The Secret Garden Party Mixtape

So after an excruciating and drawn-out trawl through a handful of the more prominent artists, your friendly neigbourhood ethereal monkey has thrown together a short tracklist representing the most promising artists at this year's Secret Garden Party in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire!

I'm not going to write a whole lot about each as it's already pretty late in the game, but here are videos and tracks from each:

(GORILLAZ NOT INCLUDED)


Fionn Regan

Let's start in the daytime now shall we? Traipsing across the artsy surrealism of the festival ground in the afternoon summer glow (hopefully) nothing goes down better than a cheeky squat on the grass near some gentle folky balladry, and Fionn Regan is the Big Mac to fill that craving! Beneath his docile and humble melodies lies a fascinatingly surreal lyricism, particularly in this track, starting right off the bat with the incomprehensible 'hey rabbit, you've had it, your fingers are in the coin disposal'. Even if you don't care to chinstroke your way through the labrynth of his words he'll provide a suitably chill atmosphere for your festival day.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Fionn Regan - Snowy Atlas Mountains


Panda Su

And why not have some more folk? Admittedly this songstress from the happenin' Fife is a tad generic and her lyrics have about as much poetry as the digested remains of yesterday's curry, but her unassuming croon sits comfortably enough on the unstrained ear (and you should've heard some of the shit I had to trawl through before I got to her myspace).

Couldn't find any downloads, sorry! Visit her myspace


Darwin Deez

Ooh now someone vaguely famous! Well done SGP. Darwin Deez is(/are? - the band and the frontman share the same name) a bit of a blog bitch round about now. This track's a winner - it's basically anything off the first Strokes album if Julian Casablancas was an oddly effeminate runner bean who's hairy in all the wrong ways. I like it, he'll be a laugh. The track's called Constellations but I couldn't find a download.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Darwin Deez - Radar Detector


James Yuill

If any of you have been lucky enough to receive one of my uber-sentimental compilation CDs over the past few years you'll undoubtedly have heard this man's music ('james who-the-what-now? Oh yeah Callum he's now my favourite artist, I listen to your CD every day, it's basically my life...') as I cram half the tracks off his first album into any deserved playlist. Oddly overlooked in the lineup (right at the bottom in small font when I found him there) perhaps because of his slightly sex-offender-like appearance, he is nevertheless a perfect example of folktronica working. His oh-so-polite vocals and sickly-sweet lyrics might not work so well on their own feet but the man has quite a talent with a synthesiser and a sampler, making lush textures with samples from his guitar and surrounding his twee lyricism with a bouncy electronica production that distracts from the simplicity of it all and suggests the existence of quite an IDM record collection in Yuill's bedroom. This track is the first I heard a few years ago and one of many crackers, he's a must-see for yours truly (even if just to see how he manages to program all of the backing tracks, play guitar, sample it and sing all at once.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ James Yuill - No Surprise
♪ James Yuill - Over The Hills
♪ James Yuill - On Your Own (new single)


The Apples

I'll be honest, I only listened to a couple of tracks once that didn't get me too excited but have purely chosen this band for their Rage Against The Machine Cover. Regardless of its quality, nothing would stop me posting 'Jazz/Funk ensemble from Tel Aviv do Killing In The Name Of'. Luckily it's also shit hot - their turntablist makes things very interesting (alas no none of them sing 'fuck you I won't do what you tell me' thirty times, I'd love to hear 'MOTHERFUCKER!!' in Arabic). They'll be a must-see as well I reckon for a cheeky skank in the early evening.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ The Apples - Killin'


Caravan Palace

Parisian Electro-Swing? Only at SGP right? Nah actually this band are kinda big (as far as Electro-Swing takes you...) and unmistakably French! Gypsy tones and Paris-in-the-thirties vibes fit snugly alongside Daft Punk influences and modern house bass synth lines, it's all a bit cheeky and great fun - perhaps inevitable considering the band started out by being commissioned to soundtrack silent porn films...

