If you’ve ever had the pleasure of spending time with a Canadian you’ll know that we’re sorry. Not for anything in particular, just generally. If you bump into one of us on the street, we’ll be the ones to apologize, to a point where it makes you wonder what a country with relatively clean hands has to feel so bad about.
Like any country with running water and a stock market, we have had a checkered history with the original tenants of our land, and several run-ins with the French, but never has a country fetishized their sins as thoroughly as Canada has. Our airports, government buildings, and public places use Native art the way Persian homosexuals use leopard print, and everything we read is coupled with a French translation, even though I’m personally more likely to have a conversation in Tagalog. We put more money towards art funding than any country in the world, with a wildly disproportionate amount of that going to multicultural artists and projects, to a point where we haven’t just turned our guilt into an art form, we have adopted it as a national identity so pervasive that it makes one wonder what would be left if all that went away.
In the end, I still prefer living in a country that settles its grievances with art funding and tax policy as opposed to settlement camps and suicide bombers, and I like having the French language around, if only for aesthetics, but with America acting like Al Pacino during the last few minutes of Scarface, the Middle East fighting their way back to the seventeen century, and Europe looking like a great sweater that has seen one too many winters, maybe my countrymen can celebrate this Canada Day by grading the world on a curve, and letting ourselves off the hook.
A little glimpse of the part of our culture that doesn’t involve nature, gentrification, or winter sports, here’s a mix of some Canadian rock and new wave from the eh-ties.
Trooper – The Boys In the Bright White Sports Car Gino Vannelli – Black Cars The Parachute Club – Rise Up Platinum Blonde – Situation Critical Loverboy – Working For the Weekend (Demo Version) Martha & the Muffins – Swimming Men Without Hats – Pop Goes the World Gowan – You’re a Strange Animal The Payolas – Eyes of a Stranger Bruce Cockburn – Lovers In a Dangerous Time Honeymoon Suite – New Girl Now Rough Trade – High School Confidential Glass Tiger – Someday Chilliwack – My Girl Doug & the Slugs – Who Knows How (To Make Love Stay) Kim Mitchell – Patio Lanterns Corey Hart – It Ain’t Enough Barenaked Ladies – What A Good Boy The Tragically Hip – Wheat Kings Stompin’ Tom Connors – C-A-N-A-D-A (Cross Canada)
Authors note: if anybody is thinking about writing a comment about Bryan Adams being excluded, or the Barenaked Ladies and Tragically Hip not being from the eighties, you might want to spend that energy explaining to your father why he shouldn’t expect grandchildren.
Do you remember those old block parties? The girls hangin’ out on the stoop doing the wop? Do you remember the battles at Union Square? Kool Herc at Sedgwick Ave? Saturday nights above the rollerskating rink? Remember the Bridge Wars? The untouched white trains and the fat rope chains? What about the New York City Breakers and the Rock Steady Crew? Remember the “yes yes ya’ll”s and the 808 loops?
Me neither, but I’ve seen some shit in magazines that made it all seem pretty fly.
Sleeze Boys R N The House – Sleeze Boyz R N the House Otis Clay – Love Bandit (Electro Vocoder Mix) Clarence “Blowfly” Reid – Blowfly’s ABCs Ray Gun Omics – Project Future The Russell Brothers – The Party Scene Kurtis Blow – AJ Scratch Run DMC – King of Rock The Fat Boys – Fat Boys Grandmaster Flash – Larry’s Dance Theme The Classical Two – New Generation Levi 167 – Something Fresh to Swing To MC Mitchski – Kool DJ Red Alert Is a Great Man Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five – Internationally Known The Sequence – Funk You Up (Long Version) Frankie Smith – Double Dutch Bus (12″ Version) The Rocksteady Crew – Get Back Baby Brother Strafe – Set It Off Zero Hour – The Dark Side B Beat Girls – For the Same Man Ose – Computer Funk Extra T’s – E.T. Boogie Steinski – Everything’s Disappeared Gucci Crew – The Dating Game Kevie Kev – All Night Long (Waterbed) The Mary Jane Girls – All Night Long The Kryptic Crew – Jazzy Sensation Toddy Tee – I Need a Girl B.O.S.E – Let’s Jam (Slow Jam) Cherlie D – Your Love is Dead
Unlike any other veteran rap act, the idea of rating the Digable Planets current output against that of their heyday is hardly laughable. Just as their easily digestible debut gave way to a more intricate and enduring sophomore release, the group’s afterlife has been riding a similar tide.
Not that negotiating this post-Planets output has been easy. Ish “Butterfly” Butler seems to be deliberately keeping his comeback a secret, with the music press curiously playing along. 2004’s Cherrywine project spawned a grimy basement funk session that should have blown-up like a disenfranchised teenager in the Middle East, but went all but unnoticed. I then must have blinked during last year’s release of the lurid and unstructured Shabazz Palaces, which emerged as more aggressive and, true to form, more challenging than the music that paved its way.
Arranging this selection of Digable Planets remixes and rarities against highlights of Ishmael’s subsequent projects presents the same progression from accessibility to experimentalism that marked those first two albums, with the recent output comfortably standing on the same footing as anything the group did before and above anything anybody else does now.
