I’m not usually an Independence Day person. I like to grill and drink, but I don’t approach it the same way I do, say, Christmas Eve (see: any of the past four years of drunken exploits) or my birthday. But I have to admit, this July 4th weekend was one of the best I’ve ever had. Surrounded by good people, made a lot of new friends, drank myself and ate myself full. It was just an idyllic time, if ever I were to use such a phrase. Can idyllic describe a past experience? Doesn’t it usually just describe a place? Oh well, it seems like the best word to describe my weekend. I hope for everyone else this July 4th was fun, relaxing, entertaining and safe.
Big exciting news to announce tomorrow, so makes sure you stop by to see what it is. Let’s just say you’re going to spend a lot of time reading Swan Fungus posts over the course of the next month. I’ll leave it at that for now.
For now…a mix tape.
RULES for uninitiated noobs: 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.There isn’t really a theme this week, I’m just trying to take you in a lot of different directions (from Bollywood to R&B/Soul, Hip Hop and experimental shit to Emo songwriters and dense ambiance). I tried to stack like-genres, which makes for some cool transitions. I think you’ll like it if you listen all the way through. 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.
Tuesday Mix Tape – Number 224
This Time With Feeling
01. R.D. Burman – Aaina Wohi Rehta Hai – The last listening party I went to one of my friends brought a bunch of Bollywood soundtracks to show off, and the one for “Shalimar” impressed me the most. It’s always good when someone says, “Oh, this one is going to blow your mind” and then it does. I’ve been slowly making my way through the Burman catalog since that night (it’s huge, if anyone has any specific titles they recommend by all means let me know because I’m just downloading everything I find).
02. Apple and 3 Oranges – Free And Easy – Digging around some Sou/R&B blogs this week I stumbled across this 45, and it’s pretty awesome. After the off-kilter intro this one finds a really nice groove. Short and sweet, under three-minutes, just like all the best upbeat R&B numbers usually are. It kind of reminds me of a more-soulful (and much older) version of The Make-Up. Maybe? No? Oh well.
03. Frank Ocean – Novacane – I was at a party this weekend and I found myself leaning over to ask the DJ, “You got any Frank Ocean?” And as soon as the words spilled out of my mouth a huge wave of embarrassment washed over me. It was like the onset of a fever. I mean, it was plausible when I admitted to liking Lykke Li because at the very least I could pass it off as thinking she’s a cute European chick. But now I’m listening to (arguably) Top 40 Hip Hop written and recorded by a guy who has written for Justin Beber. Is that even how you spell that kid’s name? Either way, it’s the LAST time that name is going to appear on the blog. Frank Ocean, on the other hand, will be written about again in the future. Dig it. Great summer jam. Chicks love to fuck to this.
04. P.G. Six – Cartographers For Piano and Electronics – From the stunning, harder-than-shit-to-find CD “Music From The Sherman Box Series and Other Works,” Patrick Gubler finds himself getting positively Cage-ian with his use of pianos, harps and electronics. Okay, maybe not Cage-ian…maybe Basinski-an? Either way, it’s totally different from the incredible “Well Of Memory” and “Parlor Tricks & Porch Favorites” albums. You would be wise to track this down, it features some really cool compositions.
05. Pajo – Teenagers From Mars [Misfits] – This thing is out of print, too. “Scream With Me,” the acoustic album of Misfits covers recorded by my biggest man crush, Dave Pajo. Something about hearing those songs in this lo-fi, softly-sun setting makes me positively giddy. An amazing idea executed perfectly, but then again you’re never going to hear me speak ill about anything Pajo-related (with the exception of Dead Child and maybe the Yeah Yeah Yeahs — oh wait, and Zwan).
06. This track is dedicated to the one and only Hornet Montana. Come out from whatever corner of the Internet in which you are currently lurking and say hi. We miss you.