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Caravan Palace - We Can Dance


Doorly (& Marina + The Diamonds)

Perhaps not the best or most famous example of Doorly's production but it was a neat link to one of the headliners Marina + The Diamonds - yet another sucker for the 'girl name' + 'plural of stuff' band title that's getting a wee bit passé (Florence + The Machine, Pearl + The Puppets etc. etc. - the latter is also playing but I have come to the conclusion that she is horse shit). This track is to me the perfect transition of day to night at the festival, her summer singalong anthem treated to the very lightest of bass dives and beats (and a really fucking annoying robot voice, what's with that Doorly?) Anyway even if you don't like it his other remixes are pretty sweet and I'm sure he'll fit together a decent set with wobbles aplenty.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Marina + The Diamonds - I Am Not A Robot (Doorly Remix)
♪ Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers [ft. Armand Van Helden] (Doorly Remix)


Jakwob

What was that about wobbles and remixing upcoming female singers? Oh look it's the chief of both of the aforementioned. Skyrocketed to fame after his remixes of both of (are we expecting any more? really?) Ellie Goulding's hits 'Under The Sheets' and 'Starry Eyed', and arguably instrumental in if not responsible for her success, british dubstep producer Jakwob certainly knows his way around a wobble. A blunt and tedious instrument in the hands of most dub producers, this man turns it into a choral hook, his tracks rest on the chirpy bounces between waveforms that turn dull songstresses' tracks into dancefloor skank-inducers. Especially this one, Katie Melua can suck Mixt Ape's dick, but listen to the wobbles on that drop!!

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Katie Melua - The Flood (Jakwob Remix)
♪ Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed (Jakwob Remix)


High Rankin 

Okay, local bias, you got me. This one's from Henfield! Fuck it most of you know who he is (if you were at my 18th - OHH NO HE DIDN'T HAVE HIGH RANKIN' DJING, YEAH HE DID). Previously a dnb producer, the man with the penchant for stupid facial hair and gags about fallatio seems to have found peace with 140bpm (DUUUUB). This one's clearly a bit of a joke but with enough of a drop to take it from pure comedic dick-around to scrotum vacuum. Oh look I just succumbed to the dumb blunt innuendo that is anyone trying to write about dubstep. Shut up you love it.

Download it yourself.


The Golden Filter

In my search for decent music at the festival this group were probably the 7th or 8th generic disco plus female singer outfit, but they didn't piss me off sufficiently to leave them out, so here you are! I can imagine this track being far more relevant at 1a.m. in a drug-fuelled wonderland.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ The Golden Filter - Hide Me


Mercury Rev

If I'm entirely honest this band have managed to pretty much evade my attention completely. Knew the name, nothing else. Apparently they're quite famous. I'm not entirely drawn in, they seem a bit like The Flaming Lips with less talent and even more of a tendency to slip into rubbish 10-minute jam sessions. But it's all echoey and I'm sure they're famous for a reason, let's go see them, yay.


DOWNLOAD:
♪ Mercury Rev - Senses On Fire

Well sorry that was slightly lazy journalism but you have no idea how much absolute shit there is at this festival. I suggest thorough inebriation to distract yourself from the overwhelmingly bad music.

Also not mentioned here: (in rough order of merit, best first)

seriously old-school (pre-Toots) ska outfit The Skatalites (they're great I just forgot to include them)
generic maccabees-sound-alikes The Crookes
stadium-dnb-rock-group-before-pendulum Freestylers
annoying Spanish electro-punk-twats Crystal Fighters

and a whole lot of other shit

SEE YOU THERE! woop woop

Simian Spring Collection - Part II (Strums, Thumbs and Single Mums)

Voila part II! And hoo-wee it's a monster! A mixture here, although a slight bias of pseudo-math-rock.

Born Ruffians - Sole Brother

These two tracks herald the release of an album I've been gagging for since Born Ruffians debut LP Red, Yellow And Blue. Apologies for mentioning the band twice in the same few posts but these tracks' releases came out of the blue into Mixt Ape's sphere, and their Warp-signed messy, harmless indie joy-pop appears to be my achilles heel. They're still messy, and still brimming with charming joyful innocence, although both tracks present a more subdued format, particularly Sole Brother - the energy relatively held back until the climax (which is still relatively pent-up compared to the proud indiegasms peaking tracks like I Need A Life and Barnacle Goose). It's not instantly or obviously gratifying, but after a couple of listens frontman Luke LaLonde's amateur yelping and that clumsy clean guitar picking is already inspiring that familiar warmth that the last LP provided. Similarly, single What To Say appears to focus more on LaLonde's pensive warbling, the classic BR naivety present in the lyrics rather than the arrangement. He claims the track ponders “ how much and how little sense we make when we speak. It’s about the multitude of wrong words and the never-ending search for the right ones." I personally prefer Sole Brother, it presenting a slightly more interesting transition in sound where the heart and soul of BR appears to remain, exposed alongside a more self-aware, apathetic feel. Having said that, I can't help but miss the upbeat feel of the first album that propelled their messy riffs into something more special. We'll have to see whether the other tracks from the album bring back the BR energy that sat so comfortably alongside their warmth.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Born Ruffians - Sole Brother
♪ Born Ruffians - What To Say

