Perhaps some songs are thorough enough that any supplemental text would just be wasting space.
Wire – Heartbeat (right click to download) 3:16 mins/ 224 kbps/ 5.25MB
Jesus loves the Republican party because the Republican party loves Jesus. He loves the Republican party because He believes the second amendment is more important than the first, that military spending is holier than heathcare, and that the government has no right to regulate corporations, but has an obligation to regulate homosexuals.
Jesus watches Fox because he likes his news delivered by professional wrestlers. He thinks America was better in the fifties, and can’t understand why so few black people agree. He one of millions who bought Sarah Palin’s book, and one of hundreds who read it. He doesn’t think Glen Beck is crazy. Jesus Christ has a reoccurring nightmare about Michelle Obama’s arms, and wakes each morning with clenched fists and the American Flag he wraps himself in drenched with sweat.
Neu! – Weissensee (right click to download) 6:46 mins/ 128 kbps/ 6.21MB
Fans of their earlier work should be quite pleased of the (currently available for pre-order forthcoming Books Album, The Way Out. While much of the album has the outfit refining a sound cultivated over a series of experimental yet unalienating albums, they forge a new sonic territory somewhere between Sgt. Peppers and Prince Paul.
The Books – I Didn’t Know That (right click to download) 5:10 mins/ 320 kbps/ 5.92MB
The Books – The Story of Hip Hop (right click to download) 4:30 mins/ 320 kbps/ 7.74MB
For those that slept, the first single from the album was included in the Raised In Cassettes mix a while back.
With decades having lapsed since Michel Hutchence’s impeccable hairdo outpaced the 90210 sideburns as the north star of white guy grooming, is seems surprising to regard the sometimes overpolished radio darlings as being ahead of their time, but this lesser known single from the bands early days could have just as easily been a blog-era hit. A cool reminder that any band that ends with the lead singer killing himself invites a revisit to their back catalog.
Let’s not pretend we’re too cool to dig the hits.
INXS – To Look At You (Extended Version) (right click to download) 6:32 mins/ 320 kbps/ 14.9MB
INXS – Need You Tonight (Mendleston Mix) (right click to download) 7:04 mins/ 320 kbps/ 16.2MB
INXS – Guns In the Sky (Kick Ass Mix) (right click to download) 6:02 mins/ 320 kbps/ 13.8MB
Taken from the second volume of an off genre remix project, cinematic dubsteppers Mount Kimbie get a deep and minimal 4/4 treatment by Tama Sutro & Prosumer.
Mount Kimbie – William (Tama Sutro & Prosumer) (right click to download) 7:37 mins/ 320 kbps/ 17.4MB
I don’t know much about the broad behind these vocals, but when I hear this song I want to learn to knit and make her a sweater. And just to prove it’s not purely sexual, I’ll even make the dude a pair of mittens.
More than just a passing fancy, the song was also featured on my best of last decade mix.
Alaska In Winter – Horsey Horse (right click to download) 3:16 mins/ 320 kbps/ 7.47MB
Forged from the same spirit as that YouTube video of the fat kid playing with a lightsaber, here’s a playful slice of unhip-hop for those who sacrificed the ability to please a woman in favor of dreams of a galaxy far away.
Sir Oj – Lightsabermass (right click to download) 3:08 mins/ 320 kbps/ 7.18MB
A product of the puckish Italians Do It Better label, Glass Candy doppelganger Farah recreates the sentiment of an unsent letter confessing an unrequited crush on her gay best friend.
Farah – Gay Boy (Vocal Mix) (right click to download) 5:51 mins/ 320 kbps/ 13.4MB
A thunderous applause bursts from the stands of the ancient arena. With his head drenched in sweat from the simmering Spanish sun, the matador deftly shifts in place as the bull passes like a hostile freight train. Securing his stance on the vibrating sand, he subdues the beast with a stroke of his satin cape. His sword rests heavy on his waist, and the volume from the crowd seems suddenly cruel.
Flying Canyon – The Bull Who Knew the Ring (right click to download) 3:12 mins/ 320 kbps/ 5.32MB
As hip-hop heads know, the habit of producers and DJs saying their name, usually the year, and various ‘uh’ and ‘uh yeah’s, throughout a track has been as longstanding a tradition in the genre as date rape is in college fraternities.
