connexion: the selector

Download: Rainy Days (zip file)

1. Melodium - Ive Been Here Before
2. Tape - Beams
3. Guillemots - Falling Out Of Reach
4. Sam Amidon - Sugar Baby
5. M.Ward - Outro
6. The Battle Of Land And Sea - You Are A Sailor
7. Max Richter - Cascade NW By W
8. Erik Enocksson - The Flames
9. Peter Broderick - Below It
10. Ray La Montagne - I Still Care For You
11. Beach House - Gila
12. Kaki King - So Much For So Little
13. Kago - Luftivennad
14. Band Of Horses - I Go To The Barn Because I Like The
15. Grizzly Bear - Deep Blue Sea
16. Six Organs Of Admittance - Words For Two
17. Silje Nes - Ames Room
18. The Drift - Nozomi
19. Riceboy Sleeps - Happiness

Everyone’s So Lonely, I Dig It, Part Eight

I know it’s been such a long time, babies.

I found this old mix and I haven’t been able to lay it down, so I decided to share it.

The funny thing is, I made it at least three or four years ago…

and I’ll be honest and say it may not be the most skillful mix I’ve ever put together,

and it really will take sitting down and listening to it front to back to understand how incredibly MAJOR it is,

but my god, this motherfucker was prescient.

00:00 “Obessions (Edit)” Joe Frank
00:28 “Transmitting Life from Mars” De La Soul
01:35 “The Boogie Man Song” Mos Def
03:56 “I Wanna Get Next to You” Rose Royce
07:44 “Sometime Later” Alpha
14:38 “She is a Rainbow in Curved Air” Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paradiso Underground Freak Out
20:15 “Arabesuku” Lily Chou-Chou
26:00 “How Long has this Been Going On?” Ella Fitzgerald
29:13 “Vibrate” Rufus Wainwright
31:56 “Noon Chill” Arto Lindsay
35:22 “I Came to Your Party Dressed as a Shadow” Piano Magic
39:31 “Cocoon” Björk
43:52 “Haunt Me” Arab Strap
49:30 “My Autumn’s Done Come (Lee Hazelwood Cover, Live at KEXP)” Tindersticks
53:35 “Look for Me (I’ll be Around)” Neko Case
56:47 “Since I Fell for You” Nina Simone
59:35 “You’re Still My Baby” Otis Redding

That’s right, I did it - I ended it with Otis.

What.

Download: filling in the spaces, the cover

“Once he was showing me a book of twentieth-century art he liked, and there was a picture of an automated sculpture called Dead Birds Fly Again, a thing that whirled real dead birds around and around on a string, and he smiled and nodded, and I could see he felt the artist was a spiritual ancestor of some kind.” —William Gibson, “The Winter Market”

I put together this mix over the past few weeks, and then dedicated it to our Jessica, whose heart had coincidentally been rendered metaphorically akin to a dead bird, with the hope that it might be of some help to that organ, or at least make it feel dizzy.

What we have here is some very, very sad music, mostly classical in nature, together with some less-sad but still fitting tunes to impart some momentum. Hopefully by the end the old ticker is whirling around like, if not quite its old self, then at least like an actual living heart and not a dead bird.

Gabriela Friðriksdóttir — “Tetralógia”
Zoe Keating — “Legions (War)”
Victoire — “A Door Into the Dark”
Alan Morse Davies [after Claude Debussy] — “Claire de Lune [Hotel Commodore Ensemble, 1927; remixed]”
Aram Khachaturian — “Gayane Ballet Suite, Adagio”
Arvo Pärt — “Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten”
Kalter — “Svalbard”
Murcof — “Ulysses”
Kyle Gabler — “Jelly [from the “World Of Goo” soundtrack]”
Philip Glass — “Pruit Igoe”
Victoire — “A Song For Arthur Russell”
Terry Riley — “Half-Wolf Dances Mad In Moonlight”
Marsen Jules — “Brouillard”
Eluder — “Moon Plea”
Gas — “Oktember”
Âme — “Rej [A Hundred Birds Mix]”

Listen, download, etc: “Dead Birds Fly Again”

I really did nick the title from an early trilogy by Samuel Delany, and the cover art from the Tower card of the Rider/Waite tarot deck (and from a visual representation of part of the mix process) … but both of those do bring to mind a real-world cataclysm. So no, this mix isn’t ‘about’ 9/11, although it’s emphatically about crescendoes and collapses and apocalypse and the end of civilization. It just grew…

I started from the Savage Republic song — rediscovering them after many years — and looking for things to fit together with it in a mix. Early Sonic Youth was an obvious choice, but somehow I also thought of the eerie decay of the detuned strings in Ligeti’s “Ramifications”. That didn’t quite do it, but it reminded me of the similar intro of the Slow Six album I listened to a lot last year. And sliding the tracks around onscreen I put the entire Savage Republic song atop Slow Six, and goddamn if they didn’t fit together perfectly, like puzzle pieces punched out 25 years apart.