Tracey Thorn / 'Oh, The Divorces!'
I think this track alone necessitated separating the two parts of this collection, as I doubt scorching drum 'n' bass would sit quite comfortably alongside this gentle ode to broken marriage. It would be like sitting Tim Westwood next to a resurrected Nick Drake in a chatshow ("This is my main man Drake, representin' for the Warwickshire massive, don't be hatin' on him"). Anyway as pointed out by The Guardian's Alexis Petridis, it's vaguely interesting to hear the odd emotive ballad with an older demographic (don't let that put you off), the usual adolescent hormone-induced romantic triviality replaced by a more everyday middle-aged viewpoint, poetically and poignantly detailing the melancholy of the fall of long-term partnerships from an outsider's perspective: 'each time I hear who's to part, I examine my heart'. It's nothing particularly profound, but the relatively simplistic lyrics ('I should have guessed, that day that his phone wouldn't take your text') are somehow arranged in such a way as to hit closer to home, propelled into something more emotive by the inoffensive wistfulness of the melody.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Tracey Thorn - Oh The Divorces!



This band are currently confusing me greatly, I can't work out whether there's something interesting going on here or if it's complete gormless drivel. Although not massively audible here, the band's sound wholly combines stadium cheesy major-key hair metal (see fictional band Limozeen to get what I'm talkin' about, thank you Homestar Runner), retro japanese scrolling shooter videogame soundtracks (see here and here) and a vague superficial sense of a more indie-rock sensibility, hence the occasional four-blokes-chanting-in-a-fairly-large-room chrouses and occasional synths and 'woahhhs'. The album's largely instrumental though, and I find it tricky to listen all the way through without fighting a constant urge to revert to soaring through the air along a two-dimensional axis, dodging pixelated laser-beams and upgrading myself. That or just turn the fucking thing off. Make up your own mind.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Fang Island - Life Coach
♪ Fang Island - Careful Crossers

65daysofstatic - Crash Tactics
I only recently came across this instrumental band, a little late in the game it would seem, as this track comes from the four-albums-deep point in their career - and it don't seem they're slippin'. The second track below seems to present an inverted representation of the transformation of their sound over that time, the group having bloomed with a more straightforward (but more raw) experimental rock sound, recently developing more electronic elements. It starts out with a prominent house beat, then is gradually (I mean gradually, the track's more than ten minutes long) smothered with a complex range of textures, the heavy beat bizarrely drifting out of conscious sound until it's entirely replaced (like magic) with more standard rock instrumentation, leading to the most drawn-out crescendo of all time, the haze of effective guitars tearing apart the soul quite pleasantly. There's clearly been a change in sound, but the propulsive element to the group still remains, their arrangements densely layering instruments to form complex textures and expansive soundscapes, rather than focusing on melody and riffs. Having said that these terms essentially just define post-rock as a genre. But I'm tempted to think that 65daysofstatic serve as a rare example of the genre completely working, although they resent the label themselves. The single shown above however is a more concise, instant hit. It strays further from the post-rock label with riffier guitars and a strong beat lending to a sound with an uncanny similarity to The Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up (it's even the same key).

DOWNLOAD:
♪ 65daysofstatic - Crash Tactics
♪ 65daysofstatic - Tiger Girl (available by joining their mailing list on the band website)



At the very least this is the best song this side of hip hop I've yet to hear that samples a siren. And hip hop it certainly ain't! With an intro simultaneously reminiscent of the ambiguous Asian themes presented in the video and itchy-fingers and tumbleweed spaghetti westerns, there's something beautifully earthy about the feel of the track, with an adequately generous portion of psychedelia ladled over the top (essentially a standard in new rock music). What's this? Infectious unsentimental vocals from a man with hallucinogenic shades standing on a floating chessboard? Fair play to you Django Django. Overall, it's catchy and I like it. How's that for profound analysis?

