Author Archive
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I made this mix for my friend Jessie who is in Australia. It’s mostly just songs I really like, but also kind of a strange mix of songs that are for summer time (which it is there) and songs for winter time (which it is here). So we’ll all just feel a little unseasonal sometimes I guess. It starts real quiet, so if you think it’s not playing, you’re probably wrong. Just wait, crabapple.
Adam and the Amethysts / “Dreaming”
Neko Case / “I’m An Animal”
Forest Fire / “Future Shadows”
Made In Heights / “Viices”
OG Melody / “OG Realness”
Air Review / “H”
Pat Jordache / “Radio Generation”
Fool’s Gold / “Surprise Hotel”
S.E. Rogie / “Please Go Easy With Me”
Bry Webb / “Undertaker”
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Another mix tape. This one is less depressing than the last one. A little more concerned with wonder and uncertainty — you know that feeling when you’re not sure what’s next, but you’re eager for it?
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Eskimo & Sons / “No Elephant”
How Does It Feel To Be Crushed By One Man With The Strength Of A Million [2007 BoyGorilla]
Bon Iver / “Babys”
Blood Bank [2008 Jagjaguwar]
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone / “Killers”
Vs. Children [2009 Tomlab]
David Bowie / “A New Career In A New Town”
Low [1977 RCA]
John Vanderslice / “Angela”
Pixel Revolt [2005 Barsuk]
Floating Action / “Don’t Stop Loving Me Now”
Floating Action [2009 Park The Van]
Tu Fawning / “The Felt Sense”
Hearts On Hold [2010 Provenance Music]
Crooked Fingers / “Twilight Creeps”
Dignity and Shame [2005 Merge]
Fang Island / “Davey Crockett”
Fang Island [2010 Sargent House]
Typhoon / “Firewood”
A New Kind Of House [2011 Tender Loving Empire]
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This is a pretty sad mix, but for summer time. Listen to it at twilight on the porch with mosquito bites and shooting stars.
Lhasa De Sela / Is Anything Wrong / Lhasa / 2009
Scott Walker / Bouncer See Bouncer… / Tilt / 1995
Wildbirds & Peacedrums / Iris: The Drop / Rivers / 2010
Vic Chesnutt / Flirted With You All My Life / At The Cut / 2009
Mt. Eerie / Wind Speaks / Wind’s Dark Poem / 2009
Port St. Willow / Tunnels / Even // Wasteland / 2010
Njuzu Mbira / Chakwi / Traditional Music Of Zimbabwe / 2002
DeYarmond Edison / Time To Know / Silent Signs / 2005
BARR / Complete Consumption Of Us Both / Summary / 2007
The Weeknd / High For This / House Of Balloons / 2011
Smog’s on the small
speakers; Bill’s singing
some: most of my
fantasies are of making
someone else come.
Morning creeps through
Portland’s misty alleys,
summer yields to fall,
all I have I burn:
one lavender flower. To be
of some small, simple,
undeniable use. A simple, undeniable
truth, the yearning of youth.
You can’t write it away or leave
it casually on some step
like an empty bottle. It eats
at the inside parts of you
and you can try to kill it
with liquor or dull
the gnawing at least, but
it comes back hungrier.
Bits of your life flake away
as they seem suddenly
unimportant, not worth
the work. Stronger is what
they tell you you will be
after it tears away the weakness.
Momo Wandel Soumah – “Tamouya Gouli”
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When the flute solo starts, innocently enough, at 4:47 in this song, you are completely unprepared for what it will become. The flautist traces careful figure eights around the melody while Momo growls his approval and the band keeps a steady and pleasant groove. Then this trilling screech, but still within what you’re used to hearing from the mouths and pipes of flautists. But then. 5:38. You are hearing his voice through the flute and he is singing a duet with himself. And Momo is really digging it, sounding like a very big dog who is being scratched in that one place.
–
There is one copy of this album, called Afro Swing
, available on Amazon.
Attack In Black – “Years (By One Thousand Fingertips)”
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Maybe I’m into this song because I love the name of the band so much. Maybe it’s because I’m into crush songs right now, being in the sway of a pretty powerful affection. Maybe it’s how it starts with just this humble guitar, moping along, sounding like it’s being played in someone’s kitchen. Maybe it’s the words:
If you hated music
would you be a mother with a family?
If your songs weren’t written
would I still get shivers from your silence
until tears are welled up in my eyelids?
If your duty wasn’t earthly
would you still understand it’s beauty?
Please, do these things for me.
Please, know that you have held one thousand years
by one thousand fingertips.
If your words weren’t charming
would they still sit on fences in my eardrums?
If your voice was harmful
would it be a storm cloud
on the golden day of summer’s starting?
If I didn’t know you
I would not be nearly as inspired.
Please, do these things for me.
Please, know that you have held one thousand years
by one thousand fingertips.
–
from an album by the same name
- for Jim on his birthday.
It’s an old story we tell, the one when
we spent a whole summer on Tecmo Bowl,
unemployment checks and food stamps
buying champagne and OJ, and
you’ve heard a hundred times I’m sure
about when we’d watch the horses race
around the track they tore down last year
finally, you know where the new mall is now,
and how we dressed up, Jim had his scarf
patterned with hundred dollar bills and
I’ve told you about how we’d ride fast at night
our bodies low over our handlebars,
chasing some after party or secret show at
three in the morning, the fire of youth burning
down to embers behind our eyes and I know
it’s not proper, but it’s true
what Paul said about the burden of my generation–
it’s you.
Check out my friend Sarah’s website called Cute Baby Otters. Make sure you’re ready to go “aawwwwww”.
Just found this remix from 2 years ago that my friend Cosmos did of a Morals’ song from our cd, The Warming Light Of Dawn.
It’s an honor to have someone make something so beautiful out of something I made.
Listen here, but go over to his “neverending album” site to hear more remixes of the likes of Typhoon and Starfucker.
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The swirly syths are so summery. You know how partial shadows near a summer sunset can tug at emotional strings you didn’t know existed? How when you’re climbing a mountain or a hill and you get near the top, so you can see where the ground levels off and the sky seems to leap into view with each step? Those things are what this sounds like to me.
