connexion: the selector

Songs for Bright Days, Part Four

picture courtesy of daniel

Everything smells of Spring.

Someone come to the park with me, I’ll bring lemonade, pinova apple slices and a hunk of Cone de Port Aubry, a flask full of whiskey to share and pens and notebooks for making drawings together.

Come on, it’ll be fun! Promise.

Pinky swear.

Download: Nick Drake - Northern Sky / Clive Gregson - Northern Sky
Buy the Album: Nick Drake - Bryter Layter / Various Artists - Brittle Days, A Trbute to Nick Drake (Brutal, I know, but it’s literally the only place I saw it online for sale. It’s like 15 yrs old, can you believe it!?)

Because you can never have too many versions of the “Super Mario Bros.” theme!

(Picture by Bill Mudron, from the awesome Life Meter Comics)

Listen: OneUp Studios - “Super Mario Bros.” (club mix) … James Hill - “Super Mario Bros.” (ukelele)
Buy: OneUp Studios - “Club Game Music” EP (free!) … James Hill - “Playing It Like It Isn’t”

Download: Angelo Badalamenti, The Pine Float, Eddy and Orient Express, Mrs. Tokyo Emmanuelle (Pt. 2)
Buy: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

picture courtesy of tyke chandler

I don’t have a title or artist for this one, guys, sorry about that. I must have moved it over to this box when I got it a couple years ago, and when I did the great music migration a lot of files fell through the cracks because I never gave much of a damn about ID tags until I got my iPod, which I didn’t bother to get til I got this box. Sooooo….

I got nothin’.

Except to say this is one of the sexiest fucking songs I have ever heard, and it’s a shame I can’t give you more information on it.

But this song is wet, hot afternoons in the middle of summer, sticking to each other while hiding from the sun and making use of some good sweat.

Get wet.

Ex Oh Series, Part Two Hundred Sixty-Eight

Oh boo, I love you too.

In fact, I love you like it’s 1996 all over again.

Download: The Damnbuilders - Shrine / Pee - Bruce ♥’s Big Star, IHOP / Unrest - Make Out Club, I Do Believe You Are Blushing / Sebadoh (Acoustic) - On Fire, Magnet’s Coil / Hazel - Day Glo
Buy the Album: The Dambuilders - Encendedor / Pee - Now, More Charm and More Tender / Unrest - Perfect Teeth, Imperial F.F.R.R. / Sebadoh - Rebound EP / Hazel - Toreador of Love

Download: Bjork, Oops

Crank Up Your Speakers, Your Woofers & Your Tweeters

Hey loves, guess what??

IT’S SPRING, Y’ALL!

You know what that means, right? If you see a girl in shiny Adidas kicks and lil’ strawberry bobbie pins keeping her crazy curly hair up out of her eyes dancing and bobbing her head through the market, around parking lots, on corners waiting for the light so she can bump across the street, gliding past you in the stairwell, in the car next to you with insane amounts of bass shaking the windows and almost certainly ruining her hearing, wave hello because I’ll give you the biggest smile you’ve ever seen.

TRUTH.

Download: Dead Prez - Radio Frequency, Hip Hop (Live) / Digital Underground - Gutfest ‘89 / A Tribe Called Quest - Scenario / (Bonus: You have heard that I can dance, but did you know I could rhyme (almost)? That’s right, folks, I’m the Total Package up in this piece. TRUTH.) / Princess Superstar - Super Fantasy / Andre 3000 - Spread / De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays” / Missy Elliott - Bad Man (ft Vybez Kartel & M.I.A.) / Public Enemy - Can’t Truss It / J.J. Fad - Supersonic
Buy the Album: Dead Prez - RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta, Various Artists - Dave Chappelle’s Block Party / Digital Underground - Sex Packets / A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory / Princess Superstar - Is / Outkast - Speaker Boxxx::The Love Below / De La Soul - De La Soul is Dead / Missy Elliott - The Cookbook / Public Enemy - Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Back / J.J. Fad - Supersonic

Submerged Series, Part Nine (Trying to Recover a Few Inches Skyward)

photo courtesy of perri

The heart wants what it wants, contrary to all good sense.

It’s no one’s fault, and it’s not bad, even when contrary to all good sense.

What the fuck good is good sense when it’s up against the longing of the heart, anyway?

No good at all, that’s what.

At any rate, it’s ok. It almost feels nice. And I know myself well enough to know that it will pass soon.

You see: My heart is gentle, and it is kind–even to me.

