Providing a pitch-perfect account of one of our languages’ most intangible concepts, this impeccable folk ballad by Jason Molina under his Songs: Ohia moniker is written and performed with such sincerity that the result could bring a robot to tears.

Songs: Ohia – Soul (right click to download) 5:33 mins/ 192 kbps/ 7.63MB

Plastikman – Consumed

Slow and hypnotic, the aptly named title track from Richie Hawtin’s seminal 1998 release  is a masterwork of minimalism, utilizing a clockwork bassline and muted kick as a canvas for a series of restrained acid and techno flourishes.

Plastikman – Consumed (right click to download) 11:41 mins/ 256 kbps/ 21.4MB

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

Depending on how this year pans out, I think we should all consider moving to Detroit.
Sure, the unemployment rate of the state of Michigan rivals that of war-torn Afghanistan, and the justice system is starting to resemble that of a spaghetti Western, lest we forget this is still the city of Motown, of techno and of Axel Foley, and it’s going for a steal.

The impact of a global financial crisis striking a manufacturing city within a country that doesn’t make anything has caused housing prices to plummet to three figure sums, bringing home ownership within grasp of even the least prosperous among us. In November, an unknown Canadian company purchased the 80 thousand capacity Silverdome stadium for about the price of a one bedroom condo in Vancouver. Of course, finding a job or a store that sells fresh fruit would be akin to finding the clitoris on a mermaid, but so goes the life of a new pioneer.

Written on the precipice of the city’s decline, Gil Scott’s Heron’s open -letter to Ronald Reagan offers an earnest response to an accident at a nuclear power planet that threatened to wipe Detroit from the map.

Gil Scott Heron – We Almost Lost Detroit (right click to download) 5:18 mins/ 160 kbps/ 6.08MB

As a bonus, take this Moodyman engineered radio skit set in the shadows of the fallen city.

Moodymann – Det.Roit (right click to download) 2:47 mins/ 256 kbps/ 3.99MB

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

The strongest single from this polymorphous kiwi band comes from their original incarnation of their 1986 debut album, Kaleidoscope World. Band leader Martin Phillips wears UK influences such as Joy Division and Wire plainly on his sleeve, at the same time innovating what would later be called the Dunedin Sound.

The Chills – Pink Frost (right click to download) 4:01 mins/ 192 kbps/ 5.52MB

Half Cousin’s MySpace page, describes the band’s sound as “Acousmatic”, the sort of made-up term I’d tend to deride if it weren’t so accurate. Their recent single release includes an entry by Brighton-based Fujiya & Miyagi, who successfully claim the song in their own sonic terms.

Half Cousin – Absentee (Fujiya & Miyagi Remix) (right click to download) 2:51 mins/ 192 kbps/ 3.93MB

Sweet Songs is a track I’ve only just managed to get my hands on again, concluding a long-running search made difficult by my failing to remember the names of either the song or the artist, thus requiring me to recite pieces of seventies sassy-black-girl slam poetry over and over, an embarrassing experience that inadvertently degrades both black and white people in equal measure.

Sarah Webster Fabio – Sweet Songs (right click to download) 5:10 mins/ 160 kbps/ 5.92MB

But the ends more than justify the means as my successful hunt not only yielded the afro-picked funk jam that alluded me for so many years, I was also introduced to another gem from the album- a lush and passionate piece of blues poetry that makes me feel like I’ve just tracked down a long lost love only to fall in love with her deep and sultry sister.

Sarah Webster Fabio – If We Come Soft as Rain (right click to download) 3:18 mins/ 160 kbps/ 3.77MB

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 One – A Decade in Computers (right click to download) 120 mins/ 256 kbps/ 162MB

 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

Part Two – A Decade in Bands and Singer/ Songwriters (right click to download) 120 mins/ 256 kbps/ 165MB

As featured on August’s Sexier Than Lingerie  mix, this impeccable remix from the illusive Salt City Orchestra camp turns this respectable Underworld track into something I would comfortably refer to as classic.

Underworld – Cups (Salt City Orchestra Remix) 9:23 mins/ 320 kbps/ 13.8MB

Born in Kansas before transplanting to London for a stint at St. Martin’s and some British pedigree, pop/ folk artist Piney Gir has recently released this earthy single, perhaps as a purge before embarking on a reported electronica project.

In a perfect world, this song would be ubiquitously popular as I imagine it being played in a centuries old pub with the patrons singing along red-faced, joyously swinging their pint glasses back and forth with the rhythm and knocking them back with a roar of unspecified laughter when the tune is finished.