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Django Django - WOR

Beach House - Zebra
The generally stand-out track from their January-released third album Teen Dream, which I'll certainly be talking about more in-depth shortly. The duo have been particularly dragged along the blogosphere recently as a reference to the current obsession with dream pop (that seems to fuel the even greater obsession with obscure 2009-prominent genre chillwave) that seems to shape the state of the sub-mainstream music industry, although they themselves don't intend such a rigid association with one genre. However, the bloggers have got a point, this kind of track serving as a perfect template for modern dream pop, its breathy backing vocal dives and hypnotic lead croons constructing a beautifully vivid sense of an American small-town prom in an eighties flick, but with heady, smoky overtones of gentle transience and, as the genre's title would suggest, a dream-like quality. It is both nostalgic and fantastical, and one of my favourite tracks for a while.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Beach House - Zebra


And another contender for catchiest thing I've heard this year, Yeasayer being obvious candidates already for seminal artists and album of 2010 (expect a more in-depth look at Odd Blood soon). This track is certainly a highlight, the Brooklyn-based lads going past proving they have a strong pop sensibility to the point of essentially grasping pop music by the bollocks and squeezing - the resultant noise far more pleasant than you'd imagine. At risk of sounding like a journalistic cop-out, this track does what great pop music does best and manages to elude presenting an obvious formula for its success - I can harp on all day about its retro synth hooks, its vivacious rhythms and its infectious vocal melodies but you'd be no closer to understanding the beauty of the track. These features are all commonplace amongst new releases at the moment, Yeasayer just manage to nail them down into something unstoppable. The best I can do is bullshit that if this track was a person it would have one hell of a spring in its step, eyes full of reasoned self-assuredness and a seriously bright fucking jacket. Also try Love Me Girl - the most overtly and successfully aphrodisiacal song I've heard for months, evoking a strong sense of pent-up sexual tension and desperation - every sultry kick and hi-hat, every growling synth seems geared to sound seductive, but perhaps to a point where it becomes slightly cheesy... I wouldn't recommend actually using it seductively, unless said partner has a very well stated thing for neon and futuristic psychedelia.

EDIT - Sorry, I did have the music video above but they've stopped people embedding it, watch it in all its glory here

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Yeasayer - ONE
♪ Yeasayer - Love Me Girl




New single from one of my favourite bands of the moment, a bunch of clever indie boys with a strong pop sensibility. The lyrics shown here present this art-rock intellectualism, but I can't yet quite realise whether it's an empty blindness governing the obscurity of the words, or I'm just not smart enough to decipher what the fuck he's talking about. Either way it doesn't particularly bother me, it's interesting to hear 'tyrant' rhymed with 'fire hydrant' and the generally bizarre contrast of semantic fields in the lyrics of everyday mundanity and imaginative grandeur/fantasy. Plus it's generally infused with progressing melodies, ones that I actually find initially a bit discomforting, but everything past about three minutes when those echoey guitars come in suits me just fine. It was Zane Lowe's hottest record in the world a few weeks back as well apparently, but don't let that put you off. I still much prefer previous single My Kz, Yr Bf, to the point where it might just be my favourite track of the year so far. It's the most immaculate blend of pop (infectious melodies, ridiculous falsetto, retro synth hooks and noughties clean guitar riffs) and experimentalism, winning the hearts of the fanboys(/girls) and the record sales while retaining a genuine profundity and integrity. Schoolin's not yet available to download, but give it a week and someone'll get it onto mediafire.

DOWNLOAD: ♪ Everything Everything - My Kz, Yr Bf

Simian Spring Collection - Part I (Blips, Bleeps, Bloops)

So, the Mixt Ape storefront has appeared pretty barren for the last few months, I can only apologise and attempt to blame a shortage of ethereal bananas which usually fuel Mixt Ape's musical drive, before admitting the reality of the situation - I've been an unhealthy combination of busy and lazy.

But also, anyone who isn't following the Mixt Ape facebook page WILL have been missing the bulk of posts, as I've reverted to using this blog only for mammoth ones. So from hereon I'll be collecting the highlights of every month/quarter from the facebook page and throwing them altogether into posts like this, complete with the polished veneer of pictures/videos/download links.

Here's a few of my favourite dub/dnb/electronica tracks from the last few months. Enjoy! (Part II rock/indie/alternative coming up)