Download: Aidan Baker - Machina, Chainsaw, Merge
Buy the Album: Aidan Baker - Green + Cold

Download: Bjork, I Remember You

We’re Chained

When I was 14 I heard my first Pixies song and the interior of my heart has never been the same.

Download: Bone Machine, Vamos, Broken Face, Caribou, Cactus, Monkey Gone to Heaven, Crackity Jones, Hey
Buy the Album: Surfer Rosa & Come on Pilgrim, Doolittle

Post Series, Part Two

I refuse to give up on my deep, honey-filled well of a heart and my crooked, sincere smile.

Eventually, someone, somewhere will let me be their funny valentine.

Download: Elvis Costello (Live), Etta James, Marvin Gaye, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald (Live), Rufus Wainwright (Live on David Letterman 14 February 2003), Sarah Vaughan, Rita Hayworth, Chet Baker (my personal favorite “valentine”)
Buy the Album: Elvis Costello - Piano Jazz, Etta James - Time After Time, Marvin Gaye - The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, Frank Sinatra - Gold!, Ella Fitzgerald - The Concert Years, I don’t believe this Rufus Wainwright actually shows up on an album anywhere–thank you internet!, Sarah Vaughan - Love Songs, Rita Hayworth - Chansons de Films, Chet Baker - Sings

Post Series, Part One

I am just about done.

(I feel ok.)

Download: Unwound - Pure Pain Sugar , Envelope, Fiction Friction, Feeling$ Real
Buy the Album: Unwound - Fake Train, New Plastic Ideas

This mix-tape is a continuation of the shameless personal exercise in nostalgia I began in my “80–82” compilation. “1983” picks up where that one left off: September 1982, when I arrived at college. It covers only one year, up until September 1983, because there was so much great music we listened to, that it became clear that each year would need its own CD.

This is 1982-83 through my eyes, not chosen by any abstract criteria like release date or cultural significance. I picked 20 songs that had the greatest impact on me at the time, arranged in, roughly, the order in which I first heard them. This is the music I remember when I close my eyes and think of the rooms I lived in, the friends I made, the places I went. Many of these really do have senses of place associated with them, sometimes overwhelmingly so. I’ve added little notes about each track to try and share some of this, like little offhand snippets of autobiography.

Read & Download: DJ sneJ - “1983″

Download: Arovane, Pink Lilies, Lilies
Buy the Album: Lilies

yuri ojima

There is a space inside me that is waiting to be occupied,

I am completely hollowed out.

Download: Piano Magic - The Drowning of St. Christopher / Lähtö - It’s Raining Right Now in New York
Buy the Album: Piano Magic - I Came to Your Party Dressed as a Shadow (EP) / This Lähtö track is unreleased. A special thanks to the artist for allowing me to post it on The Selector.

The Things That Make My Heart Beat Faster, vTwo, Part Eight

I have a secret cartography to share with you, and it is poetry.

You don’t have to ask,

you already know.

Download: Rufus Wainwright - Foolish Love, Vibrate, In My Arms, My Funny Valentine
Buy the Album: Rufus Wainwright - Live on KCRW Promotional EP (Whether or not all these songs actually show up on this particular disc is questionable, since I can’t find a track listing for this EP, but such are the dangers of finding music that you love. I aim to please, but sometimes fail.)

Download: The Liars, This Dust Makes That Mud
Buy the Album: They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument On Top

Songs for Bright Days, Part Three

super tighty tshirt+pre-wash fashion photoshoot+my sweet rack=super mashy bewbies. whoah.

Status report: my life is completely fucking awesome.

Download: Prince - Pussy Control, Lady Cab Driver, Erotic City (12″ Single), A Love Bizarre (Live)
Buy the Album: Prince - The Gold Experience, 1999, Erotic City 12″ Single, Shit dawgs, I don’t know where you can find this last track, I think it’s from a bootleg called “Purple Finale” but gemm.com had nothin’. Good Luck!

Most 1980s electronic music hasn’t aged very well, I find when I go back to it. The “state of the art” digital synths sounded terrible (I blame the DX-7 most of all), the beats were clunky and quickly turned into clichés, and the malign influence of David Bowie and (especially) Bryan Ferry caused everyone to wear mascara and sing in poncey voices and take themselves far too seriously. What a relief the rebirth of the TB-303 and its scrubbing acid bubbles, as the decade ended.

But there were exceptions. The more I listen to it, the more I think Cabaret Voltaire’s “Sleepwalking” (1985) could be the pinnacle of everything that came out of synthpop. It starts with one of the biggest, fattest, loudest electronic sounds ever devised, and mixes in clattering rhythms, bursts of guitar, bass and violin, spooky dub interludes, and Steven Mallinder’s sexy whisper. It’s HUGE and eerie and menacing, in a way that CV’s peers (like Depeche Mode, Ministry, Hula) never really managed to match.