Piney Gir – Of All the Wonderful Things 4:19 mins/ 320 kbps/ 9.91MB

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 2000 80:00 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB

Now months after the death of Michael Jackson, and with the mind-numbing cable news coverage having only recently subsided, we are undoubtedly due for a wave of work inspired by artists revisiting the catalog of the late pop mogul and accomplished kiddy fiddler. In that vien, the eponymous track from Lindstrom and Cristabelle’s recently released “Don’t Stop” EP offers up an unapologetically derivative throwback to “Off the Wall” era MJ.

Lindstrom and Christabelle – Baby Can’t Stop 6:13 mins/ 320 kbps/ 14.6MB

Another notable highlight from the duos recent record, Lovesick, has been discretely remixed by Fan Death, an American band named after a South Korean urban legend which claims that an electric fan left running overnight will kill everyone inside the room.

Lindstrom and Christabelle – Lovesick 3:16 mins/ 320 kbps/ 7.60MB

In what could best be described as hip hop’s answer to National Geographic, GZA confirms his place as the most gifted lyricist to emerge from the expansive Wu Tang Clan by spitting an impeccable string of animal metaphors in a grand analogy between street strife and life in the jungle.

GZA – Animal Planet 4:16 mins/ 192 kbps/ 5.88MB

B. Fleischmann  adds a richly textured backing track to Daniel Johnson’s sympathetic retelling of the story of King Kong, doing more in under 6 minutes than what Peter Jackson managed in over three tedious hours, and without the painful experience of having Jack Black look deadpan into the camera explaining that it was beauty that killed the beast.

B. Fleischmann – Phones, Machines and King Kong 5:44 mins/ 192 kbps/ 7.18MB

Additionally, for those who prefer producers show their work, the original sample:

Daniel Johnston – King Kong 5:43 mins/ 192 kbps/ 7.86MB

Had Elvis been alive today, I expect he would think as highly of Germany’s techno scene as he would about the invention of The Stairmaster. Still, no reason not to have Richie Hawtin and Guido Schneider give The King a full Berlin make over.

Elvis Presley vs. Richie Hawtin and Guido Schneider – Visual ID 7:39 mins/ 192 kbps/ 10.5MB

It would seem remiss not to post this song as it’s probably the one I’m listening to most often when writing. It’s a shame that “background music” has emerged as a derogatory term, having been cannibalized by Café Del Mar and the like, because there is room for genius in music that allows the listener to tune out.

Such is the case with this standout from Papa M’s background opus Live From a Shark Cage. Taking its time and earning its keep, Drunken Spree gives you space to focus on other things; whether you’re painting illustrations for a children’s book, making a stew, or plotting to rig an election in a small South American country, you can be left alone with your thoughts until the seven minute mark when a slow drum beat and restrained vocal accents gently remind you that you’re in the presence of genius.

Papa M – Drunken Spree 9:05 mins/ 192 kbps/ 12.4MB

Sticking with the theme of anti drug messages that make you want to take drugs, this electro-house banger received an almost cultish reception upon its release in 2001, but hasn’t quite had the resurgence I would have expected from something so cheeky.

Green Velvet – La La Land 3:21 mins/ 192 kbps/ 4.61MB

While it’s easy to laugh at the Reefer Madness era of anti-drug propaganda, it has to be said that the eighties and nineties weren’t much more sophisticated. Nancy Regan’s “Just Say No” campaign was as memorable as it was ineffective, and the this is your brain on drugs ad didn’t change my mind about drugs either way, though it did put me off eggs for a while. Bizarrely, the PSA Paul Reuben made as a deal to get out of his own drug charges was painfully misguided- something about Pee Wee Herman looking deadpan into the camera telling me not to do crack made me want to do crack more than I ever had before or have had since.

Quite similarly, though perhaps deliberately, this appropriately named psychedelic funk band offers up an ecclesiastical warning that will make you want to go out and get a big bag of drugs.

Drugs – Brain on Drugs 6:59 mins/ 320 kbps/ 16.0MB

It’s possible that French remix duo Chateau Flight did just that when approaching their 2002 remix project, applying a delicate touch that sounds almost conspicuously laid back compared to the rest of their catalog- dedicating over half of the track’s seven minute running time to the hypnotic buildup before dropping a deep and unobtrusive beat.

Drugs Vs. Chateau Flight – Brain on Drugs 6:52 mins/ 192 kbps/ 9.45MB

Led by brothers Roger and Larry Troutman, Ohio funk band Zapp’s is perhaps better known to the next generation for how extensively they were sampled during the golden age of hip-hop, second only behind the Godfather of Soul himself- Brown being among the funk pioneers to receive a shout out on this tribute to the genre.

Tragically, in complete contrast to the songs title, apparently “it” did really matter as the two brothers perished in a gruesome murder/ suicide over a business dispute years later.

Zapp and Roger – It Doesn’t Really Matter 5:28 mins/ 192 kbps/ 7.51MB