On one end of the spectrum is the DJ Clue approach which, for those that aren’t familiar, involves yelling shout-outs over the entire track with an echo effect apparently designed by black business-owners to keep white people from loitering outside. At the other end, Pete Rock takes a less invasive approach, and as far as I know invented the practice, with stoned and subtle flourishes that tend to add more than they subtract. Saying that, when asked to remix the new, Beatlesesque Yo La Tengo single, you’d think he could have taken the cue from producers like Brian Wilson or Martin Hannett and left the mic off on this one.
Yo La Tengo – Here to Fall (Pete Rock Remix) (right click to download) 6:11 mins/ 160 kbps/ 7.08MB
After spending several days confined to a squalid motel off a disused highway, waiting for the phone call that was supposed to end this nightmare, you’ve ignored his advice and left your room in search of cheap cigarettes and something to drink. Exiting the corner store, you notice a man emerge from the shadows of the parking lot, too thin and well-dressed to be so unafraid in such a dangerous neighborhood.
You race to your car, your shaking hands struggling to unlock the door. A shot rings out, and your windshield explodes with a hailstorm of cubed glass. You reach under your seat- in place of your father’s pistol you find a note from her, which contains the word “sorry”, but couldn’t be less of an apology. Another shot rings out.
Swayzak – Buffalo Seven (right click to download) 5:12 mins/ 128 kbps/ 4.76MB
In aid of getting the locals hyped about his appearance in Vancouver Saturday night, here’s the titular track from Dave Aju’s lovely 2007 Ep. Dedicated readers will fondly remember the inclusion of Aju’s “Crazy Place” in our best of the decade mix.
Dave Aju – Love Always (right click to download) 6:57 mins/ 320 kbps/ 15.9MB
You’ve been at the wheel for as long as it takes to see the sun rise then fall, and to have your exhaustion turn to a peaceful complacency. The perfection of the song on the radio prompts you to wake your friends in the backseat, now asleep in a nest made of Taco Bell packaging, comfortable sweatshirts, and each others limbs and shoulders. Riding shotgun, even your best friend has broken her promise to stay awake and keep you company. Having shared so much over the last few days, you take the private moment as the last of several highlights on what you will eventually describe as the best roadtrip ever.
David Hasert – You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Melody (right click to download) 7:19 mins/ 192 kbps/ 10MB
Using no more beats per minute than it takes to make ones shoulders move, this tribal burner from the recent Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts album induces an irreverent state of mind that might prompt you to crack a beer with breakfast, skip work to take photographs of clouds, or tell that certain someone how you really feel about them and not give a fuck if they break your heart.
The single from the album presents another highlight in the form of the duet with Electric Adolescence favorite Dop, which was included in last month’s mix.
Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts – Radio Novella (right click to download) 4:58 mins/ 320 kbps/ 11.3MB
As cool as a liquid nitrogen Slurpee, early eighties coldwave electro outfit The (Hypothetical) Prophets pour over the personal ads with a glam cadence that plays like a moody cousin to “One Night In Bancock”.
The (Hypothetical) Prophets – Person To Person (right click to download) 6:08 mins/ 128 kbps/ 5.62MB
That said, I’d be remiss not to post an alternate recording of the seedy tale of a professional chess player too obsessed with the board to appreciate the world around him.
Murray Head – One Night in Bancock (Alternate Mix) (right click to download) 3:29 mins/ 320 kbps/ 4.33MB
Erratic drum programming and deep electro synths create a mood as threatening and sleazy as the moment between when you realize that someone put something in your drink and when you loose consciousness.
Psylocity – 4-1-One (right click to download) 7:54 mins/ 128 kbps/ 7.24MB
While I generally agree with the conventional wisdom that jazz died at the end of the sixties, what was put to rest was the innovation, as if having so many masters deconstruct the music so extensively left their predecessors with no place to go. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t still great music being made, it’s just that the lack of discovery renders current artists as sort tribute acts to pioneers like Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. There are, of course, those who have tried splicing jazz with modern production techniques, but to mostly disastrous results, with even the best of them sounding dated only moments after the records were pressed.