Digable Planets – Intro from Amsterdam Reunion Tour Digable Planets – Nickel Bags of Bites (Excerpt) Digable Planets – Dedicated Digable Planets – Where I’m From (Aural G Ride 12”) Digable Planets – Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like That) (Crashing Giant Step Mix) Digable Planets – Excerpt from CurrentTV Interview Digable Planets – Nickel Bags (Sneak A Beshu Mix) Digable Planets – Appointment at the Fat Clinic Digable Planets – Califlower (Spiddyocks Go West) Digable Planets – Three Slim’s Dynamite Digable Planets feat Guru – Borough Check Digable Planets feat. Jeru – Graffiti (Noise) Digable Planets – Dial 7 (Axioms of Creamy Spies) Digable Planets – 9th Wonder (Amina Remix) Tek 9 feat. Butterfly – Gettin’ Down Again Camp Lo feat. Butterfly – Swing Cherrywine – See For Miles King Britt feat. Cherrywine – The Sound Cherrywine – Dazzlement Shabazz Palaces – N. Splendored/ Find Out Shabazz Palaces – Capital 5, Recorded After Hrs at the Gun Ballad Resource Centre Cherrywine – 16th Minute Cherrywine – Sleep Pretty Girl Digable Planets feat. Lester Bowie and Melvin Watson – Flying High in the Brooklyn Sky Digable Planets – Where I’m From (DJ Bonus Beats) Digable Planets – Excerpt from CurrentTV Interview Digable Planets – Marvin, You’re the Man
Based on the single and a dramatic new video referencing Charles Burnett’s remarkable film, Killer of Sheep, I’d suggest Shabazz Places is poised to turn things upside down had I not made similar claims about Blowout Comb and Bright Black just before hip-hop devolved into genre of ring-tones. This time I’ll at least put my oar in the water with some bonus material taken from the group’s appearance on Seattle’s KEXP radio.
Shabazz Palaces – Live on KEXP(right click to download) 20:00 mins/ 320 kbps/ 45.8MB
With vinyl aptly regarded for its sonic warmth and potential for album art, cassettes never gained the same fetishistic regard, regarded by many as an inferior stopgap between the adoption of records and compact disks. That said, this conventional wisdom is currently under siege by the growing trend of lo-fi bands running their recordings through analog tape as a means to remove the pristine polish and sharp edges that have dominated production since the personal computer became our generation’s electric guitar.
If the jury is still out on the issue of sound quality, it has surely adjourned on the fact that cassettes remain the greatest media for compilations, differentiating itself from digital mixes in the same way an original painting differentiates itself from a print. I’ve been lazily bridging this gap by creating digital mixes then dubbing them to cassette. My recent session has amounted to a schizophrenic bedroom mix, reflecting the severe extent to which my musical tastes are currently lost at sea.
How To Dress Well – How Could This Have Happened? Atlas Sound – Reminder (Excerpt)
WU LYF – Concrete Gold
Cults – Go Outside
E and E – Gate
Shabazz Palaces – N. Spendored/ Find Out
Grand Puba – Get It (Caspa’s 80Eighties Remix)
War – Junk Yard (MTY Re-edit)
Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts & Dop – Can’t Have Everything
Narcotic Syntax – Romantic Infinity
Onze – Bambam
Bobby Kondors – The Poem
Blunted Dummies – House For All (House 4 All Robots Mix)
Matthew Herbert – Manchester
Thomas Bjerring feat. David Skog – 2.45
Pogo – Lost
The Knife – Tomorrow In a Year
Time For Dreams – Breathlessly (demo)
Farah – Gay Boy (Vocal Mix)
Microphones – Mt. Eerie
Diamond Vampires – Friday Nights
Instra:mental – Let’s Talk
Boswell – Escape
Coyote Clean Up – Can’t Shake the Full Moon
Double Dee & Steinski – Message To Young People
Double Dee & Steinski – We’re In a Lot of Trouble
El Michels Affair – Mystery of Chessboxin’
Public Enemy – Contract On the World Love Jam
Junior Mafia – Get Money (Remix)
Erykah Badu – Turn Me Away (Get Munny)
Trus’ Me – Can We Pretend?
Warpaint – Billie Holiday
Wildbirds & Peacedrums – Today/ Tomorrow
Color of Clouds – Haunts Me (Acoustic)
Consequence – Farewell (Excerpt)
Cryo – Guantanamo Bay (Excerpt)
Dragging on Ox Through Water – Lilacs Sprang From These Apes
The Books – Beautiful People
Paul White – Anchor Records
The Wind-up Birds – There Won’t Always Be an England
Dr. Octagon – Blue Flowers (Instrumental)
Martin Buttrich – You Got That Vibe
Spiritualized – Angels Sigh (Alternate Mix 2)
Microphones – Do Not Be Afraid (Side B)
Electric Adolescence – Raised on Cassettes(right click to download) 80:00 mins/ 320 kbps/ 183 MB
Legendary rapper Guru died today, ending a short and private battle with cancer. Beyond the cultural significance of a hip hop artist dying of something other than a gunshot wound, the rap world lost a name that gets bandied about in “greatest emcee of all time” conversations as much as any. While even his biggest supporters tend to concede that the man has spit some fairly shoddy rhymes during his day, Guru’s tenor and flow is so perfect that criticizing his lyrics became like complaining about a lack of color in a black and white photograph.
To commemorate a carrier that pushed hip hop at exactly the time it needed it, the following is a quick mix of some of Guru’s best moments which, in turn, are some of the best in hip hop history.
Electric Adolescence – Guru Tribute Mix(right click to download) 30 mins/ 320 kbps/ 68.6MB
I’d be just as curious to find out more about the origins of April Fools Day as I would to learn who decided it would be the only holiday to end midday. Perhaps someone realized how uncomfortable it would be to go to sleep on a night with those around you given license to fuck around; it actually wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the decision to cut the day short was made around the same time they discovered that putting a persons hand in hot water could make them wet the bed.
I’d personally be fine loosing the day altogether. Practical jokes have always made me uneasy, if only due to my general fear of anticipation: I’m the sort of guy that would rather just get punched in the face than have someone tell me they were going to punch me in the face at some indiscriminate time in the future. Or maybe my feelings stem from a practical joke played on me when I was twelve. I mean, at that age I probably should’ve known that Prince wasn’t going to sing at my birthday party, but that logic didn’t help dry the tears from my Purple Rain tour shirt.
