Wednesday, December 16, 2009

A Walk In The Snow

The snow has finally started to surround me here in my little town of Tandarei, and I could not be happier, as it is perfect to just walk around and listen to a mix or two...

The basis of this mix started while I was spending a weekend in Bals, in the South West portion of Romania. Me and a friend were walking towards the train station in order to meet another friend, and Ryuichi Sakamoto's brilliant piece Hibari from his album Out Of Noise came on, and it fit the situation perfect: the look of snow on benches, the calmness of the small lake near the station, the dogs running through the streets; it was then that I figured a nice "walking in the snow" / "wintertime" mix would do me, and you readers, pretty good.

So, this mix is a bit odd, in terms that it does not really feel a feeling per se, but rather a notion I had, so some of the music might sound a bit out of place, but in my mind and in my ears it goes perfectly...

I started off with Hibari by Sakamoto simply because it is a perfect opening song, as well as being the song that created the idea for this mix in the first place. We then move onto Fly by Nick Drake, and then right on to Trucker Talk Ch. 4 by Transona Five. After that, we move onto a nice piano ballad by Jens Lekman, and then we have one of my favorite Low songs, Closer, off of the album Things We Lost In The Fire. At this point, it would be a good idea to re-read the sentence before this paragraph as it seems like this mix is kind of all over the place at the moment (looped piano into folk music into psychedelic drone into indie pop into "slowcore").

Nico's The Fairest Of The Seasons moves us towards the second half of this mix, and I can tell you that the scene from the Royal Tenenbaums where this song is used greatly impacted my selection of this song. Next we have the beautiful melodies of the Stars of the Lid, but only a fragment of it... I selected the Requiem String Melody, which is the string section that accompanies the song Requiem For Dying Mothers Part 2 off their album The Tired Sounds of... Bat For Lashes moves us towards the end with the song the Big Sleep, which was my original ending piece, but that new designation goes to Akira Kosemura's Light Dance. Light Dance may not seem like as good an ending to this mix as Big Sleep, but for some reason I just love it so much, and I feel the end just matches the mood perfectly (the song itself starts off somewhat happy and erratic, and then slowly and slowly moves towards a minimal ending, almost like this entire mix).

Well, this completes my second mix, and there should be another in January, as I am off to visit my family in America and will not be taking that much music with me...

Link and tracklist in comments...


-James

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

1st Mix

So, I was speaking with co-contributor Zach about what our first mix should in fact be... After some discussion (including my idea about making a mix of favorite opening songs..get it?) we decided on the simplistic, but fantastic, idea for a really good mix. So, I began the process, and I can tell you it felt really really good to make another mix. As I said in the first post, I do enjoy making mixes, but I have not had the chance to make one for a long time.
Anyways, I started off with a song by The Ballet, and after several versions (including a few 10-song mixes and 7-song mixes), I came up with the following 8-song mix that lasts about 23 minutes. I can also say that there is really only one song that lasted from the beginning of the mixing procedure to the end, and that is Grizzly Bear's "Alligator."

So, I guess I can talk a little bit about the mix itself. As I said earlier, I started off with a track by the Ballet, and if you do not know them, you should definitely look for them. They sound a lot like early Magnetic Fields; at least they do to me. Anyways, if you knew that and then listened to this mix, it should surprise you as this mix is kind of a winter-y / depressive mix. I didn't really mean for it to happen that way, but a lot of the songs just give the impression of a stark, cold day outside and all you want to do is stay inside and drink tea. Which is a good feeling for me...
So I started the mix off with two short electronic-a-ish songs: Alligator by Grizzly Bear and Moon Ring by Jagat Skad. After that we move onto an artist I just discovered, named Felix, which makes some great, folk-ish music. The song on this mix, Death To Everyone But Us, is a great little song centered on the use of the piano, and really gives the mix a push in the right direction... From there we move on to Crystalised by the Xx, which is easily my favorite track off that album. We start to fall back into the electronic area with Saltwater off of Beach House's first album, and then go right into Spectator Sport by Her Space Holiday (which is an odd song by the way, as it is just an instrumental piece while a recording of a journalist [?] questions Marc about how it might feel to write songs about his girlfriend at the time). From that point we move onto a track from Ducktails' self-titled album, which leads right into the closing track, "I wanna sleep" by No Age, which kind of gives you , the listener, a nice shock at the end...

Anyways, this is my first mix, second post, and I hope you enjoy it...

-James



Link: http://rapidshare.com/files/318128976/1st_Mix_copy.zip.html

Monday, November 30, 2009

Just A Start-Up

So, hello...
Pretty horrible introduction post, I know, but bear with me...
So, this blog started after a conversation with my friend Zachary, who will also be posting on this site from time to time, talking all about the demise of the mix-tape.
Well, I think we can do something about that, right? So, this is just a blog to feature mix-tapes from himself and myself, some of which may be good, some bad, and some in between...

We will, of course, also over information about why we chose those artists, and of course look forward to your (the reader) ideas no what you would have included, or maybe even a list that you feel would have made the theme...

And that is all for this intro...

-James