I’m tired, man. I woke up at 7am again this morning. Nicci sang the national anthem at the Rose Bowl for the MS Walk-a-thon, which was really nice to hear. Too bad those walkers were antsy, it would have been super-cool if they relaxed a bit and let me sleep another couple hours. Oh well. I started to crash at work after about three hours, but I found my second wind and made it through the day without passing out. Nate, Nicci, Tom and I saw Kick Ass tonight, which I highly recommend. I haven’t laughed that hard in a movie theater in years. Ridiculousness. Amazingness. They even threw in an intentional — and totally unexpected — LOST reference. Kick Ass.
I guess I’m supposed to pull another mix tape out of my ass tonight, but I’m not at home and I don’t have any music on my laptop hard drive that would be new to you, so I’m trying to figure out what the hell I should do even as I write this sentence. And this sentence. And this sentence…Dammit, Evan. Why don’t you ever have a backup plan! I guess I could always post one tomorrow and do nothing tonight, but I feel obligated to post one now because it’s Sunday. Hang on, give me a few minutes and maybe I can find some songs to use. I know, I’ll try the Internet! There’s tons of music available on the Internet!
RULES for uninitiated noobs: With roughly 100MB of web space, I give birth to a weekly Mix Tape to be deposited on your iPods or Zunes or Kingklangs or whatever the industry is currently pushing on you. Sometimes there will be themes that link all the songs together, other times I’ll just throw songs at a wall (not literally) and see what sticks. No theme this week, just a lot of bands that haven’t been featured in a while if at all. Good times. Download ’em all while you still can. You could die today. The goal of this endeavor, as always, is to pique your interest in these artists so you’ll support the artists and buy their albums.
Sunday Mix Tape – Number 183
A Lot Of Noise, A Little Of Voice
01. Loscil – Shallow Water Blackout – Droning ambiance from another fine Kranky Records band. For fans of Tim Hecker, Labradford, Stars Of The Lid and the softer sounds of Emeralds. Lovely swells and pulses. (Buy from Amazon)
02. Daughters – The First Supper – Bananas. This album just came out last month but I am absolutely loving it. It’s not as balls-to-the-wall fucking nuts as their previous records, but I seriously dig it. Vocalist Alex Marshall apparently hates it. He commented, “It’s so easy to steer it and try to be accepted, and do this because this is what’s good, and this is what’s going to make our band popular. That’s no good. That’s not art. That’s shit. It’s not even shit. It’s less than shit. What’s less than shit? I don’t even know. Trying to be other bands…that’s less than shit.” I think it sounds pretty unique, fun, and wild. But what do I know? (Buy from Amazon)
03. Jesu – SIlver – I’ve owned this LP for three years now and I haven’t opened it and tried it out yet on my turntable. Luckily I still have the MP3s somewhere on my computer. When I was running three miles a day I used to listen to a lot of Jesu. Something about it “worked” for exercising. I can’t get into the notion that people have to listen to happy uplifting 128bpm music when they’re working out. I listen to shit like Jesu. It helps me grind myself down to nothing. (Buy from Amazon)
04. Alcest – Solar Song – Speaking of Jesu, this tune by Alcest sounds like what Jesu would sound like with a hint of My Bloody Valentine (circa Isn’t Anything) injected into the sound. Great stuff. (Buy from Amazon)
05. The Angelic Process – The Resonance Of Goodbye – It’s been a few years now since K. Angylus passed away, and I still find myself thinking often about the beautiful music he created. Nicci said this album is depressing but I don’t get that at all. I just let the crushing guitars wash over me and try to focus on the deeply buried vocal melodies. I tend to forget that this is the sound of someone screaming their lungs out and just hear the soaring notes. It’s wonderful. (Buy from Amazon)
06. John Murphy – In The House – In A Heartbeat – This song is used during one of the crazy fight scenes in Kick Ass and Nicci wanted me to find it and download it. I remember it as being used in 28 Days Later. I think I was a freshman in college at the time (maybe a sophomore) and there was this big stink on the Internet at the time where people thought this was a new Godspeed You Black Emperor song, or a section of one of their pre-existing compositions. It might sound like it, but it’s definitely not. Here you go, Nicci. (Buy from Amazon)
07. Ef – 401 Lwa – Five-piece Swedish Post-Rock band that sounds like a cross between Explosions In The Sky, Daturah and Mono, but with a violinist. Very propulsive drumming. I like the middle section before it turns ambient. Songs like this make me miss being obsessed with the Post-Rock movement of five-to-ten years ago. (Buy from Amazon)
08. Magyar Posse – Violent Lover – How long has it been since I’ve shared some Magyar Posse with you? I still dip into my music collection for a taste of We Will Carry You Over The Mountains from time to time, and it never disappoints. Ha. I just almost wrote, “it never fails to disappoint.” If I were a member of the band it might piss me off to read that. Finnish Post-Rock. Most excellent. This is an out-take or an unreleased song from the aforementioned album. (Buy from Amazon)
09. The Caretaker – Lacunar Amnesia – William Basinski is drowning! Or at least that’s what this sounds like to me. The artificial tape hiss, the swirling notes and depthlessness of it all, this is just a lovely piece of music. (Buy from Amazon)
10. Earth – Tethered To The Polestar – And last but not least, some Earth. A fitting harmonic opening heralding the tunes arrival followed by some minimal, guitar-driven, Morricone-sounding desert drone. This is what I hear in my head when I’ve downed half a bottle of cough syrup and am preparing to retire for the night. Close your eyes, maybe you’ll feel it too. (Buy from Amazon)