No, I prefer a properly structured joke or well timed one liner. It doesn’t have to be fancy, something like “a skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer and a mop” suits me fine. So, for this April Fools Day I thought I’d bypass the passive aggressive practical joke ritual and offer up a mix of proper comedy, from standup to sketches to amusing songs, all much wittier than the cling wrap on the toilet gag, and without the unsightly mess.
Rodney Dangerfield – No Respect Intro Steve Martin – Hostages Woody Allen – The Lost Generation Richard Pryor – Wino Charlie Murphy – Tsunami Eddie Murphy – Singers South Park – Colfax Point Chris Rock – No Sex Flight of the Concords – Think About It Chris Rock – Roger & Zapp That Mitchell & Webb Sound – Relaxed DJ 7 On the Hour – Intro, News On the Hour – TAB FM Audio Pullout On the Hour – Sports Desk with Alan Partridge The Day Today – September 11th On the Hour – Sports Desk with Alan Partridge The Armando Iannucci Show – Interview with Steven Spielberg Blue Jam – Ambivalent Parents That Mitchell and Webb Sound – The Boy Who Cried Wolf Leicester Comedy Festival Frankie Boyle – Various Demetri Martin – Sitting Guitar Steven Wright – Kitten Song Steven Wright – Various Woody Allen – Down South Monty Python – The Galaxy Song Bill Hicks – Sleep and the Message Rodney Dangerfield – Song of No Respect Flight of the Concords feat Rhys Darby – Leggy Blonde
Centuries ago, a British curator travelled deep into Southeast Asia on a quest to find the artisan responsible for an exquisitely crafted statue of an Elephant, carved from a single piece of wood with what the man assessed as a preternatural level of skill. After months of trekking the unforgiving continent, he eventually met a slight and humble Indonesian woodworker living in poverty, though not in discontent.
Sharing a pot of tea inside a ramshackle workshop, the curator was awestruck to learn that such primitive tools were responsible for bearing such majestic artifacts. Eagerly, he pressed the craftsman to explain the nuances of his technique. Taking a wear-worn chisel in his hand, the craftsman replied, “I start with a block of wood and then I chip away the bits that don’t look like an elephant”.
Le Loup – Outside of This Car, The End of the World Whitey – Can’t Go Out Can’t Stay In Benoit & Sergio – What I’ve Lost Felix Da Housecat – He Was King No Regular Play – Owe Me The Armaberokay – The Hype (Marc Schneider and Ralf Schmidt Remix) Wolf – Papa Was a Rolling Stone Unknown Artist – Maximal Michael Ytre Rymden Dansskola – Bange Aneiser Laurent Garnier – It’s Just Muzik Birds and Souls – Birds and Souls Giorgos Gatzigristos – Sporting Dark Stuff Mr. C – Full Moon Minilogue – Giant Hairy Super Monster International Pony –The Royal Pennekaums Nicolas Jaar – Time For Us Trusme – War Ark – Back to Sleep Back Paul Simon – Can’t Run But (Jerome Covington Remix) Inch Time – Crystal Visions The One – Double Life International Pony – Goodbye
Electric Adolescence – Elephant Carving(right click to download) 60:00 mins/ 320 kbps/ 137MB
While a decision was made upon this blog’s inception to stick strictly to music and not splinter off into weightier topics like philosophy or politics, I seek a reprieve this Valentines Day with an issue that encompasses a bit of both. I’m writing, of course, about how people don’t slow dance at clubs anymore. Like the unfortunate phasing out of bench seats in automobiles or dueling to settle a grievance, our generation forgoing the slow dance strikes me less like a cultural evolution as it does a misguided regression by a society that has lost its way.
It might sound fantastical to readers born post Purple Rain, but it wasn’t so long ago that a DJ would pitch things down and play a ballad at peak hour, and why not? It’s well recognized, if not largely unspoken, that an establishment can charge eight dollars for an ounce of down-market alcohol in exchange for creating an opportunity for semi-consensual human contact. So why have we forsaken an imbedded social custom whereby a simple change in music would speed this process along?
Perhaps it’s a cultural shift from those of us raised in an era where sexuality was presented bathed in blue light and accompanied by a saxophone solo on scrambled pay per view, to a generation whose visual representation of sex comes by way of sallow pornography made on the brutally honest medium of digital video. For all of the drawbacks of prudishness, maybe having a bit of shame about sex forces one to be more seductive when asking for it. Or maybe we’re just living through the blowback from rave culture and the libido crushing stimulants that traded the ritual of a slow dance for a 90 minute shoulder rub in the “chill-out room” like members of a benign, sexless cult.
Whatever the reason, I’d like to take this day of romance to offer a plea to those responsible to drop a few ballads at the club so we can all get a bit of touch. The following is a slow dance starter kit, a selection which also makes for a compelling Valentines Day mix whether you’re celebrating with a long time partner, courting someone new, or are at home alone, cutting yourself to recapture an ex-lover’s fancy.
Winter Family – Garden Soko – I Will Never Love You More The Velvet Underground – Some Kinda Love (Closet Mix) Tommy James & the Shondells – Crimson & Clover Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg – Je t’aime moi non plus Beach Boys – Disney Girls Hall & Oates – I’m Just A Kid (Don’t Make Me Feel Like A Man) Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – The Way James Carr – What Can I Call My Own Natural Four – Can This Be Real? Otis Redding – I’ve Been Loving You Too Long BloodStone – Natural High Johnny Daye – Stay Baby Stay The Flamingos – I Only Have Eyes for You Duke Ellington and John Coltrane – In a Sentimental Mood Chet Baker – My Funny Valentine Os Mutantes – Baby shelly duvall – He Needs Me Steve Martin & Bernadette Peters – Tonight You Belong to Me Leo Sayer – When I Need You Prince – International Lover D’Angelo - Feel Like Makin’ Love Rufus featuring Chaka Khan – Sweet Thing Shirley Murdock – As We Lay
Electric Adolescence – Bring Back the Slow Dance(right click to download) 80:00 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB
Musicians covering each others work has been as longstanding a staple in music culture as substance abuse and misogyny. While the motivation to do so is often the child of an unholy marriage between lazy opportunism and musical sacrilege, in worthy hands it can be the most respectful of endeavors, often providing a useful roadmap to the covering artists influences. With emphasis on the latter, the following post is a mix of some of the more interesting cover versions I’ve collected on my travels.