07. Uton – Untitled [Buddhamania Track 2] – It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anything new from Uton, but recently the Mutant Sounds blog unearthed a 3″ CD recorded in 2003 and it brought back so many loving memories of “Highway Nation,” “Mystery Revolution” and the collaboration with Valerio Cosi “Kaarmeenkaantopiiri”. Shit, that was a fun time to be into ambient/drone/experimental music. 2006 and 2007. So many more blogs were picking up on it and with expanded networks came more info on newer practitioners and so many doors were opened. Great times.
08. Quieting Syrup – So This Is Dying – Because of my own recent dalliances into the world of liquid painkillers, I started listening to the Quieting Syrup record again for the first time in years. He captures the slower-than-slow opiate high really well. I read a review recently that called this “Emo,” but I don’t think I’d go that far. I just assume it’s singer-songwriter but fleshed out a bit, more than just a guy with an acoustic guitar. Is it Emo? You tell me.
09. Pan American – First Position – Mark Nelson from Labradford records as Pan American. Fuck me I miss Labradford. I play Mi Media Naranja once a week in the store and it makes me so happy and sad at the same time. It’s such a perfect album. Pan American has the ability to remind me of some of the more minimalist moments of Labradford records (the quick cuts to radio static and sense of hints at impending doom, mostly!). A beautifully, blissfully, drugged-out late night must hear.
10. The Sequins – Try My Love – Another good Soul/R&B tune with female vocals and a good horn accompaniment. I hope you don’t think I’m forcing this stuff on you. A lot of times I get complaints about music choices when they don’t fit the experimental heading I most-frequently share with you. Guess what? I have interests outside of drone music.
11. Garland Green – Ask Me For What You Want – This would be a lot better without the string section. Garland’s been featured on mix tapes before. “Don’t Think That I’m A Violent Guy” is a killer funk/soul track. This cut was recorded almost ten years (maybe more?) than the previously mentioned song. He’d lost some of his voice (which in the mid-to-late sixties was fucking amazing) by this time, but you can still hear glimpses of what made him such a remarkable vocalist at the onset of his musical career.
12. Nick Carter – Prayer To Saint Peter – No, this isn’t the Backstreet Boy that I once infamously elbowed in an airport. This was pianist Nick Carter from the UK, who released this album on a private label in 1979. I love the sitar on this cut. It ties back in nicely to the cut from “Shalimar,” right? It’s like we’re coming full circle or something…
13. Tear Ceremony – Smear The Rushes – Alright kids, we’ll close out the mix with some cool drone stuff. This was from a cassette recorded in 1992, lest you naively assume that the ambient/drone thing started in the early-to-mid ’00s with Machinefabriek and Jasper TX. Tear Ceremony was Todd Gautreau, and the idea behind this tape was that it was an “audio document of the cyclical process of sleep…it is a musical exploration of hypnaggia (tracks 1-3), REM and various somnambulistic processes (tracks 4-9), awakening (tracks 10-12) and finally the recurrence of this phenomenon.” Smear the Rushes, in case you’re wondering, comes from the REM portion of the album. No, it doesn’t sound like fucking REM. What are you, kidding me?
14. Voder – Knot – According to the label’s website, this is Paul Nadin of Brighton (I’m guessing UK, because otherwise they’d probably just say Boston, right?). “While his previous album “Island” was an attempt to create an audio documentary (there’s that phrase again) of his travels around Iceland, Nadim says, ‘[Motes] consists of audio sketches based on my nostalgic experiences of people and places close to me’. The tracks on the album are mainly comprised of processed electric guitar and field recordings and range through spacious, ambient soundscapes to more dense, hazy noise filled drone pieces.
15. Vozrzhdeniya – Stratosphere – Don’t let the “Vozrzhdeniya” moniker or the fact that there’s a cut on the album called “Gagarin” fool you. This is not a Russian or Eastern European project, it’s just some guy from Mexico! Startlingly little else is available on this project. Even the official album page appears to be void of information. I kind of like it like that. I feel weird posting a random cut from the middle of the album here because the album, “Atmospheres,” is one that needs to be heard all the way through to be fully appreciated. Preferably through headphones. Preferably while high.