Cabaret Voltaire made terrific videos, too, dense collages of TV news footage and shaky home movies that always seemed to be on the brink of telling a story but never did. I knew there was one of “Sleepwalking”, but I’d never found it until no. God bless YouTube!

AND one Cabaret Voltaire video just isn’t enough. A close second to “Sleepwalking” is the earlier “Crackdown” (1983). There’s a bit too much footage of the band walking around trying to look tough; but otherwise the video makes especially effective use of blurry TV footage of riot police. It’s weird how the heavy dose of FLV compression further alters this stuff, which was already deliberately distorted by being filmed off a TV screen. The compression also has trouble with the rapid cutting and jerky camera movements, but I think the band would have approved.

Musically, I like how organic-sounding and muddy the sound is: I think this was one of their last songs to make really effective use of Mal’s bass guitar, before it was largely replaced by synths.

Buy: Cabaret Voltaire — “The Sword, The Covenant, And The Arm Of The Lord” / “The Singles 1983-1985″

The Things That Make My Heart Beat Faster, vTwo, Part Seven

photo courtesy of bird ballet

When the dust settles we’ll be a tangle of breathless red bitten lips, torn clothing and bruised hips.

Download: Encre - Missive Bits / Tricky - Abbaon Fat Track / Nearly God - I Sing for You
Buy the Album: Encre - Flux / Tricky - Maxinquaye / Nearly God - Heaven

Songs for Bright Days, Part Two

Omigod, do you see what I see?! Those are almost-cherry blossoms! SPRING IS ALMOST HERE!!

Awwww, remember how great Hum were? I do, Hum were totally great.

In other news, I had an awesome weekend! I will not bore you with the dumb details, only give you the highlights:

+ It was totally sunny and gorgeous out, and you can tell that Spring is coming because everyone is starting to wake up, look around, and put a switch in their hips that indicates that they are Looking For Booty. Let me put it down sharply: I have gotten so many flirtations thrown my way this week, it’s bananas. Big, ripe, winking bananas. First of all, every counter person in the world wanted to touch me this weekend, no joke. The amazingly hot but almost certainly barely legal dark eyed beauty at my neighborhood quickie mart definitely gave me the chat chat last night, the dood who delivered my dinner on Friday winked at me when he was leaving and even the adorable-oh-my-god-so-cute!! girl at Toys in Babeland this morning was very sweet and fun to look at toys with. And then there was the dirty old man at Whole Foods that gave me the nudge-wink smile a thousand times, while following me around the store. If it hadn’t been so funny, I would have totally been creeped out. But guys? He was wearing Rockports. I AM NOT KIDDING!!! Rockports=totally harmless, forever.

+ Even though this probably belongs in the above paragraph I am going to put it here because it’s my post and fuck you if you don’t like it. J slash K! Kisses! Anyway, there was a new, hottttttttttttttttt cashier at Whole Foods today and he definitely gave me the one-two, how-do-you-do when he was checking me out. Twice. (I had to go back because I almost left without soy milk and I would have been hella pissed when I went to make morning coffee before work tomorrow [since I even bothered to buy some, and also got an ADORABLE !!pink!! thermos to bring it to work in. OVA!], so I just HAD to go back through his line to buy it, even though there were other cashiers open and he was helping someone else when I came back around) Definite lingering palm touching both times when exchanging moneys and getting receipts. TRUTH.

+ My new pink thermos! !!pink!! It has a vacuum seal button on the top that I have no idea what to do with, but who cares?! !!!PINK!!! THERMOS

+ The Jamba Juice girls hooked it up and gave me almost double the amount I actually paid for, which almost made up for the fact that I haven’t seen my JJ crush there for weeks. What if she quit?! Oh god, I can’t even think about that.

+ I got a new tighty tshirt today and it’s so totally adorable.

+ Frozen JJ owns you.

+ I have taken the smell-good factor up a notch and now in addition to smelling so good that people want to pelvic thrust me randomly on the street (TRUTH), my apartment is now dotted all over with the most wonderfully scented candles. I am not talking about that rotted CVS style angel food cake scented bullshit that you know is lining Brit Brit’s Promises cell window sills, I am talking the GOOD SHIT. Not only did Food Delivery Guy try to stick his head in to get a better sniff, but Hotty McCashierdick was alllllllll over my candles when he “put them in my bag” if you know what I mean.

+ New toys to try out later! I am so pumped!