Glass Candy – Iko (Dixie Cups) Vampire Weekend – Everywhere (Fleetwood Mac) Magic Arm – Daft Punk Is Playing In My House (LCD Soundsystem) The Flaming Lips – Money (Pink Floyd) JJ – Ecstacy (Lil’ Wayne) 3 Teens Kill 4 – Tell Me Something Good (Rufus & Chaka Khan) Peter Bjorn & John – Summer Breeze (Seals & Croft) The Cloud Room – Blue Monday (New Order) Plaintains – I Feel Love (Donna Summer) Monsters Are Waiting – I Wanna Be Adored (Stone Roses) The Go! Team – Bull in the Heather (Sonic Youth) California Poppy Pickers – Why Don’t We Do It In the Road (The Beatles) My Brightest Diamond – Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey (The Beatles) The Puppini Sisters – Walk Like an Egyptian (The Bangles) Clare and the Reasons – That’s All (Genesis) Thao – You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me (Smokey Robinson) Chromatic Flights – I Am a Rock (Simon & Garfunkel) Casiotone For the Painfully Alone – Streets of Philadelphia (Bruce Springsteen) You Say Party! We Say Die! – Nightswimming (R.E.M.) The Chromatics – Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush) Hot Chip – Transmission (Joy Division) Fischerspooner – The 15th (Wire) Theophilus London feat. Lykke Li – Computer Love (Kraftwerk) White Hinterland – My Love (Justin Timberlake) Idiot Glee – Ain’t No Sunshine (Bill Withers) Ryan Adams – Everything In It’s Right Place (Radiohead) Phoenix – Playground Love (Air) Annie Hart and Slow Club – Killing Moon (Echo & the Bunnymen) The Last Town Chorus – Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me? (Culture Club) Taken By Trees – Sweet Child of Mine (Guns & Roses) The Old Believers – This Must Be the Place (Talking Heads) Kevin Davis – Fuck Tha Police (NWA Cover) Antony and the Johnsons – Crazy In Love (Beyonce) Susanna and the Magical Orchestra – Condition of the Heart (Prince)
Electric Adolescence – The Cover Up(right click to download) 80 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB
The turning over a new year can feel a little jarring, like the moment after a record skips when a confused room attempts to regain their collective rhythm. With the mayhem of the holidays now shrinking in the rearview mirror, ‘tis now the season for exercise regiments marked with a shorter shelf life than that of the bushels of fresh produce bought in earnest, but destined to rot in the crisper drawer. As scores of people line up to start a race that few will ever finish, I stand boldly apart, letting myself off the hook in the area of physical improvement, even if my body is starting to resemble something one might find hanging in the window of a Chinese restaurant.
Instead, my delightfully achievable New Years resolution involves a shift to more organic music, if that word still has any meaning. Having spent the better part of last year compiling mixes of obsessively arranged electronic music, I now find myself craving some audio roughage. In that spirit, this month’s mix forgoes laptops and synthesizers for a deliberately inconsistent blend of punk, funk, soul and psych; sounds to fill the silence as we sit with baited breath, waiting to see what the New Year might bring.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring – You Let Me Be Honest With You Yuya Uchida & the Flowers – Intruder The Pixies – Hey Underworld feat. Brian Eno & Karl Blau – Beebop Hurry WU LYF – Heavy Pop Om – Cremation Ghat I Andwella’s Dream – Cocaine Mandre – Masked Music Man Ofege – It’s Not Easy Mister Holmes and the Brotherhood – Thrift Store Find Soulphiction – Intermission 13th Floor Elevators – Blue and Peaceful Paul Parrish – English Sparrow Idiot Glee – All Packed Up Nite Jewel – The Kamera Song Airport One – Two Days Gil Scott Heron – Where Did the Night Go Ian France – High Places David Shrigley – Don’t From Bits and Bobs The Knife feat Mt. Sims and PlanningtoRock – Coloring of Pigeons Prince – People Without (Live) Sarah Webster Fabio – Juju For Grandma Skull Snaps – It’s a New Day The South Side Movement – Everlasting Thrill Bob James – Nautilus The Crystal Mansion – Somebody Oughta Turn Your Head Around Moodymann – The Day We Lost the Soul O.V. Wright – Motherless Child The Persuasions – Another Night With the Boys Black Merda – Think of Me 24 Carat Black – I Want to Make Up Jackie McLean – Soul Sam Cooke – Medley: It’s All Right/ For Sentimental Reasons
Electric Adolescence – Baited Breath(right click to download) 80 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB
Evaluating this decade from a cultural standpoint feels, to paraphrase a report card comment from my 11th grade English teacher regarding my ability to focus, a little like nailing Jello to the wall. Unlike the eighties which brought us Back to the Future and hip hop and crack cocaine, this decade was rather short on original iconography, defining itself more by the manner in which past trends were recycled than the rate at which new ones were created. Even Bin Laden’s iconic attack of the World Trade Centre was so obviously lifted from the 1992 Steven Segal action blockbuster, Under Siege.
If forced to find a label, this decade this could perhaps be regarded as the age of irony, a generational fetishizing of bad taste that allowed brashness to trade as talent and cynicism as charm. While certainly a cultural masterstroke on the part of reality television hopefuls and sallow hipsters with no fashion sense who could pass themselves off as hip by hiding under fluorescent sweatshirts and trucker hats, what should have been a summer fad has all but consumed an entire decade, leaving some of us feeling how one does after eating dessert in lieu of dinner.
