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.

Electric Adolescence – we spell canada with lower case letters (right click to download) 45 mins/ 320 kbps/ 103MB

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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

Electric Adolescence – I’m Not From the Streets but I’ve Seen Photographs (right click to download) 60 mins/ 320 kbps/ 137MB

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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

Electric Adolescence – The Many Moons of Digable Planets (right click to download) 60:00 mins/ 320 kbps/ 137MB

Download audio file (the many moons of digable planets.mp3)

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

Download audio file (shabazz palaces - live on kexp.mp3)

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

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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

Download audio file (electric adolescence - guru tribute.mp3)

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

Electric Adolescence – April Fools Day (Comedy Mix) (right click to download) 60 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB

Download audio file (electric adolesence - comedy.mp3)

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

Download audio file (electric adolescence - elephant carving.mp3)

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

Download audio file (electric adolescence - bring back the slow dance.mp3)

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

Download audio file (electric adolescence - the cover up.mp3)

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

Download audio file (electric adolescence - baited breath.mp3)