I hope you doods had an awesome weekend too! You guys! The cherry blossoms are almost here! Yaaaaaaaaaay!!

Download: Hum - I’d Like Your Hair Long, Why I Like the Robins, Afternoon with the Axolotls
Buy the Album: Hum - You’d Prefer an Astronaut, Downward is Heavenward

SPIRITUALIZED :: Broken Heart
The Abbey Road EP

The Things That Make My Heart Beat Faster, vTwo, Part Six

Fucking speechless.

Download: Silver Apples - You & I
Buy the Album: Silver Apples - Contact

picture courtesy of tyke chandler

Keep it like a secret.

Download: The Commodores - Easy (Like Sunday Morning)
Buy the Album: The Commodores - Greatest Hits

I’ve been listening to music during sleep for as long as I can remember.

Long before I ever discovered there was such a thing as “ambient music,” or even music specifically intended to be used in a passive or atmospheric role, I played music to help the veil of sleep fall around me. When I was a child I used to play classical music stations I’d recorded on cassette to help me sleep. Later, I would record quiet passages from rock or folk music I liked onto cassettes that I could play before going to bed—DIY sampling, it could be considered, I suppose. I also enjoyed playing books on cassette at low volumes before slumber—the droning of a man or woman’s voice was often enough to aid the passage to a little death for the night. And, before any of this, there was the soothing tones of a humidifier’s engine, a constant companion to my sick bed, and a long-ago machinery that played songs I’d never heard before, all hidden inside the hiss and moan of the motor.

It wasn’t until the early nineties when I discovered real ambient music suited for the purpose of lying down and listening. It felt finally natural to take to my bed after starting the CD player and allowing the soft music to carry my mind forth for a while until sleep took hold. This mix, That Beautiful Land of Nod, is the product of over twelve years of “field research” in ambient sleep music. All of the selections, new and old, on these two discs, are pieces of music I have personally played in the times before and during sleep. They are also favorites of my wife, and devoid of anything outwardly spooky, so rest easy if you, like her, have an aversion to such things. Each track is special to me, these soothing zones, as they have not only brought me hours of comforted sleep, but also tantalizing, never-lasting minutes of wild and wonderful imagery in those moments before unconsciousness occurs. Each track maps a route across my consciousness over twelve years of sleep listening.

It is my honest hope that this becomes the mix you never fully listen to—if you are at all like me, you’ll be asleep by track five or six every time. So, please, draw the shades, relax, pleasant dreams….

That Beautiful Land of Nod—Disc One (1:10:33)
1. “Seascape” (edit) by Robert Rich from Trances/Drones
2. “When the Morning Light Exits” by Koda from Movements
3. “Wave and Sepia Wire” by Scott Solter from One River
4. “Mist” by Thom Brennan from Mist
5. “The Sky Below” by Jeffrey Fayman and Robert Fripp from A Temple in the Clouds
6. “Noodle #1″ by MLO from Io
7. “Ambient to be Here” by Heavenly Music Corporation from In a Garden of Eden
8. “The Art of Dream” (edit) by Pete Namlook & Tetsu Inoue from 2350 Broadway 2
9. “Soma 1″ (edit) by Klaus Wiese from Soma
10. “Queen’s Road Cemetery - 28th March 2005″ by Rameses III from Matanuska
11. “Wind on Wind” by Fripp & Eno from Evening Star
12. “Stratos” by Jonn Serrie from And the Stars Go with You

That Beautiful Land of Nod—Disc Two (1:08:23)
1. “Dx-Snth” by Jochem Paap from Vrs-Mbnt-Pcs 9598 2
2 “The Color of Wind 1″ by Jason Sloan from Still
3. “Dark Mist, Rain” by Sam Rosenthal & VidnaObmana from Terrace of Memories
4. “Crimsworth” (edit) by Bill Nelson from Crimsworth
5. “Surrender” (edit) by James Johnson from Surrender
6. “#19″ (edit) by Aphex Twin from Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2
7. “Vitamin K” (edit) by Rod Modell & Michael Mantra from Sonic Continuum
8. “Autocaz” by Ruxpin from Midnight Drive
9. “Spheres” by Never Known from On the Edge of Forever
10. “Let the Nightsky Envelope Us” by Oöphoi from Hymns to a Silent Sky
11. “Through the Void” by Mathias Grassow from The Fragrance of Eternal Roses
12. “The Ghost Ship” (edit) by Aloof Proof from Expo Two: Piano Text
13. “Approaching Silence” (edit) by David Sylvian from Approaching Silence
14. “Towards the Blue” by Steve Roach from Quiet Music