In summing up this decade’s output, I refrained from doing the standard list of the hundred or so greatest albums and songs, assuming I’d wind up with something as arbitrary as those greatest films lists which attempt to put titles as diverse as Star Wars, Annie Hall, and Casablanca in a definitive order of quality. Instead, I assembled a couple of super-sized mixes of some highlights from a decade when we used to listen to music on CDs, talk about how the Iraq war was really over oil, and about how we still had time to save the environment. It seems like only yesterday.
Part One – A Decade in Computers
Dapayk & Padburg – Black Beauty Matthew Dear – Don and Sherri Mandy vs. Booka Shade – Body Language (Konrad Black Remix) Roxy Music – The Thrill of it All (Mandy & Booka Shade Mix) Alex Smoke – Make My Day (Luisine Mix) Matias Aguayo – New Life Dave Aju – Crazy Place !!! – Shit Scheisse Merde, Pt. 2 Chromeo – Needy Girl Junior Boys – In the Morning Metro Area – Miura Miss Kitten & the Hacker – Madame Hollywood Fischerspooner – Horizon Radiohead – Idioteque Ricardo Villalobos – What You Say (Edit) Stephen Beaupre – Fish Fry (a)pendics Shuffle – Looking for Me (Mossa Remix) SCSI 9 – Mini Enliven Dop Acoustics – The Dust (Enliven Deep Acoustics Mix) Moodymann – Freeki Mutha F cker Soulphiction – Get It Right Elektrochemie – Don’t Go Invisible Conga People – Cable Dazed The Knife – One Hit The Postal Service – Such Great Heights Amadou & Mariam – Sabali Woofly vs. Projections – Starlight Jurgen Paape – So Weit Wie Noch Nie Kraftwerk – Elektro Kardiogramm Air – Run Boards of Canada – In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country Fever Ray – If I Had a Heart (Familijen Remix) Clipse – Grindin’ Aaliyah – Try Again Farah – Law of Life Cassie – Me & U (Chopped & Screwed Version) Theophilus London – Aquamilitia Kid Cudi – Day and Night Tessio – Luomo Mount Kimbie – 50 Mile View Damian Lazarus – Moment Daft Punk – Something About Us Playgroup – Hideaway The Chromatics – Night Drive The Orb – Before Because Dntel – Anywhere, Anyone Burial – Archangel Ratatat – Cherry Cassius – Nothing Schneider TM vs. Kpt Michi Gan – The Light
Part Two – A Decade in Bands and Singer/ Songwriters
Andrew Bird – A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head Fujiya & Miyagi – Collarbone Of Montreal – Gronlandic Edit Takka Takka – Everybody Say These United States – First Sight Angus & Julia Stone – Paper Aeroplane Stars – This Charming Man American Analog Set – Aaron and Maria The XX – Basic Space Phoenix – If I Ever Feel Better Yeasayer – 2080 The Polyphonic Spree – Solider Girl The Duke Spirit – Masca The Strokes – Last Night The Concretes – You Can’t Hurry Love You Say Party! We Say Die! – Downtown Mayors Goodnight, Alley Kids Rule Serena Maneesh – Her Name is Suicide Sonic Youth – Peace Attack American Watercolor Movement – Sweet Thursday Panda Bear – Take Pills Electralane – The Valleys Amnion – Praise God For the Light Within Me Wilco – Radio Cure Yo La Tengo – Don’t Have to Be So Sad Gregor Samsa – Jeroen Van Aken The Owls – Isaac Beshevis Singer The Wooden Birds – Seven Seventeen Wildbirds & Peacedrums – I Can’t Tell in His Eyes Taken Too Young – Too Young Brightblack Morning Light – Everybody Delight Sam Baker – Odessa Alela Diane – The Rifle Gravenhurst – The Diver Goran Gora – Slow Down Kings of Convenience – I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From Iron and Wine – Lions Mane The Rosemont Family Reunion – Ho Ho Ho Sebadoh – Beautiful Friend Antony & the Johnsons – Hope There’s Someone Papa M – So Warped Sigur Ros – Staralfur Alaska In Winter – Horsey Horse D’Angelo – One More Gin
In the year 2000, flying cars will be everywhere, and doors will open with a swish; a sound we will never grow tired of. The government will tattoo UPC codes into the back of our necks in a move that recalls the most harrowing aspects of Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future; surprisingly, we’ll eventually realize that it is actually an efficient system and that we all overreacted. In the year 2000, scientists will discover a cure for AIDS, however, the following year a new disease will emerge that will make HIV feel like a case of “the Mondays” and a new generation of Jews and Palestinians will have totally gotten over the whole Israel issue, electing to settle Gaza with a region-wide game of Laser Tag. In this new century, every household will have its own computer with which people will make music and exchange pornography, though not remotely in that order.
Lil Louis – I Called U (A Series of Events) File 13 – Taste So Good Benoit & Sergio – Full Grown Man Marek Memmann – NTMYT Session Victim – Memory Lane Captain Comatose – Up In Flames (Glove Mix) Underworld – Show Some Emotion Lil Louis – I Called U (But U Went To the Party) Move D & Namlook – Civilization There! Ytre Rymden Dansskola – Kahluha Madness Optic Nerve – Orgins Interlude Optic Nerve – Orgins Konrad Black & Selfparttwo – Still Waiting… Haven’t Even Started Yet Gaiser – Oolooloo In Flagranti – Brash and Vulgar Circlesquare – Dancers (Taras3000 Remix) Eberhard Schoener – Why Don’t You Answer Billy Dallessandro – Fondue Ricardo Villalobos and Los Updates – Driving Nowhere (Audio George Mix) Oni Ayhun – OAR001-A Jaydee – Plastic Dreams Moodyman – On My Way Home Stewart Walker – LA Walker Omar S – 100% House System 01 – Family Drugs David Hasert – You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Melody System 01 – Disembodied Voices Philip Seymour Hoffman – Firing Missiles at Christmas and Easter Island Instra:mental – Watching You Colorpulse feat Carl Sagan & Stephen Hawking – Glorious Dawn Steve Mason – All Come Down King Midas Sound – Sometimes
Electric Adolescence – The Year 200080:00 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB
I don’t know what’s going down. When I tried to be down, down wasn’t around, so I went around and found that down went elsewhere. So I went there, then there came here, where here went became unclear, so I went back there and there went back elsewhere.