Reeling in Youtube views like no-one's business, this collaboration would've served as the perfect flagship for the recently(ish) dropped Noisia album Split The Atom. Nevertheless I guess that the fact that Foreign Beggars come first in the artist name must've caused its omission from an already full-to-the-brim album. It does however, thankfully, still feature collaborations with the London-based hip-hop/grime outfit (has anyone actually heard any of them rap except the two loudmouths in this track?) which can only be a good thing, as the two artists slot together like peanut butter and nutella. The first of these, Shellshock, is a blistering example of this harmonious combination, Foreign Beggars' dark and prophetic rapping paving the way for earth-shattering (apologies for the clichéd dnb terminology) drum breaks. However I have to say I still marginally prefer the more dancefloor-friendly, attitude-filled Contact, Foreign Beggars perfectly capturing the roughness of British hip-hop without that usual cringe factor, and Noisia's relatively held-back production serving as a sinister, bouncing backdrop. But they tear this apart in the remix (after 2:28 in the video) in classic sonic-shattering neurofunk style that's making them some of the most prominent producers in the scene. I think it'd be fair to say they're creeping up on the success of acts like Chase & Status (dare I say the prodigy and pendulum??). Also check out eponymous breaks track below, very nice.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Foreign Beggars & Noisia - Contact
♪ Foreign Beggars & Noisia - Contact (Noisia Remix)
♪ Noisia - Split The Atom
♪ Noisia - Shellshock (ft. Foreign Beggars)



Goodness me Reso you just made me do something highly inappropriate... Are you going to come and clean this up? Oh wait no, you're too busy producing unbelievably incredible wobbly dnb despite being a prominent dub producer/DJ. Tony Colman's been banging this one all over the Hospital podcast and rightly so. Appears on the recently dropped Hospital 'Sick Music 2' compilation (expect a more in-depth review shortly) along with some other treats such as B Complex's Three Dots, Agent Alvin's Moonlight Bay and MRSA's Chemicals, which we were all listening to months ago of course (it's still my favourite dnb track of the last six months methinks. Noisia's deception close.) As put in a Youtube comment, 'Holy shit on a stick thats more disgusting than fingering your sister and finding your dads wedding ring'. I'd like to firstly throw up in a corner, and then add that what's great about this track is not pure filth (although clearly there's plenty of dirt smeared across its grizzly waveforms) but that it's a fine example of Reso's consistent craftmansip and steering away from the focus on the drop that stains so much new DnB. That's to say that - like with his dub - Reso doesn't just create heavy drops and then surround them with mediocre production. His tunes are made for more than just mixing into a set for a minute to provoke some skanking, they're intricate and dynamic from start to finish. Anyone unfamiliar with his dub try some of the tracks below, although I have to say these ones ARE pretty drop-focused... Sometimes it's a good thing.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Reso - Slap Chop
♪ Reso - Armored Core
♪ Reso - Beasts In The Basement
♪ BSS - Kalemba (Reso Remix) - I like this one a lot, it's a brief sojourn from the brutish rough swagger of his dub tracks into a slightly more tropical remix of this obscure Spanish track.




I won't go on about Bop yet again, if you want a description read an album review I wrote for my student paper a while back. This recently dropped remix EP on Hospital showcases some pretty fantastic reworks of his tracks, most of them fairly adventurous. Above is my favourite, done by ambient DnB producers Blu Mar Ten, it completely overhauls the arrangement of the original track, to the point where it's completely indiscernible that they are of the same crop. Where the original was (characteristically for bop) sparse and cold, this rework smothers the mix in rich, warm production, using gentle acoustic cymbals, flanked by major-key pads and soothing vocal samples. The overall effect is if anything more transitory and evocative. The Lynx & Hellrazor remix is somewhat more adventurous, with modest beginnings sinisterly torn apart mid-track into something darker, jungle breaks aplenty. Such breaks also feature in the amateur remis competition winner Thinnen's remix, though the track is essentially a more energetic up-tempo rework of the subtler original.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Bop - Nothing Makes Any Sense (Blu Mar Ten Remix)
♪ Bop - Tears Of A Lonely Metaphysician (Lynx & Hellrazor Remix)
♪ Bop - Enjoy The Moment (Thinnen Remix)


Joy Orbison: So Derobe
Hello garage, it's good to see you too. Where've you been since the late nineties? Slipping into obscurity and transforming into current genres dubstep, grime and funky? I suppose this probably isn't technically garage, but it's nice to hear its obvious stylistic origins in a thoroughly eminent new (largely dub) producer. And it's very refreshing to hear those shuffling beats without the sultriness they're rarely seen without these days (thank you dubstep). JO's production of the track is beautifully graduated, carefully layering subtle pinches of soulful vocal snippets, nostalgic staccato bass-lines and synth pads.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Joy Orbison - So Derobe 
♪ Joy Orbison - Wet Look


