Midsummer, so time for another mix. At some point I’ll break this meta-thing I have where the mix starts out party and ends up somber, but this will not be the mix to break the pattern.
A few track notes in line below.
- Blind Man Can See It – James Brown (In the Jungle Groove). This is a classic James Brown groove with nothing much else going on, but it’s on here for the first 30 second snippet of Brown talking with the drummer. Dag-a-dag-a-dag-a…
- Jungle Grove – Buckshot LeFonque (Music Evolution). I had written off Buckshot LeFonque as a kind of lazy exercise after the first album. I finally got around to checking out the second (and last) platter Branford’s gang waxed, and I’m glad I did. This track features some seriously hot playing as the group plays some live jungle.
- Blue Line Swinger – Yo La Tengo (Prisoners Of Love). Yeah, I know, there are probably a bunch of live cuts of this that are better, but this is the one I first learned to love.
- Lotus Flower – Radiohead (The King of Limbs). Get your Thom Yorke dance on.
- Song Of The Stars – Dead Can Dance (Spirit Chaser). Get your mid-90s cultural appropriation dance on.
- The Great Curve – Talking Heads (Remain In Light). I think this is the only track on this album that hadn’t previously made it onto a mix tape.
- Optimistic – Radiohead (Kid A). To think that I once considered this the happy song on this album.
- Idioteque – Virginia Sil’hooettes (Best of BOCA: The First 20 Years). I know, I know. But honestly I was blown away by what these Hoos could do in the studio.
- Ascension Day – Talk Talk (Laughing Stock). I’m still not sure what this song is about, but I do know that I haven’t been able to stop playing this album since I finally picked it up a few years ago.
- Total Trash – Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation). Is it bad that reading Kim’s autobiography made me want to listen to Sonic Youth songs that weren’t sung by Kim?
- You Get What You Deserve – Big Star (#1 Record – Radio City). Ditto the comment on track 6.
- Nicotine & Gravy – Beck (Midnite Vultures). Okay, here we go. I enjoyed this album ironically when it came out, now I just enjoy it. “I’ll feed you fruit that don’t exist/I’ll leave graffiti where you’ve never been kissed/I’ll do your laundry, massage your soul/Then turn you over to the highway patrol.”
- Beykat – Youssou N’Dour (Joko From Village To Town). I could listen to Youssou sing anything, even a track that would be at home on a Europop radio station.
- Rose Parade – Elliott Smith (Either/Or). Haven’t been able to let go of this one.
- Prïtourïtze Planinata – Bulgarian State Television Female Choir (Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares). Another album I came to late, and can’t stop listening to.
- Love Will Tear Us Apart – June Tabor & Oysterband (Ragged Kingdom). Surprising how well this works.
- Nothing But Heart – Low (C’mon). Fighting through.
- Cherry Chapstick (Acoustic Version) – Yo La Tengo (Today Is the Day! – EP). Have loved this tune for a long time in its original form. The acoustic is wistful and summer afternoonish.
- Into Dust – Mazzy Star (So Tonight That I Might See). Another track that echoes around my head when it’s quiet.
- Fading Away – The Church (Gold Afternoon Fix). This may not have been the album that The Church wanted to make—stories of their fights with the producer and their despair at LA and their label are plenty—but it’s still an album that I know almost every track on.
- Bye Bye Beauté (Coralie Clement) – Nada Surf (if I had a hi-fi). Not the first time I’ve bought an album based on a cover. I originally wasn’t taken by too many songs on this cover album but this one kept at me, thank goodness.
- A Mother’s Last Word To Her Daughter – Washington Phillips (The Half Ain’t Never Been Told, Vol. 1). Very little dulcimer work in the gospel music I’ve heard. This is a fascinating track to sign off this mix as we go and see the King.