Perhaps elsewhere isn’t anywhere – it seems I’ve looked for elsewhere everywhere, and anyway everywhere could be anywhere, I fear. So if you find yourself there and wind-up finding elsewhere, then please find me, it seems I’m always here.
Tracklisting
Exile – Kiss You All Over (Brennan Green 6:59 Edit)
The XX – VCR
Pogo – Alice
The Bee Gees – Love You Inside Out
Rockets – One More Mission
Circuitry starring Sam Bostic – Computer
The System – You Are In My System
The Mary Jane Girls – All Night Long
Curtis Mayfield – Underground (Demo Version)
Loose Ends – Hanging On a String (Contemplating)
Sly & the Family Stone – Family Affair
Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts – Safety Meeting
The Phenomenal Handclap Band – You’ll Disappear (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)
OMD – Talking Loud and Clear
The Talking Heads – Psycho Killer (Live – Greg Wilson Edit)
Clapz II Dogz – Can You Stand the Rain? (Edit)
Sigur Ros – Gobbledigook (Gluteus Maximus Mix)
Enliven Dop Acoustics – The Dust (Enliven Deep Acoustics Remix)
Strobocop – Love is Music Music is Love
Magnum Force – Cool Out
Prince – Irresistible Bitch
KRL – Remember Donny
A Setting Sun – 33
Moodymann – Rectify
Herbert – Foreign Bodies
Massive Attack – Hymn of the Big Wheel
Oni Ayhun – OAR002-B
Faux Hoax – You Friends Will Carry You Home
Abakus – How Does It Feel To Be Real
Yoko Kanno – Radio Free Mars Talk 7
Nina Gordon – Straight Out of Compton
It would be difficult to exaggerate Angelo Badalamenti’s contribution to David Lynch’s body of work. Unlike other director/ composer teams such as Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herman or Stephen Spielberg and John Williams, where the music was written to existing film, this collaboration began when the stories were still part of Lynch’s meditations. Like a patient to a therapist, Lynch would describe moods and feelings, dramatic through-lines that were yet to be connected, with Badalamenti at the piano improvising a musical response. This might explain how the music feels so integrated within the films, seeming to know what transpired behind the white picket fences in the suburbs of Blue Velvet, or between the owls in the forest surrounding Twin Peaks.
Theirs was a perfect pairing of two men who were equal parts twins and opposites: Badalamenti found life in Lynch’s imagination, in turn, the auteur found a welcome restraint in the composer’s formality. The result is a union forged so seamlessly that it becomes impossible to determine where one of them stops and the other begins.
The following is a mix of collaborations between the two, as well as selected pieces of pre-recorded music from Lynch’s films, without which some of Badalamenti’s efforts might feel incomplete.
“My musical world is a little bit dark… a little bit off-center. I think of it as tragically beautiful. That is how I would describe what I love best: tragically beautiful.”
- Angelo Badalamenti
Tracklisting:
In Heaven – The Lady in the Radiator (Eraserhead) The Elephant Man Theme – John Morris (Elephant Man) The Prophesy Theme – Toto w/ Brian Eno (Dune) Sandy’s Dream – Excerpt from Blue Velvet Main Title – Angelo Badalamenti (Blue Velvet) Mysteries of Love (French Horn Solo) – Angelo Badalamenti (Blue Velvet) Love Letters – Ketty Lester (Blue Velvet) Blue Velvet, Blue Star (Montage) – Angelo Badalamenti (Blue Velvet) Frank’s Toast – Excerpt from Blue Velvet In Dreams – Roy Orbison (Blue Velvet) Twin Peaks Tapes (Excerpt) – Special Agent Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks) Twin Peaks Theme – Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks) Fire Walk With Me Poem – The One Armed Man (Twin Peaks) The World Spins – Julee Cruise (Twin Peaks) Just You – James, Donna and Maddy (Twin Peaks) Best Friends – Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks) Twin Peaks Tapes (Excerpt) – Special Agent Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks) Sycamore Trees – Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks/ Fire Walk With Me) Love Me – Nicolas Cage (Wild at Heart) Be-Bop A Lula – Blue Caps & Gene Vincent (Wild at Heart) Perdita – Rubber City (Wild at Heart) Song to the Siren – This Mortal Coil (Lost Highway) Blue Spanish Sky – Chris Isaak (Wild at Heart) Rose’s Theme – Angelo Badalamenti (Straight Story) Laurens Walking – Angelo Badalamenti (Straight Story) A Man’s Attitude – Excerpt from Mullholland Drive Dinner Party Pool Music – Angelo Badalamenti (Mullholland Drive) I’ve Told Every Little Star – Jerome Kern (Mullholland Drive) Crying (Llorando) – Rebekah Del Rio (Mullholland Drive)
For those wishing to delve deeper into the world of Twin Peaks, friend of the blog Tom Huddleston has co-written an outstanding guide to the series, including a particularly insightful essay on the feature length prequel, Fire Walk With Me.