Ironically, the great American art-form has all but left its country of origin for distinctly un-American places like France and Eastern Europe. Poland’s Thomas Stanko is a worthy example of an artist who, while uninclined to reinvent the formula, produces music as worthwhile as those that paved his way. Pairing himself with a trio of younger up-and-coming musicians for his sublime 2002 release, Soul of Things, the seasoned composer presents thirteen versions of a singular theme, explaining that his entire career has ultimately involved his deconstructing a single song over and over again.
The Tomasz Stanko Quartet – Soul of Things (Variation V) (right click to download) 5:44 mins/ 128 kbps/ 5.25MB
The Tomasz Stanko Quartet – Soul of Things (Variation VII) (right click to download) 5:48 mins/ 128 kbps/ 5.31MB
Considering the range of producers with substandard voices who perform their own vocals in favor of finding people who can actually, you know, sing, it seems surprising that Matthew Herbert waited fifteen years into his career before taking the mic, especially considering he can actually, you know, sing.
This remix of his new single strips down the already muted sound of the original, which on it’s own sounds like Hot Chip for grown-ups.
Matthew Herbert – Liepzig (JJTOP Remix) (right click to download) 4:25 mins/ 320 kbps/ 10.1MB
With the album released today, the first installment to a city-themed trilogy, here’s another track from another city, Manchester.
Matthew Herbert – Manchester (right click to download) 4:05 mins/ 320 kbps/ 9.37MB
Presenting a refreshing interpretation of the concept of a political party, this “unknown rapper” offers a lighthearted take on the 1980 Presidential Election between incumbent President Jimmy Carter and his Republican challenger, former Governor and b-movie actor, Ronald Regan. This is exactly the sort of rap record Thomas Jefferson would have liked, if he weren’t so incredibly racist.
The Unknown Rapper – Election 80 Rapp (right click to download) 6:59 mins/ 320 kbps/ 15.9MB
A couple of years into Reagan’s presidency, electro outfit Project Future released this pessimistic, if not funky, assessment of Regan’s trickle-down economic philosophy, lazily dubbed by the media as “Reaganomics”.
Ray-Gun-Omics – Project Future (right click to download) 4:27 mins/ 192 kbps/ 6.12MB
One of the greatest achievements of the makers of Sesame Street was the ability to present such a saccharin face to the public despite the depravity that existed behind the scenes. From the lurid homosexual relationship between Bert and Ernie to Oscar the Grouch’s racial tirades towards the show’s black cast members, what bubbled beneath this wholesome façade was a cauldron of jealously, violence, and of dangerous self indulgence.
The centrifuge of this sordid underbelly might have been the bitter rivalry that existed between Grover and Kermit the Frog, which dated back the show’s conception when The Children’s Television Workshop brought Kermit aboard to replace Grover as host, citing the blue monster’s refusal to use contractions when speaking as cause. This tension was not invisible on screen, most notably in Grover’s habit of running up to Kermit and saying “Hey, froggy babeee!” and then knocking him over with a hard slap on the back.
This rivalry extended from the small screen to the music scene when Kermit, having grown in prominence with his drug-addled late-night project, “The Muppet Show”, used his influence with the label to block the release Grover’s 1974 album “Grover Sings the Blues”, and then borrowed the spirit behind the melancholy racial epitaph for his own single, “It’s Not Easy Being Green”, which gained a greater notoriety, all but drowning out his colleague’s stymied release.
With enough time having passed, it has become a consensus opinion among critics and pop culture historians that the rivalry between these felt-clad pioneers ultimately resulted in an excelled creatively, mired as much in a reluctant mutual respect as it was in substance abuse and venereal disease. With overdue reverence to this fractious relationship, here is Grover’s underappreciated single, and Kermit’s appropriately appreciated response record.
Grover – I Am Blue (right click to download) 1:58 mins/ 320 kbps/ 4.53MB
Kermit the Frog – It’s Not Easy Being Green (right click to download) 2:29 mins/ 192 kbps/ 5.70MB