I left it at that for a few months until I rediscovered the unfinished mix last week, and finished the whole thing in one intense evening. It’s a bit on the short side, just under an hour, but there just wasn’t any discernible seam left to splice another track into.

00:00 Ben Frost — “Stomp”
05:16 S.E.T.I. — “Concealment”
05:48 György Ligeti — “Ramifications”, version for 12 solo strings
08:15 Slow Six — “The Pulse Of This Skyline With Lightning Like Nerves”
08:57 Savage Republic — “When All Else Fails”
11:53 Sonic Youth — “Making The Nature Scene”
14:31 Mission Of Burma — “Weatherbox”
17:51 Pain Teens — “Lady Of Flame”
20:39 Hula — “Jump The Gun”
24:24 Hunters & Collectors — “Droptank”
29:10 Tussle — “Eye Contact” (version)
31:40 Amp — “Lightdripglow”
34:36 Rahdunes — “Rivers In Egypt. Set Sail”
38:27 Somei Satoh — “Litania”
42:23 Murcof — “Cometa”
47:22 Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis — “Suiren”
50:00 Glenn Branca — “Symphony #3 (Gloria)”, first movement
58:47 Total

Download: The Fall Of The Towers [67MB]
Compare & Contrast: Slow Six - “The Pulse Of This Skyline With Lightning Like Nerves” [buy] … Savage Republic - “When All Else Fails” [buy]

I was at the table in front of the laptop, watching the seconds tick by until I had to start the next track, my heart was pounding and I couldn’t make out a single person in front of me, which was probably a blessing.

This is the set I played at Field Day. It was 4am and we were in the forest. I discovered that what sounds good through headphones and what sounds good over a surprisingly loud system, bouncing back and forth off the rocks and into the branches of trees aren’t necessarily one and the same.

But people said nice things to me after and the next day, me not realizing that even though it looked like I was only playing to about 15 people, many more listened from their camps and spent some time with me all the same. Jon, Matt, Ken and Mike were the only ones I was playing for, really, so it all worked out regardless.

For the tracklist I only bothered with the songs proper, not the whispers and the snippets of sound that are intended to flow in and out like what I hear when I am in the grips of sleep paralysis, which this mix is supposed to mirror in a gentle way; that is, it contains the kinds of things I wish I heard when drowning in hypnogogia, surrendering to the sea of unreality, eyes looking lazily towards the shore.

Tracklisting:

0005 “I Have Been Waiting to Hear Your Voice” Windy & Carl
1155 “Gloomy Sunday” Tsukimono
2004 “Body & Soul” Billie Holiday
2228 “Epiphany” David Sylvian
2341 “Blue Moon” Zeena Parkins & Ikue Mori
2458 “Tangle Eye Blues” Tangle Eye
2758 “Whispering Confessions” Beequeen
3041 “White Oleander” Navicon Torture Technologies
4149 “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” Blind Willie Johnson
4504 “Lost Voices” Andrew Chalk
5146 “Requiem for Dying Mothers Part 2″ Stars of the Lid
5856 end

Download: hypnogogia, the cover

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″

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

I’ve been emotionally wobbly for the past week, so yesterday morning lying on the couch I picked out some favorite music that I find comforting — beautiful without being sad, uplifting without being too pushy, and without too many words getting in the way. Then I tweaked some crossfades, and uploaded it to share with you all.

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno — “Wind On Water” and “Evening Star”
Yume Bitsu — “The Frigid, Frigid, Frigid Body Of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg”
The Orb — “Close Encounters”
Gus Gus vs T-World — “Purple”
Seefeel — “Minky Starshine” and “Plainsong (Sine Embossed Dub)”

To quote the slogan of a local radio station: “Familiar Soft Hits!” Because on a rainy Sunday when you’re feeling jittery and sad, that’s what you need.

Download: DJ sneJ — “Comfort Food”
Buy: Evening Star, Yume Bitsu, U.F.Orb, Gus Gus vs. T-World, Polyfusia

Here is my new end-of-year mix:

William Basinski & Richard Chartier … Expo ’70 … Krill.Minima … DJ Olive … Biosphere … Loscil … Yagya … Lähtö … Hammock … Eluvium … Frost … Max Richter

Webpage: DJ sneJ — I Will Not Forget That I Have Forgotten

I continue to lay myself out on the examiner’s table

eyes closed,

holding my breath.

Somewhere, deep in me, I believe that it is this willingness to pull myself open,

this desire to expose what’s waiting underneath this calm, quiet, opaque shell,

which will allow me to finally become

translucent and

(my most secret wish)

allow me to create more connexions so that I might finally

walk away from the well.

