(no subject)
01. Colleen - Your Heart Is So Loud
02. Howling Bells - Today
03. Final Fantasy - The Miner Becomes Forgetful
04. Max Richter - Autumn Music 1
05. Minimum Chips - Cold Afternoon
06. Badly Drawn Boy - Nothing's Gonna Change Your Mind
07. Susanna and the Magical Orchestra - Enjoy The Silence (Depeche Mode cover)
08. Julien Neto - VI [Featuring Keith Kenniff]
09. Fat Jon and Styrofoam - Runnin' Circle
10. Junior Boys - The Equalizer
11. Hot Chip - Disguise
12. Kode9 and The Spaceape - Bodies
13. One Second Bridge - No. 2
14. Xela - A Floating Procession
15. Pinback - Versailles
16. Tortoise - Restless Waters
17. Califone - The Orchids
18. Mountaineer - Ambassador
19. Corker/Conboy - Blue Skies
20. Ensemble - Carmine
Total time: 74:42 after edits. only tracks 3, 6, 9, 10, 13, and 18 don't have a crossfade added.
a crossfade means you must be sure to put no pauses inbetween tracks if you decide to burn it or it won't transition as well though I'm sure most of you have heard of this by now. hopefully the crossfades work as well on a good sound system. it works fine in the cd player over here and headphones beyond maybe a slight lo-fi issue on certain tracks where it may have to be turned up a bit after the transition.
01- I mostly added this along with track 2 'cause the day I started the mix, these two albums had come in the mail. this song seemed to go well with Howling Bell's Today which was going on the mix no matter what and it set the theme which is a pretty desolate one which I'm sure you can figure out, but an appropriate one for this time of year (no, it's not about my personal life; purely experimental narration). when the echoing thumping heartbeat comes in, it just makes me think of creepiness and that show Are You Afraid of The Dark? which I watched in 6th grade though.. shush.
02- This may be the best Howling Bells song I've ever heard and that's saying a lot; I can put it on repeat for days and never get sick of it. I think they may be my favourite new band rivaling Hot Chip (which is not new, but their new album is pretty good in case I didn't bring that up, yeah?) for the top spot at the end of the year since they're the only two bands I buy singles for really. anyway, this song is almost like an 'I will survive' type considering the 'Today I'll be fine / Wind still blows without you' line. o' course, this does not end the strife...
03- I have no idea what this song is about really... Final Fantasy songs from this year don't make much sense -- I forget if they ever made sense; I think I read they're (the songs) to do with some type of dungeons & dragons sort've stuff. this one is about a miner and I am not sure if there are miners in d&d, so who the hell knows. this is a b-side, I think, so maybe it has a different theme if not. I just like the piano/violin. the 'aaaauhhhaaaauhhhuhh' and the 'looomaloomanoooneeeeahhh' bits are also brilliant. the ending line, "and how the ground smiles so hungrily at our bones" is also a good send off to the next track which directly acknowledges autumn..
04- This song, I'm not afraid to say, made me cry the first night I listened to the mix without thinking about the technical side. see, I spent so much of an effort thinking about crossfades and how the volume/quality worked out, that I didn't think about making it at all emotional / sending any message. I was thankful there was something in this even if I wasn't conscious of it when I was preparing it. sad violins usually always do it for me anyway though, but that night, I recall I was watching that new Calista Flockhart show, 'Brothers & Sisters' (shush again) and at the end of the episode, her character walked into Sally Field's (the mother) bedroom where she was asked if the wind had scared her again and she shook her head, looking sad 'cause her boyfriend had left for good. she ended up crawling into bed and being comforted from 'the wind' being told it wasn't a monster then I welled up. I hadn't felt as homesick lately, but that scene made me miss going into mom's room to check on her before bed. so, when this song came on later when I decided to listen to it to fall asleep, it brought everything full circle, setting the sad scene even after I had calmed down. perhaps I should pretend it was for an artsy film and not a Calista Flockhart show though.
05- Best crossfade of the whole mix!
It feels like the ending violin note pushes the moving drum beat of this track forward after a slight pause. it also feels like something is going backwards, but I think it's an optical illusion.
This is also the centering track from which the title idea came from which is interesting since this song was added towards the end after I had waited a couple weeks without doing anything with the mix. I had gotten this minimum chips album on a whim after listening to clips on boomkat then deciding I was going to go search on soulseek for it instead of working on the mix. see, my procrastination pays off sometimes.
06- I almost didn't add this thinking it'd be too contemporary for what I was trying to go for, but instead, it added that extra emotional marker. this version is different than the one on myspace due to the added instrumental parts. I'm unsure if that's the way it's supposed to be considering I got an advance copy, but I like both versions, so it doesn't matter to me.
"Let's dance to the beat of the drum! Let's go out where we don't know anyone! ...I don't need anyone else but you!" I like those lines.. makes me want to go dance crazily in a park or something while... wearing a mask... um, no. but still nothing'll change their mind. too bad. maybe they hate dancing.
07- There was another cover song on this album that I liked better which I didn't know the original to, but felt there had to be something that everyone could identify with thus this one. I used to love the song 'Enjoy The Silence' while in h.s. and well, I was obsessed with Depeche Mode up till about six years ago. I still like it, but it's not something I get out often anymore. I just liked the intimate vibe they always conjured up. this cover is done by a woman, so the words 'little girl' are changed to 'little boy'. also this song is slowed down with harp and barely there electronics / almost an ambient vibe.
08- This is the most unnoticeable crossfade, in that, it sounds so natural that it may as well be the same song. it'd be good to meditate to that crossfade.