Circa - Ida
Helios - First Dream Called Ocean (Stray Remix)
Another couple of soul-immersive gems from Tony 'London Elektricity' Colman's demo box - these tracks make up two of those on the recently released New Blood 010 compilation on Hospital's little sister label Med School. If the rest are anything like these then it'd certainly be worth a buy. In the case of the Circa track, its immaculately sampled live snare rolls are a positive aural caress, comprising a track that epitomises the notion that modern DnB works best when it strays as far from its given template, and the dancefloor, as possible. The Stray remix of ambient master-producer Helios on the other hand is unfathomably gentle and soul-calming (a term I will try not to throw around haphazardly any longer). Lush ethereal synth pads are innocently broken by gentle IDM pops, serenaded by heavenly chipmunk vocal samples. Like Bop but with more soul, and a richer mix.

DOWNLOAD:
♪ Circa - Ida
♪ Helios - First Dream Called Ocean (Stray Remix)

Self-Indulgent Send-Off (For the BHASVIC Student Voice)

Here’s an extended version of a piece I wrapped up for my last submission as music editor of my college paper the Student Voice. It was intended as a short list of my favourite tracks, each paired with a similar new track, so as to cancel out the overly-personal self-indulgence of a stand-alone ‘look at my favourite songs’ article, but what’s actually happened is most of my favourite tracks seemed to lack pairs in modern music (at least that I’m currently listening to) so it’s turned around, to the point where this is more a ‘my favourite new tracks’ paired with similar old ones that I also like. Also, apologies for some repetition, there's a tiny bit of material recycled from previous posts, and a few tracks I've posted on facebook already. If you haven't already joined that, do so now. Enjoy:

(Key:)

Old Favourite

Corresponding New(ish) Track

Fleet Foxes – He Doesn’t Know Why

Yeah, obvious as they come, but this album presented a reason to ignore the pretentious snivelling of the underground music writer and believe the hype; the reason so many harped on about Fleet Foxes is because their grandiose and uplifting formula of church-reverb-smothered choral harmonies, comprising simultaneously homely and ethereal melodies, works. This track presents one of the most breakfast-friendly and joy inspiring.

Wild Beasts – All The Kings Men

By no means a new track, or a new band, Wild Beasts are certainly still fresh, and still contenders for the musical landscape unfolding before our ears. While sonically dissimilar to Fleet Foxes, the vocalists in this band are similarly unafraid of a three-part harmony, although in Wild Beasts’ case they’re also partial to some bordering-on-the-silly operatics, employing an impressively squealing falsetto and some plodding and majestic bass vocals. They also share a common theme: grandiosity – Wild Beasts in a very intentional ‘baroque pop’ way (indicative of their art-rock intellectualism) as opposed to Fleet Foxes’ old-fashioned and peasant-like folky warmth.

The Flaming Lips – Are You A Hypnotist??

An all-time favourite track on an all-time favourite album. Wayne Coyne famously said that if asked what instrument he played, he would reply ‘the recording studio’, and this album epitomised that claim. Together with the rest of the band, he manages to blend the organic and the mechanical seamlessly. Acoustic crunchy drum breaks are here lightly sequenced alongside progressively varying bleeps and Wayne’s digitally-aided endlessly floating vocal to comprise a heavily-produced and polished studio product that somehow still strongly retains the feel of the performance.

The Knife in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock – The Colouring Of Pigeons

Loose fit yet again here I have to say, but The Knife share with The Flaming Lips refreshing tones of experimentalism, a strong proficiency at orchestrating acoustic and digital instruments alike into profound and complex soundscapes, but also most commonly an innocent curiosity to their approach to tackling fairly dark and deep concepts in their music. This latter element comes across as a kind of naivety in the face of genuine profundity, which gives warmth to both groups’ music by removing them from that brand of artists that seem to take themselves just a little bit too seriously. Part of the score for their recently dropped electro-opera about Darwin, this is something monumental and really quite special. Having said that neither the Knife nor The Flaming Lips are showing any signs of petering out in any way, so keep track of both.

DJ Shadow – ...Meets His Maker

For anyone ignorant, DJ Shadow was the eminent pioneer for the power of the sample, innovatively constructing debut album ‘…Endtroducing’ entirely from non-original material. It’s safe to say that the man’s relationship with his turntables and a sampler has transcended his title from DJ to artist, and paved the way for others to do so (see below). This track (along with others like Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt) serves as a concentrated gemstone of his genius, that form such a vivid sonic atmosphere for the listener that you can’t help but be mentally transported to imagined movie scenes of hurried escape from danger, alongside an inherent feel of inspired melancholia. You’re emotionally anchored to the track so deeply that the ethereal crescendo at the climax of the track will literally tear you apart, the subsequent telephone ring that link this to the track before it on the album bringing you back to earth.