Tracklisting:

00:00 hello
00:29 “Wandel” Popnoname
04:01 my brain is starting to shut down
05:38 “Daily Life” Arto Lindsay
06:57 “Loco Tracks” Aki Onda & Mono
07:33 i won’t look back and laugh
13:03 “Body & Soul” Billie Holiday
16:11 i have faulty ears and a tender constitution
16:19 “Brian’s Nightmare/The Unknown Part One” Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd
20:05 you are who i want to be when i’ve learned to lay down my fears
20:13 “The Last Leaf (excerpt)” Aloof Proof
23:37 i’m really glad that these letters are a conversation also
28:09 “Epiphany” David Sylvian
29:41 “Blue Moon” Zeena Parkins & Ikue Mori
30:18 “Tangle Eye Blues” Alan Lomax Prison Songs
33:33 “The Stars & The Scars” Navicon Torture Technologies
40:00 “Track 04″ Andrew Chalk
40:44 you wondered aloud what my well was like
44:44 the whole universe has closed up, and there is nothing but the well
45:03 “The Great Salt Lake” Juno
50:30 “Requiem for Dying Mothers Part One” Stars of the Lid
51:01 sometimes it feels as if my heart might stop beating
56:44 “Kiss, Scar aka Bell” Prurient
57:47 everything just feels far away
00:57 a better way to feel safe
01:16 “Nautical 2″ Loscil
04:35 happy and secure, and protected, and feel whole
05:23 “Evocation of the Invisible” Alio Die
06:11 how is it that the wells could be so different?
08:54 an awfully hard place to be
09:56 “Remind Me of You” Beequeen
13:08 a world that can contain both these kinds of wells is a lot more hopeful
15:12 goodnight

EDIT: Hahaha, I am rad and there are all kinds of typos n’ shit in the first version of the cover. If you care, re-download, it should be titled “thewell2.jpg”. jeez.

Download: The Well, The Cover

I have been cataloguing things in the middle of the night.

I have been trying to make connections.

I have been cracking my sternum open and pulling my ribs apart so that I could show another person what I have inside.

These are the sounds of 2am letter writing and reaching out,

trying to push through until morning so I can sleep, to prepare myself for the darkness that comes, when I can lay myself bare.

Tracklisting:

00:00 hi
00:03 “Down by the River,” Low
04:31 my sleepy two am voice
08:56 i’m here, i’m just not sure what i should say
09:31 “The Whisper,” Beequeen
13:23 “Ambhas”, Alio Die & Amelia Cuni
13:33 i like listening to myself in headphones
18:29 “Post-Deflagration Tinnitus,” Sostrah Tinnitus
21:44 i missed you today
22:35 “Sleep Talking #2,” Ma Rainey
25:50 “Without Warning His Heart Stopped Beating,” John Parish
27:24 sometimes in the middle of the night my apt feels like a satellite orbiting the planet
28:52 “Radio Announcement,” In the Mood for Love Soundtrack
32:01 “Manana,” Gustavo Lamas
32:22 i woke up feeling empty today
36:11 “Love Theme from Until the End of the World,” Graeme Revell
35:52 “4 or 5 Trees,” Rachel’s
42:51 “Obsessions (Edit),” Joe Frank
43:10 “I am not Dead, I am Here,” Navicon Torture Technologies
43:22 there’s something about talking into the microphone in the middle of the night (part one)
45:55 “Birthday Party,” Milieu
46:31 “Lost Voices,” Andrew Chalk
48:36 there’s something about talking into the microphone in the middle of the night (part two)
53:19 “Broken Harbors : Part 2,” Stars of the Lid
57:51 i don’t think this is chemical unhappiness
59:51 “M+K,” Andrew Thomas
02:53 i don’t believe in soul mates, i don’t believe in a soul (part one)
04:32 “Job,” Alan Lomax Field Recordings, Bahamas 1935
07:56 “Hands as Words,” Tsukimono
12:52 i don’t believe in soul mates, i don’t believe in a soul (part two)

Download: Reaching Out, Letter Writing, 2am, The Cover

I’ve created a companion piece for Transistor Radio Love Letter. The motivation and intentions of this mix are somewhat different than the first. Whereas the first was made with connection and touching as its intention, this mix is darker, isolated, probably a product of the winter coming down hard on us here in the Pac NW the last couple weeks, everything awash in grey.

What I pictured while I was putting the mix together is this:

The person who had originally washed up on the Canary Islands has been able to stow away on a boat and reach farther north into Europe, and is now traveling on foot with their imaginary strongest transistor radio in the world. Though they been alone for so long that have forgotten how to make a connection with someone outside of themselves, they are haunted by memories of what connection had once been like and how it had gone wrong. They are struggling to continue to move northern-ward and to propel themselves forward they are pulling from everything that they have known, books they have read, lectures they’ve attended, people they have known—remembering their life, wrestling with demons and reaching towards angels.

This mix is far more introspective than the first, somnolent, opaque, somewhat uncomfortable at times,

but to me, beautiful.