The album this song came from I got a couple months ago when I was a bit obsessed with Type Records. not that I changed my mind, but I also don't check their website 10x a day to listen to the clips from the upcoming albums over and over anymore either. this is the best song on that Julien Neto album. the rest is just background noise. this one makes me bop my head and wish I were being driven down a deserted street at night. the drive home from the haunted sleepover in the case of this story.
09- This is from the first hip hop album this year that I felt like downloading. the rap feels like it's in your face at the beginning which made me overlook it at first, but the chorus is what really hooked me. "but wait, you know I'd never... explain. been runnin' circles, but as of tonight, I will be waiting.. I'll put up a fight to make it all seem so much braver". it's the most crisp song... the electronic cranking noises along with the distinct bass-y drum and the easy to listen to rapping just puts me at ease.
10- This song just chugs its way in and seems to carry the hip hop theme further even if it's not rap. it has an r&b / dance vibe and I usually find this stuff a bit cheesy, but no, the junior boys know how to do it I s'pose (they almost remind me of Hot Chip, but without the funny lines or a morr artist. there were moments they sounded like depeche mode, but not so much on this track; I went against pushing the dM theme further). "springtime you're gonna wish we were friends / that we talked / you'll never feel so sure again" 'cause we all know that things seem less bleak in the spring...
11- Speaking of Hot Chip... I almost passed on adding this since I shared enough Hot Chip already, but oh well. this song is a b-side from the colours single cd. I didn't buy any of the record versions yet since I don't have my record player here. unsure if I want to or not though. anyway, this is one of their slower, more mysterious, serious, sexy tracks, yessss. there's a few subtly great lines: "my body in line, my mind behind, my heart on the unwind", "an uncontrollable urge and brilliant lights", and "pushin' around a bottle that contains your fears for me to hop, skip and leave behind" -- It's mostly in the delivery, so you know. the squeaky knob turning type noise in the middle of the song bothered me at first, but now I like it. it shows destruction.
12- I've decided this song shall be a metaphor otherwise it's a bit morbid. weirdly, burnt and blackened is brought up twice on this mix coincidentally. jamaican sounding rapping, yay! I love this kode9 and spaceape album. soon I'll have to buy it when I'm allowed to spend some frivolous money.
13- There hasn't been enough shoegaze this year, so I jumped at this album when I found it and was told what it was... this is the best track on the whole thing and really, it had no real reason for being here except to transition into the sea section of the mix due to the sound of water ending the track. I'm glad I had some reason to keep it though since it's so great, oh yes. even if I hardly have any idea what's being said though I like that starting bit that sounds like she's saying, "ehhhstereo!".
14- This track is in mono and shall remain as such, so if you have a problem, LEAVE THE MIX! rah! really, I should buy the album eventually. I meant to preorder it when I saw it at boomkat in August, but I wasn't sure if I'd still be here by the time it came out, so passed. I'd like to hear if this album is any different in stereo. this particular song was hardly noticeable as a song in mono though. anyway, I read up on the album and it's about a sea voyage which is cut short by a swarm of zombies and I feel this is the death march to that story.
15- The nautical journey continues with this Pinback track. I had to change the compression to make it work with the crossfade, so at parts, I feel it's swimming haphazardly about and the vocals seem quieter, but oh well. I liked this crossfade since it was the second one I worked on and took me all night to get it to a less noticeable quality. at first, I wasn't too big on this b-sides album which I bought on a whim when I had gotten a pretty good insound coupon that forced me to spend a certain amount when this album was right there on the front page, but yeah, it has its okay points and this song was one of them.
16- The song that made me want to have a sea section in the first place. the fun little vocal bits at the beginning when it sounds like someone is shouting through a megaphone over crazy mumbling I can't even reproduce made me feel it was unique to the other tortoise tracks I had heard previously while still sounding like them and not being annoying. mmmm tortoise.
17- At first, I was going to add a Joan of Arc track which sounded tortoise-like in construction, but it just didn't end up working, so I decided to end the sea section with this lovely track which would start the sunny day section. purely by a crazy fluke, the lyrics "when all the numbers swim together" began playing as the restless waters settled which tied together both sections. "I fall in love with the light", yes. sometimes there can be a better day, though hesitant we are, as we're brought into...
18- ..this little rollin' up the side of a mountain imitation easy listening number. "Stay up late at your garden gate" brings things back to the main theme of gardens; also a fluke. the other song I almost chose from this same album said 'groovy' which made me replace it. sorry, but if a word doesn't sound right, it's gone and hey, cool little details may come into play with whatever new track is chosen if lucky. the chorus bit, which brings to light the trouble still in paradise, the eye of the storm, ("if she raised the sun, I'm gonna be her ambassador / if she ruins my mind, I'll be her satellite.") reminded me a bit of Wilco; maybe an older Wilco.. I dunno.. just the satellite line somehow made me think it'd be something they'd do.
19- "rumm mmmm rummm mmmm" yes, this added humming makes the song more unique than it'd otherwise have been. this is from some sndtrk. I have another corker/conboy album, but it's all instrumental, so this isn't the usual. the sndtrk only had about 2 or 3 vocalised tracks if I remember correctly. "a heart made of stone" ...still trouble goin' down.
20- ..and yes! the second mention of being burnt and blackened in a song you wouldn't really guess would have that line. it almost sounds like a brilliant sun is rising and you're floating on a cloud watching it blind your vision into oblivion then the lines spoken are.... "Here and there, the road still wet, the storms have passed, life came here, found us quite alone, burnt and blackened by the mess we made." which says it all about the theme and yet, I did it all by fluke! I was more concerned about crossfades and yet a full film-esque story erected itself somewhere in the middle of all that commotion.
No matter how bleak it may sound, it's like a good movie you wish existed.
It's prefereable to listen to it while curled up in a chair reading a book on a cold afternoon or hey, in a garden if possible.