very, very terrible to someone who did not deserve it in the least.

Download: Morrissey - Seasick, Yet Still Docked
Buy the Album: Morrissey - Your Arsenal

Songs for My Brother, Part Three

Pablo Bunny will keep me company until you return.

Download: Mojave 3 - After All / Arab Strap - Last Orders
Buy the Album: Mojave 3 - Ask Me Tomorrow / Arab Strap - Red Thread

Painting by Helmut Wenske

This is, hands down, one of my favourite album covers ever. I’ve always been into fantastic creatures and this painting brings me the same feeling I got as a kid when seeing something otherworthly. I often got completely entranced with paintings of monsters, not to mention the amount of time I spent reading various bestiaries. What strikes me with this album cover though, is it’s tragedy, and how it’s beautifully juxtaposed with the kosmische bliss within.

As a bonus track, I’m appending my belated Halloween greetings with Nekropolis, aka Peter Frohmader. The beginning of this track is eerie ghost funk, played by the ancestors of the mummy from Tales from the Crypt.