Tracklisting:

00:00 radio transmission
00:01 Navicon Torture Technologies - Personal Apocalypse [g.o.r.e.]
03:53 Alio Die & Mathias Grassow - Expansion Mood 1
04:33 radio transmission
06:37 Conflict part 1
07:46 Tsukimono - Gloomy Sunday
15:35 Beequeen - Fly Like an Eagle
15:52 Conflict 2
18:32 Domenico Lanza - Canto di Carretiere
20:00 radio transmission
20:42 Blind Willie Johnson - Dark was the Night (Cold was the Ground)
22:28 Conflict 3
23:55 Alan Watts - Readings (Edit 1)
29:58 22 & Group - Early in the Mornin’
31:39 radio transmission
33:08 Akira Yamaoka - Over/Devil’s Lyric/Rising Sun
33:15 Conflict 4
37:21 radio transmission
37:44 Alan Watts - Readings (Edit 2)
39:53 Alessandro Moreschi - Ave Vernum, Corpus
42:22 Andrew Chalk - Track 03
43:37 Conflict 5
46:51 radio transmission
47:08 Bai Hong - Qie Ting Wo Shuo (Listen Up)
49:51 Cleveland Benoit & Darby - Malheureuse Negre
51:04 Colleen - I was Deep in a Dream and I Did Not Know
52:44 Alan Watts - Aliens
53:48 David Sylvian - The Only Daughter (Remixed by Jan Bang & Erik Honore ft Nils Petter Molvaer)
59:04 Navicon Torture Technologies - Everything Dies
00:43 Final Conflict
10:37 end radio transmission

EDIT: Somehow, because I am cool, I managed to mess up the volume levels on the track, so I had to redo it. Now, I doubt anyone but me and Kozy (who was kind enough to listen to it right away for me) have the effed version, but to be sure, if the file name did not have a “2″ at the end of it, you’re going to want to redownload. Unless, of course, you don’t mind effed volume levels. Ok, thanks!

Download: Farther North, The Cover

I don’t idolize Rock Stars, or get caught up in nostalgia trips for music made before I was old enough to read, but there was something uniquely cool and tragic about Syd Barrett, and his recent death touched me. I wrote elsewhere that it was a weird combination of pathos and bathos — the inevitable conclusion of a sad story that most of us had forgotten was still going on.

But then again, who are we to say it’s sad? For all I know, Syd Roger led a perfectly nice, ordinary life in the 35 years since he cocooned himself away from the public eye. Meanwhile, other artists were clothing themselves in the butterfly skin he shed, viz.:

Download: Last Laughs For The Madcap … a mix for Syd [73 MB]
View: the track listing

Imagine you’re stranded on hilltop high above the Canary Islands, south of you is Northern Africa, to the north Spain and the rest of Europe. In the distance, on another hill you see an observatory and in your possession, the strongest transistor radio imaginable, picking up transmissions from Africa, the Middle East, Europe and even our attempts to communicate with the stars.

This mix was inspired by Sean, Jenny, Kozy, Daniel and my longing to make a connection with the outside world.

All of it.

Tracklisting:

00:00 radio transmission
00:50 Alessandro Moreschi, Chorus of the Sistine Chapel, Chorus of Roman Choristers/Salvatore Meluzzi - Ave Verum
02:54 radio transmission
03:26 Andrew Chalk - Track One
10:01 radio transmission
10:13 Beequeen - Whispering Confessions
13:16 Josephine Baker - Doudou
16:21 Recorded in St Lucia - Luce-O Luce Mauvais
17:58 radio transmission
18:17 Sostrah Tinnitus - Smell of Moisture after the Rain
23:19 Sidney Bechet - Summertime
27:28 radio transmission
27:57 Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou - The Story of the Wind
30:15 radio transmission
30:56 Anna Eriksson - Shimmering Black, In Some Light Shimmering Violet
31:51 Peter Hansen - Winter Air
35:39 Navicon Torture Technologies - White Oleander [g.o.r.e.]
45:58 radio transmission
46:49 Colleen - Babies
49:50 Christopher Brus - The Pond
50:47 Domotic - Kimberli
55:29 radio transmission
56:12 Ait Bou Guemmez - Chant Improvise
56:41 Aix Em Klemm - The Luxury of Dirt
58:21 radio transmission
02:13 Animal Collective - Visiting Friends
14:32 radio transmission

Download: Transistor Radio Love Letter, The Cover

Pushing my own boundaries — I am at home with drones & waves of swirly dissonance that might be offputting to some. Lately I have been tentatively downloading some tracks whose weirdness is along a different axis: fractured, manic, sowing discord. This mix fits some of these together with older gems that fit in well with them.

Enjoy the sparkles but watch for sharp edges as you dance…

“A hallucinatory voyage through imaginary tribal lands.”

Tracklist:
1. “Light By Initiation” by Alio Die from Under An Holy Ritual (Hic Sunt Leones)
2. “A Sun To Lift Sleep From The Weary” by Mandible Chatter from Of Foreign Lands and People (Release/Relapse)
3. “East Taunts West” by :Zoviet*France: from Loh Land (Staalplaat)
4. “San” by J. Greinke & R. Angus from Crossing Ngoli (Ear Rational)
5. “Dream Theory” by Jon Hassell from Dream Theory In Malaya (EG)
6. “Dusk, Dead Heart” by O Yuki Conjugate from Peyote (Multimood/Projekt)
7. “Curandera” by Suspended Memories from Earth Island (Fathom/Hearts of Space)
8. “Drifting” by Voice Of Eye from Vespers (Cyclotron Industries)
9. “The Velvet Horizon” by Paul Schutze from New Maps Of Hell (Extreme/Big Cat)
10. “Qom” by Muslimgauze from Iran (Staalplaat)
11. “Jacobs Drum” by Rapoon from The Kirghiz Light (Staalplaat)
12. “Future Tribe” by Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf from The Serpent’s Lair (Projekt)

Download: Mister Eden’s Lysergic Africa: “Sticky Tribal Nightmare”

My latest end-of-the-year mix…

(My son drew the cover cartoon, based on his occasional comic strip Cloudy And Her Friends.)