Pretty Lights – I Can See It In Your Face

This man is a clear contemporary to the above, in terms of his inheritance of the free and adventurous philosophy of creating individual, rich and profound music without technically 'composing' anything. Pretty Lights' sound is a lot less dark than DJ Shadow's however, sampling warmer soul/disco/funk records in as melodic but usually less atmospheric a way, featuring more modern rapped snippets and old school hip-hop beats adding punch to an otherwise warm and accessible sound. Efficient as they come as well, this track is included on the recently released EP ‘Making Up A Changing Mind’, which forms one part of a series of three awaiting imminent addition to the man’s huge back catalogue, all of which is generously made available for free download on his website.

Noisia – Stigma

And how could I avoid spewing inappropriately pseudo-intellectual nonsense about drum ‘n’ bass? Especially when the beauty of this track lies in something so blunt (even for drum ‘n’ bass) relying heavily (although actually pretty consistent throughout) on that essential sledgehammer that is the drop. And it’s as near as you’ll get to the perfect one – very dramatically built-up and then by-no-means-disappointingly huge to the point of making you unconsciously wince every time its ear-numbingly gritty pitch bend comes around. It’s just silly, and unbeatable. Also despite me naming them here as an old favourite, Noisia are still on the rise, recent tracks like Deception making us all excited about their imminent album drop.

Spor – Overdue

Spor is a natural inheritor to the cold-blooded, dangerous-sounding neurofunk helm of Noisia, although they don’t seem too ready to pass it on. Noted for wearing skull masks under a hoodie, the man represents both in appearance and in his music, the epitome of every pensioner’s nightmare. Utilising characteristically dark ambient overtones to his production, and breaks that perfectly capture the incessant rapidity and impact of a mechanical bludgeoning to the death, his obscene remixes of (most parts of) Bad Company’s Bullet Time and Two Fingers & Sway’s That Girl sound designed to give people ASBOs just for playing them. This (so far unreleased) track however proves Spor to be more versatile, sticking to a much warmer liquid sound. The harp sample is guaranteed to evoke some shivers.

The Widdler – Sensi Samurai

Anyone who is used to my face-to-face music force-feeding will probably have heard this more than a few times. It signifies the first dubstep track I openly admitted to enjoying, having previously been in denial. The first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one… It broke my aversion to dubstep as a concept by taking all of its genre characteristics and turning the dial to 11, to the point where I couldn’t not like it. The wobble bass on this one is stretched to breaking point, the entirety of the track essentially just featuring rhythmical variations on the same elastic hook interspersed with a few breakdowns and old Kung Fu movie ambience and samples.

Wet Look – Joy Orbison

The above Widdler track is essentially named as an excuse to be able to talk about this one. While perhaps less timeless, it signifies my evolution in dub taste, but also the importance of a consistent simple core to great dub track – yet again it's that LFO-ed synth wobble that does it, although here the bass is crystalline and rhythmically spared from the hectic syncopation on the Widdler track. As the title suggests, it feels like being repeatedly splashed in slow motion with some kind of liquefied shimmering gold dust.

Born Ruffians – I Need A Life

A rare signing to Warp records, the label apparently felt that these Canadian boys’ innocent sonic indie clutter could sit alongside Aphex Twin’s twisted creations and electronica called things like (Flying Lotus’) ‘GNG BNG’ and (Luke Vibert’s) ‘I Love Acid’ as well as tracks comprised solely of the lyric ‘I’m gonna fuck you in my red hot car’ (Squarepusher’s ALWAYS allowed). Their shambolic twee melodies are incomprehensibly charming though – and not without intelligence – this track purifying their sound into something self-deprecating yet unifying and progressive yet infectious. Naïve and inoffensive verse gives way to anthemic and chant-along-able chorus, gives way to spine-tingling crescendo (‘I NEED A LIFE!!! I’ve never ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-wheeee-hooo’), gives way to violently joyful and neat melodic finale.

Local Natives – Airplanes

This New York band, while less messy than the above, echo their recorded-in-a-garage-feel and innocence, this track’s gist being, in a nutshell, ‘it’s a shame you’re dead granddad, you seemed pretty cool’. The melodies are just as infectious though, and there’s that same chant-along tweeness to the choruses, the repeated phrases in this track flowing beautifully into each other (‘I love it all, so much I call’ into ‘I want you back’ into ‘I did not know you as well as my father knew you…’). It’s the simplistic translucence to both these tracks which stands out, as the absence of anything beneath the surface fails to impinge on their near-infinite repeatability (although more so in the case of Born Ruffians).