An invitation to a house party presents an exhilarating dilemma. On one hand, you run the risk of entering what has been misdiagnosed as a house party but is actually a “gathering” which, like attempting to occupy a hostile Middle-Eastern country, can be uncommonly grueling and difficult to leave. Alternatively, there are those blessed nights when a perfect storm of people and substances gratefully consumes all in its path.
Beyond being an occasion to see Asian girls vomit offline, the house party is also a time honored way for cash strapped cats to keep the wolf from the door. The rent party’s that emerged in Harlem during the depression became a Petri-dish for the forthcoming “jazz age”, and a hotbed for social change. And well before that, an upstart profit named Jesus Christ would pack many a room with his ability to turn talcum powder into ketamine, which gained him an attentive audience that was willing to excuse his tendency to fly off the handle whenever someone knocked the decks, and for his constantly checking the bedrooms to make sure people weren’t fucking.
Like violence, innovation, and the inclination to laugh at the sight of someone else falling down, our party predilection remains a common link to our ancestors, forged by an inherent desire to witness the exquisite sight of girls dancing in the kitchen.
AFTA-1 – Love Suite 2 (Sit Still) Private – My Secret Lover (Diplo Remix) The Knife – You Make Me Like Charity The Orb – DDD (Original Mix) Sa Ra – Hollywood Playa – Ms. Parker Wu Tang Clan – It’s Yours (Instrumental) Audio Two – Top Billin’ (Instrumental) Manuel Tur feat Alexander East – Will Be Mine Owusu & Hannibal – What It’s About (DJ Tom Thump Extended) Woolfy vs. Projections – Absynth Lovelock – Don’t Turn Away (From My Love) Touch Sensitive – Body Stop The Kindness – Swinging Party Montell Jordan – Let’s Get It On Tonight Mewzic Monsterz – Champ The Heavy – How You Like Me Now? (Joker Remix) Riskotheque – Def Disco The Cool Kids feat Jahda – The Last Stretch Eagger & Stunn Gunn – Morder Dem (JSL Remix) DJ Assault – She Was X-Osborne – Our Definition of a Breakdown Hardrive – Deep Inside (Mr V Sole Channel Remix) 20 Fingers featuring Gillete – Short Dick Man Sagat – Funk Dat Dapayk Solo – Didn’t I Siopis – I’m On Miami Lee Curtiss – South Aphrika Ame Strong – Tout Est Bleu (Francois Kevorkian Remix) Ost & Kjex feat. Mung – Dirty Mind Felix Da Housecat – We All Wanna Be Prince Prince – Partyup Daft Punk – Teachers The Phenomenal Handclap Band – 15 to 20 Architecture In Helsinki – Do The Whirlwind (Yacht Remix) ESG – Insane (Tambourine Mix) Matias Aguayo – Rollerskate (Solomon Edit) Run, Stop, Restore & Click Box – Magic Juice Altz – Olympia Rocks Beastie Boys – Something’s Got to Give (Live in Sidney) Beastie Boys – Something’s Got to Give (Album Version) Chromeo – Night By Night (Skream Remix) 2000F & J Kamata – You Don’t Know What Love Is Burial – Fostercare Mount Kimbie – 50 Mile View
After a seven year hiatus (since their last proper album, they released the delightful “Topknot” single in 2004), British indie stalwarts Cornershop recently dropped their latest full length, “Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast”. While failing to meet the arguably unfair standards I set for the release, it compelled a trip through the band’s back catalog, which is wonderfully difficult to get ones arms around.
From the basement punk affected by a traditional Indian pedigree that became their signature sound on the first two albums, through the Beatles for the hip-hop generation (but in a good way) sound of 1997’s “When I Was Born for the 7th Time”, to their disco inspired side project, Clinton, which spawned the highly overlooked “Disco and the Halfway to Discotent” two years later; it’s admirable for a band to attempt such a range of genres, and almost unthinkable that they would pull it off so convincingly. Also, if they are touring the new album, I highly recommend the live show. I saw them open for Oasis years ago, which came off like Prince opening for El DeBarge.
For those unfamiliar with anything other than the Norman Cook remix of Brimful of Asha, this should act as the Coles Notes to a band worth knowing. For the superfans out there, however many might exist, the playlist pays particular mind to the band’s impressive battery of b-side and ep releases.
Sounds Super Recordings
Call All Destroyer
Jullandar Shere (Jeh Jeh Mix)
Wog
Camp Orange
Tera Mera Pyar
My Dancing Days are Done
Brimful of Asha
Easy Winners (Part Two)
People Power In the Disco Hour (as Clinton)
Slip the Drummer One
Wogs Will Walk
Music Plus
Buttoned Down Disco (as Clinton)
Sleep on the Left Side
The Dixons D90 Series
Hip-Hop Bricks (as Clinton)
Electric Ice Cream (Miami Jammy Jam) (as Clinton)
Topknot (feat. Bubbley Kaur)
Chamchu
Shut Southall Down
The Turned on Truth (the Truth is Turned On)
Good to Be on the Road Back Home Again (feat. Paula Frazer)
Electric Adolescence – Cornershop Mix60:00 mins/ 192 kbps/ 82.4 MB
There is something wonderfully uncomplicated about summer- life seems to move a little slower and fewer things seem to happen at once, so it stands to reason that the feelings that arrive with the seasons end seem more complex: a collision between the effortless joy of summer and the exhilarating change that is the earmark of fall.
I expect this imprint was made during our school days; while I’m sure I was among the loudest to curse the end of summer vacation – waxing pessimism over stale trading card gum and cold Slurpees – the thrill of change that came with each new school year now feels more vivid in reflection. And so, this months mix is dedicated to the intangible feeling we shared on that first day of class, the elation that came with a freshly cracked notebook and sharpened pencils, contrasted by the sight of the sun still shining out the window and the realization that the Slurpees we lazily sipped would no longer taste so sweet.