Borgar Þor Magnason — “South”
   from the soundtrack of Gabriela Friðriksdóttir’s installation Versations/Tetralogia
The Heartless Bastards — “New Resolution”
   from Stairs And Elevators
Deerhoof — “Running Thoughts”
   from The Runners Four
Aeriel — “Airtight Angels”
   from Winks & Kisses
The Lionheart Brothers — “Love Ludicrous”
   from the compilation Rock Around The Block
Bloc Party — “Like Eating Glass”
   from Silent Alarm
Tree Wave — “Sleep”
   from Cabana EP+
Namco — “You Are Smart”
   from the video game Katamari Damacy
Radio Magenta — “Like A Radio Magenta”
   from the compilation So Far, So Good … So What?
Aarktica — “Glacia”
    from No Solace In Sleep
Eluvium — “Under The Water It Glowed”
   from Lambent Material
Mono — “The Kidnapper Bell”
   from Under The Pipal Tree
A Northern Chorus — “Prisoners Of Circumstance”
   from Bitter Hands Resign
Under Byen — “Plantage”
   from Det Er Mig Der Holdern Træern Sammen
Marsen Jules — “Aile d’Aigle”
   from Herbstlaub
Meat Beat Manifesto — “Bohemian Grove”
   from At The Center
Stockfinster — “All Becomes Music”
   from the compilation Red, Green, Blue & Other Summer Feelings
Sufjan Stevens — “Out Of Egypt, Into The Great Laugh Of Mankind, And I Shake The Dirt From My Sandals As I Run”
   from Illinois
Deerhoof — “Chatterboxes”
   from The Runners Four
Namco — “Angel Flavor’s Present”
   from the video game Katamari Damacy

Download: Cloud Sculpture

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”

I am ludicrous, here’s a mixtape. Why is this on the front page? I don’t know how to move it. I like to move it, move it.

1: Dion McGregor - Ass Bit (0:09)
2: Maher Shalal Hash Baz - (0:14)
3: Sun City Girls - A Throne’s Stow (0:19)
4: Can - Pnoom (0:26)
5: Yesterday’s New Quintet - Harlem River Drive Interlude (0:30)
6: The Rondelles - Indication (1:13)
7: Brujeria - Pura De Venta (0:41)
8: The Tape-Beatles - Elevator Music (0:10)
9: Anal Cunt - Cleft Plate (0:17)
10: The Denver Zest - By The Time Buddy Holly Was My Age, He Was Already Somebody Else (1:01)
11: The Pipettes - It Hurts 2 C U Dance So Well (1:04)
12: Peanut Butter Wolf - Sit Down And Shut Up (0:15)
13: The Homosexuals - High And Low (0:22)
14: Bun-B - Me Against The World (0:45)
15: Barbara And The Boys - Hootie Sapperticker (1:40)
16: The Scene Is Now - Cool Pool (0:39)
17: Boogaloo Combo - Boogaloo (0:53)
18: The Field Mice - An Earlier Autumn (2:01)
19: Shriek - Nuthin (0:46)
20: David Greeneberger - More Professional (0:11)
21: Sun City Girls - Is It Stroked? (0:15)
22: Happy Stars - (I’m A) Baby Pigeon (1:56)
23: The Sadies - Guns Speak (0:42)
24: Wire - Different To Me (0:43)
25: The Tape-Beatles - Different Tool (0:18)
26: The Mountain Goats - Down Here (1:35)
27: Kicking Mustangs - Kicking Ass (1:53)
28: Olivia Tremor Control - Jumping Fences (1:52)
29: Peanut Butter Wolf - Top Illin (0:24)
30: Mick Turner - Borracho Sol I (0:31)
31: Maher Shalal Hash Baz - (0:21)
32: Swell Maps - Vertical Slum (1:12)
33: The Homosexuals - Vociferous Slam (1:34)
34: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - As Kind As Summer (1:10)
35: Billy Childish and the Blackhands - This Is The Blackhands (1:21)
36: Dion McGregor - Thought For The Day (0:32)
37: The Tape-Beatles - Metro-Pulse (0:36)
38: Sun City Girls - Zeke Cambridge (0:23)
39: Cub - Little Star (1:14)
40: John Fahey - West Coast Blues (1:25)
41: The Godz - May You Never Be Alone Like Me (1:34)
42: Bun-B - We Do (0:49)
43: Gorguts - And Then Comes Lividity (0:43)
44: Maher Shalal Hash Baz - Muddy Water (0:15)
45: Rudy Ray Moore - Herman Griffiths Radio Spot (0:21)
46: Money Mark - Have Clav Will Travel (1:22)
47: Roger Miller - Dream Interpretation No. 9 (1:43)
48: The Makers - I’m A Concrete Wall (2:48)
49: The Goblins - Selena (0:44)
50: Sun City Girls - Priest On The Run (0:38)
51: The Tape-Beatles - Rah Rah Up And Down (0:21)
52: The Homosexuals - There Are Shy Moons (Backmask) (0:38)
53: The Monarchs - Sandal Stomp (1:07)
54: Wire - 106 Beats That (1:12)
55: Coffee - 44 FIngers (1:22)
56: Gravediggaz - 360 Questions (0:33)
57: Mick Turner - Borracho Sol II (1:29)
58: Jim Copp and Ed Brown - Eula Mole (1:01)
59: Minutemen - Futurism Restated (0:58)
60: Stock, Hausen & Walkman - Rash (0:36)
61: Anal Cunt - Josue (0:10)
62: Som Tres - Tanga (1:58)
63: Supreme Dicks - Viva La Speedy Orgone (1:45)
64: The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside (1:31)
65: Peanut Butter Wolf - Ten Minutes Left (0:19)
66: Bun-B - Kodak Moment (0:47)
67: The Homosexuals - Regard Omission (0:52)
68: The Holy Modal Rounders - Euphoria (1:34)
69: Kim Fowley - Werewolf Dynamite (1:39)
70: The Scene Is Now - Yellow Sarong (1:56)
71: David Greenberger - Squeegee Message (0:11)
72: Sun City Girls - Electrocution (0:07)

Here’s the second in my Minor Arcana themed series of mixes: the Knight Of Cups, who is fanciful, temperamental, introspective � an INFP if I’ve ever seen one.

00:00 Eluvium ~ “New Animals from the Air”
05:52 Lars Blek ~ “Tristess”
08:12 The London Apartments ~ “Streetlights are Soldiers”
11:47 Below The Sea ~ “Preface”
16:57 Bloc Party ~ “So Here We Are”
20:44 Stella Luna ~ “A Bridge to Nowhere”
27:10 Kitchens Of Distinction ~ “The 3rd Time We Opened the Capsule”
30:13 Weevil ~ “Too Long Sleeping”
35:19 Eltro ~ “How Did it Happen so Slowly?”
39:23 Reed Rothchild ~ “The Great Century”
44:59 Philip Glass ~ “Osamu’s Theme: Kyoko’s House”
47:57 Fonoda ~ “Neu mit Haus und die Menschen Dort”
54:53 Alarm Will Sound ~ “Blue Calx”
60:54 Tlon ~ “Torch Number”
67:28 Under Byen ~ “Om Vinteren”

Dear Jenny,

It’s only a couple days into the season, but autumn has hit me full force.

Everything around me is in this golden glow, everything has gone soft. I wish you were here to take pics of the red and brass colored leaves, I wish you were here to drink spiced hot apple cider and slide around in stocking feet on my hardwood floors.

Here is a mix for you to listen to, leave your windows open and lay on your bed, put on headphones.

So many exes and ohs to you, sekrit twin.

xoj

Autumn Lets You Down Gently
paperbirds, 25 september 2005

00:00 “Hush” Swallow
04:23 “Bluebird of Happiness” Mojave 3
13:25 “Green Horizon” Adelaide
19:32 “Cracked Face Diamond” Only
27:09 “Portable Living Room” Alpha
30:55 “Preciso Dizer Que Te Amo” Cazuza & Bebel Gilberto
35:12 “Ngo/Bitmix” Ryuichi Sakamoto
40:18 “Mera Kuchh Saaman (Some of My Things)” Asha Bhosle & the Kronos Quartet
47:06 “Spiralling” Antony & the Johnsons
51:21 “Haunted” Arab Strap
56:56 “Fracture” Faye Wong
00:51 “Your Baby (Lets You Down Gently)” Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham
04:41 “Curtains” Peter Gabriel
07:52 “Our Nearest Neighbors” Red Stars Theory
16:18 “Moon River” Audrey Hepburn

[107MB, 1:18:21]

Download: Autumn Lets You Down Gently, The Cover

Dear Xxxxxx,

A friend let me try out this new program that lets you mix songs together so they are all one big track. This is my first try.

It took me a long time to make this mix, longer than usual. It’s the first mix that I am showing you, even though I have made others. I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I can’t get it together enough to send you anything in the post. I mean to, I mean to, I mean to.

This mix all came together today. It was the first day of autumn, and it was beautiful. I thought about what it must be like where you are. I imagined it cleaner, and quieter, and I stretched out across my bed and listened to this mix while I wrapped and unwrapped myself in my new softest blanket.

I wanted to take pictures for you of all the shadows sliding up my walls, golden and warm. I wanted to somehow record for you how it felt to listen to this, the music all over my skin while I listened to the whole world move outside.