The XX – Basic Space Passion Pit – Sleepyhead (Starsmith Remix feat. Ellie Goulding) Free Blood – Never Hear Surf Music Again John Forde – Stardance Osborne – 16th Stage Discolexia – How Long Fleetwood Mac – Dreams (Demo Version) The Alan Parsons Project – Eye in the Sky Erlend Oye w/ Morgan Geist – Ghost Trains Isolee – Beau Mot Plage Data 80 – Faded Photographs Joakim – Love & Romance & a Special Person The Phenomenal Handclap Band – All of the Above Boris – Buzz In (Nosajthing Remix) Flying Lotus with the Life Force – Auntie’s Lock DJ Enne – The Impatient Man Birk Storm – Resignation (Boom Clap Bachelors Remix) Nightmares on Wax – What a Feelin’ (Rae & Christian Mix) Dubble D & Rakim – Soul Squelch (Greg Wilson Mash) Yacht – Psychic City (Joe Goddard Mix) The XX – Teardrops Stardust – Music Sounds Better With You (Mux Mool Remix) Example – Watch the Sun Come Up (Joker & Ginz Remix) The Hasbeens – I Fall to Pieces The Knife – Forest Families (Live) Underworld – Confusion the Waitress Massive Attack – Unfinished Symphony (Kamoflage Loves Fred Remix) A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Life’s Great JJ – Ecstasy Pogo – Expialidocious Iori’s Eyes – As Always 94 East feat Prince – Better Than You Think
Under the forgiving guise of radio, John Peel never really aged- throughout his 37 years playing records on BBC 1, his aptitude for discovering talent stayed consistently ahead of his peers, from first plugging Captain Beefheart and David Bowie back in the seventies, to being the reason any of us ever heard of The Strokes.
Apart from directly or indirectly informing a majority of bands working today, John’s most potent recorded legacy resides in the vast number of “Peel Sessions” he recorded with some of the most notable acts of the last few decades. Originally conceived in 1986 as a means to fill air time with consideration for the BBC’s rigid broadcast standards, which limited the amount of recorded music each program could play, Peel had his favorite bands record what were normally four song setlists, rendering versions that sounded somewhere between a studio recording and a live set, with an added intangible quality that came from the legacy of studio and of the man behind the glass.
Had Peel not died of a sudden heart attack back in 2004, today would have been his 70th birthday. To mark the occasion, what follows is a compilation of some of the best of the Peel Sessions.
“Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don’t have any surface noise. I said, “Listen, mate, *life* has surface noise.”
- John Peel
The Peel Sessions.
The Wire – I Am The Fly Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps The Strokes – The Modern Age Gang of Four – I Found That Essence Rare Pulp – Babies New Order – Dreams Never End Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart The Cure – All Cats Are Grey Young Marble Giants – Final Day Mira Calix – She Keeps Her Secrets The Human League – Being Boiled cLOUDDEAD – Side A Part 1 Apparat – Van Aphex Twin – Pancake Lizard Autechre – Drane Boards of Canada – Happy Cycling Spritualized – Don’t Go The Pixies – In Heaven (Lady In the Radiator Song) Slowdive – Shine Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – The Film that Changed My Wife Smog – I Break Horses Graham Coxon – Shipbuilding
While I’m sure we’re not the first to say it, it really isn’t mentioned enough- there’s nothing quite like the sight of a woman on a bicycle. This largely unsung summer treat can often be seen crossing the frame with all the breathtaking spectacle of a shooting star: a blur of blushed cheeks and cotton, leaving you feeling a little bit better about the world we live in.
During the decadent eighties our sexual idolatry was, to some bizarre extent, directed towards images of women in florescent bikinis and matching pumps seductively posing on or around expensive Italian cars, and so it is perhaps appropriate for these leaner economic times that the clever girls can do much more with a summer dress and a charity shop bike. We never really know where these girls are riding to, but we imagine it’s a place as magical as whatever they might have in that basket.
For these reasons, and many more that I would be unable to put into words, we at Electric Adolescence dedicate this installment our monthly mix series to all the pedal pushing women of the world, at the same time boldly declaring that bicycles are officially sexier than lingerie.
Chelonis R. Jones – Bathroom Mirror Legend
Jakob Hilden – Glamouflage Ada feat. Raz Ohara – Lovestoned Dop – Dein VerlangenMinilogue – Hitchhiker’s Choice Hecuba – Miles Away
The Juan McLean – One Day
Feygin – Budva (Slum Dop Remix)
DJ Ali – You Don’t Know (Ruff Cut)
Jamie Jones – Should have Gone Home
The Emergency – Fantasy (Bottin’s Morriconey Island Mix)
Mikael Stavostrand – Die a Little (Bruno Pronsato Remix)
Harry Axt – She Is Different
Different Gear – One Thing More
Faunts – Feel Love Thinking Of (Lemonade Remix)
Martin Solveig – I’m A Good Man
Joakim – Ad Me
Underworld – Cups (Salt City Orchestra Remix)
Ernest Saint Laurent – Perfect Love
Metro Area – Dance Reaction
Plej – Seasons
Walter Jones – Living Without Your Love
Holy Ghost Inc – Walk On Air (Sun and Moon Mix)
The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds (Pal Joey Mix)
The Whitest Boy Alive – 1517 (Morgan Geist Remix)
Bodycode – What Did You Say
Black Sabbath – Planet Caravan (DJ Steef Remix)
Massimiliano Pagliara – Sometimes at Night
Woolfy vs. Projections – Neeve (Permanent Vacation Tropical Mix)
Ost & Kjex – Have You Seen the Moon in Dallas (Maurice Fulton Remix)
Daft Funk – Something About Us (Love Theme From Interstella 555) Banzai Republic – Loungin With Jacko Pogo – Go Out and Love Someone Phoenix – 1901 (Pete Herrs Symphonic Mix)