I wanted to send you a message, something immediate.

I couldn’t, and you were sleeping, we are always sleeping at right angles of each other.

But I have this for you, and as soon as it was finished I wanted to start another, and another and another,

to send to you.

xoj

PS: I know that there are some songs here that I’ve posted on the selector before, but I don’t care.

PPS: You know that song I sent you last night before I went to sleep? I fell asleep listening to it on repeat and it played 277 times while I was sleeping. 277 times!

You are Something that the Whole World is Doing
paperbirds, 22 september 2005

01 00:00 “ladybug” 1/2
02 04:40 “introduccion” savath & savalas
03 05:37 “lines low to the frozen ground” hood
04 10:04 “firefly (receiver mix)” alpha
05 16:05 “into the sun” diplo ft martina topley-bird
06 21:51 “clutching at straws” andrea parker
07 26:50 “arabesuku” lily chou-chou
08 32:31 “we have a map of the piano” m�m
09 37:34 “be good to them always” the books
10 42:08 “blue skied an’ clear” slowdive
11 48:38 “the weight of my words (four tet remix)” kings of convenience
12 53:20 “the beach at redpoint” boards of canada
13 57:23 “the prevailing wind” yasume
14 01:26 “minimal tunisia” agf
15 04:48 “nightfall at the riverside” cinq
16 11:01 “ending theme” tenniscoats

[101MB, 1:14:01]

Download: You are Something that the Whole World is Doing, The Cover

I have some new audio software that lets me make mixes more easily and intuitively, so I want to play with music and release things without having to ponder for weeks over the crossfades or perfect cover art.

I’ve decided to make a series of quickie mixes inspired by the Minor Arcana. The idea is that I’ll draw a Tarot card and put together music inspired by its symbolism. There are 56 minor arcana cards, enough to keep me going on this theme for a while.

In fact, the first one’s done already � it came together very quickly yesterday & today. I kind of cheated by choosing the card afterwards based on the feel of the mix; but that’s because the Tarot theme didn’t occur to me until I was halfway done.

So please welcome & download the Seven Of Wands, which symbolizes aggression, defiance, conviction. Musically, to me, this means guitar noise, and lots of it, but the moods range across bravado, anger, ecstasy, loss, alienation, and finally revelation.

00:00 Underground Lovers � �Eastside Stories�
04:37 Sonic Youth � �Expressway To Yr Skull�
09:38 Flying Saucer Attack � �Popol Vuh 1�
15:10 Macha � �Between Stranded Sonars�
22:06 Surface Of Eceon � �The Open Sea�
28:08 Ride � �Seagull�
34:08 Loop � �Vapour�
38:03 Dustdevils � �Slope�
42:50 Medicine � �Zelzah�
47:09 Mono � �Com(?)�
53:34 Kittie � �Spit�
55:53 Dustdevils � �Head Of Kurtz�
57:12 Pink Floyd � �Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun� [live]
63:20 Amp � �Onehopesinuncertainty�
68:03 Yume Bitsu � �Truth�

This isn’t a song so much as an entire mix CD I made as a Xmas present for friends in 2000. I had made gift mixes for a several years, but this was the first time I let the mix be exactly the way it wanted to assemble itself, without consideration for whether other people would like it. I had just finished reading The Amber Spyglass, the end of Philip Pullman’s incomparable trilogy, and was still in a daze from it and from discovering music that seemed to match it in mood, most strongly Sigur Rós and Tarentel. And so I put this together, an 80-minute dream.

“Lyra felt something strange happen to her body. She felt as if she had been handed the key to a great house she hadn’t known was there, a house that was somehow inside her, and as she turned the key, she felt other doors opening in the darkness, and lights coming on. She sat trembling … And inside her, that rich house with all its doors open and all its rooms lit stood waiting, quiet, expectant.”

Godspeed You Black Emperor! “Moya” (pt 1)
Sigur Ros “Staralfur”
Fascia “Ringhollow”
Transient Waves “Always Ascending”
Rachel’s “An Evening Of Long Goodbyes”
Laika “A Single Word”
Mogwai “Rage : Man”
Radiohead “In Limbo”
Bowery Electric “Lushlife”
Sigur Ros “Svefn-G-Englar”
Tarentel “Looking For Things”

“God did not create the angels. He found them already existing and enslaved them.”

Made this mix last year [hence the 04] and am mostly just posting it for Andrew’s benefit, but, who knows, someone else might like it.

I played this in my 3D Design class once last fall, and people were kind of, “this is weird,” and I was, sarcastically, all, “I’m sorry it’s too obscure for you.”
This is not obscure stuff at all. And it’s probably the least weird of the stuff I listen to. :/

yuji oniki - between beds and clocks
the cat’s miaow - aurora
aberdeen - cities and buses
the bartlebees - you’re still beautiful
bunnygrunt - i just had broken-heart surgery, love won’t bypass me again
the ampersands - tell me what i can do
call and response - i know you want me
silver apples - i have known love
swell maps - secret island
cub - the day we met
beat happening - i’ve lost you
fat tulips - i promise you
the flatmates - turning you blue
the lucksmiths - t-shirt weather
the shop assistants - all that ever mattered
marine girls - falling again
tullycraft - mental obsession
starlight mints - submarine #3
thee headcoatees - true to you
jonathan richman - that summer feeling
the orchids - welcome to my curious heart
the notwist - one dark love poem
felt - down but not yet out
jesus and mary chain - just like honey

my friend is trying to kill some personal demons.

i figure antagonism can’t necessarily hurt the cause.

1. Zbigniew Preisner / Silesia Philharmonic Choir, Reprise-Organ
2. Roky Erickson, Please Don’t Kill My Baby
3. Marc Bolan, You Scare Me To Death
4. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, There’s Something Wrong With You
5. Elvis Presley, (You’re The) Devil In Disguise

1. mari lataretu, ma uitai spre rasarit.
2. sidney bechet, summertime.
3. aster aweke, antiye.
4. mulunquen mellesse, temenjar shega.
5. sidney bechet, egyptian fantasy.
6. luce-o luce mauvais.
7. cyprus smith & group, sambo caesar.
8. jesus ordonez & orchestra, jota manchega.
9. josephine baker, j’ai deux amours.
10. billie holiday, let’s dream in the moonlight.
11. tinariwen, tenere dafed nikchan.
12. asnaqetch werqu, mengedengnaw lebe.
13. ait bou guemmez, chant improvise.

my ship is wrecked on the canary islands. i woke up in cold linens under a black sky with the salt of the ocean in my mouth and the sand of the beach in my eyes, my head bleeding on a chest of black tea.

by the end, my hair will be bleached, the soles of my feet will have blistered, my mouth will be pale with dehydration and i will have surrended to a solitary existence with one transitor radio that will possess me with the music of north africa, southern spain, and when the wind is good, ethiopia.

see me for songs: untigredepapier (aol instant messenger)

hanged up - losing your charm

zeena parkins - maul: benya krik / zero hour

prurient - kiss, scar aka bell

navicon torture technologies - everything dies

hanged up - sink

a silver mt. zion - 13 angels standing guard ’round the side of your bed

beequeen - whispering confessions

navicon torture technologies - white oleander

I try and make a mixed CD every month based on music on my computer. I don’t know why, but I do. Last night I made April. It takes a bit of a jarring left turn at Stephen Malkmus, but I still am OK with it. It also doesn’t work very well between Camera Obscura and Franz Ferdinand, and I actually can’t understand why I would have put the latter on there, but it was really late, OK?

-Feist “Mushaboom”
-Lou Reed “Perfect Day”
-Neko Case “Andy”
-Superwolf “Lift Us Up”
-The Weakerthans “Left and Leaving”
-Kathleen Edwards “Mercury”
-PJ Harvey “Horses in my Dreams”
-Stephen Malkmus “Post-Paint Boy”
-Okkervil River “For Real”
-The Beatles “Dear Prudence”
-The Decemberists “Los Angeles, I’m Yours”
-Camera Obscura “Keep it Clean”
-Franz Ferdinand “Take me Out”
-Bloc Party “Banquet”
-Gang of Four “Damaged Goods”
-The Organ “Sinking Hearts”
-Morrissey “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” (live)
-The Decemberists “The Infanta”

I made this mix with my two favorite people, jon and niki, in mind. They are on opposite sides of the country now, but I imagine them both listening to this on their headphones while they glide through their respective cities.

This mix is for urban soundtracking, quietly.

“LETSmakeOURmovies” agf
“urah-shigue” equadoodle
“good morning sunshine” colleen
“western airlines” domotic
“minimal tunesia” agf
“pour une flaque” davide balula
“imawa mori nona kani” the konki duet
“plantage” under byen
“rind-gand rind-gand hearts” tenniscoats
“pur glace” davide balula & domotic
“hjertebarn” under byen
“sweet c.k.” kazumasa hashimoto
“she is a rainbow in curved air” acid mothers temple & the melting paraiso u.f.o.
“awaawa” eisi
“nightfall at the Riverside” cinq
“ending theme” tenniscoats

I don’t make mixes very often, but here’s what I made for the FYC mix exchange.

1. Soul Center - Can I Ask You  [W.v.B.]
2. Gebr. Teichmann - Aus der Ferne  [Kompakt]
3. Hombre Ojo - Manejando Un Carrito Rapidito Por Santiaguito (edit)  [Perlon]
4. Antonelli Electr. - The Man with the Golden Hands  [Italic]
5. Studio 1 - Gr�n 3  [Studio 1/Profan]
6. Cristian Vogel - What  [Tresor]
7. Alexander Kowalski - Hearing Is Believing  [Kanzleramt]
8. Oliver Hacke - 21:31  [Traum]
9. Marko F�rstenberg - Stockhorn  [Thinner]
10. Various Artists - Erode  [Chain Reaction]
11. Round Five feat Tikiman - Na Fe Throw It  [Main Street]