Odd one out:

Everything Everything – My Keys, Your Boyfriend

One last track, which I felt an urgent need to post about, doesn’t seem to fit with any one of my previous favourites. There are whiffs of eighties synth pop around the hook and strong elements of noughties indie pop in its clean guitar twiddles and vocal breathlessness in places, but the two don’t simply fuse into your average generic turn-of-the-decade guitar/synth crossover pop. Its exclusivity lies in the combination of these elements with a covertly experimental lyricism. Deceivingly, the combination of the title, the fast-pace of the vocals and the only lyrics that really hit home at first listen (“and I wanna know what happened to your boyfriend, cos he was lookin’ at me like ‘woahh’”) make you expect a lightly-veneered track about teenage romantic triviality. Upon closer listening (and a google search…) the lyrics actually describe, in the band’s own words, ‘what it would be like to try and have any kind of normal relationship if your country was being bombed constantly by an occupying nation’. Lines mentioning ‘barbed wire in the bathroom’ and ‘everything coming through the windows’ subsequently pack more of a punch, and add to what I would call a (perhaps slightly pretentious but) refreshingly experimental approach, broadening the scale of the track and yet somehow not resigning the band instantly to the twatty art-rock cupboard – at least not in my opinion, although this fact probably rests on just how damn catchy it all is.

Mush

Now, in the wake of copious amounts of DnB and primate-infidelity, Mixt Ape would like to point out that although he has no physical presence in this world, that doesn't mean he doesn't have a heart.

WARNING - No chronological relevance here whatsoever, their last release was a few years ago.

Soppy eyes, silky facial hair and no visible possibility of aggression? Well then, some bands look exactly like they sound. Band Of Horses are a straight-up mushy Southern rock band with two album releases under their belt (Everything All The Time and Cease To Begin). So what's so special about them? Well, that's exactly it, I really don't think there is anything. Yet, their music remains thoroughly listenable and emotive.

Take the first album for example, Everything All The Time. We're talking inoffensive, simply orchestrated soft rock. Instrumentally, expect little else except reverb-smothered clean guitars (bordering on the crunchy in places), atmospherically down-paced rock drums with cymbals galore and flat, characteristically supplemental (nearing the inaudible) basslines. Oh wait I just heard a piano... Anyway, this uncomplicated but effective base layer serves perfectly to springboard
the only thing about their sound that really stands out: the vocals. Frontman Ben Bridwell's baby-voiced warbling is definitely the selling point for the band. His soft consonants and charmingly bizarre accent when delivering words like 'funeral' ('fyoonairawl!') are projected across your ears with a hefty encasing of soaring reverb, completing their idiosyncratically innocent-yet-big sound, one that never quite manages to be annoying. Their gentle but oddly haunting melodies - despite sounding very similar across the entirety of the first album - complete their easy-on-the-ears mushy formula.

However, many people (especially that penis-carrying brand), myself included, might be tempted to instantly dismiss their effeminate wailing as pure premature ejaculation material. They really don't help themselves here, the lyrics in the outro of 'Ode To LRC' for example are completely comprised of 'The world is such a wonderful place/The world is such a wonderful place/Lah di dah/Lah dah di dah dah' - no, I'm genuinely serious. But at the end of the day, is there really anything wrong with that? We don't always need to hear Thom Yorke mumbling about cannibalism and Canary Wharf, or Justin Vernon spouting (albeit beautiful) poetic drivel about moons and wombs. What this kind of music does is appeal to that part of (almost) everyone that remains impenetrable to the complexities of life, where songs about settling down with a wife (Marry Song), and songs about funerals (The Funeral) - with nothing profound to say about either i might add - do touch the heartstrings. We (I) might feel embarrassed about it, but at the end of the day it's Band Of Horses and mush like it that calm the soul and warm the heart.

Having said that, Band Of Horses are touring with Snow Patrol. So, if you feel like sticking to the 'mush is shit' philosophy, I can't blame you.

If you're still interested though, here (as well as the links given above) are their best:

No One's Gonna Love You - Single off their second album, and what attracted me to them in the first place. Characteristic of the more ambitious and diverse production of the album (in opposition to the static sound of the first), its gentle combination of clean guitar and flute-like keyboard, coupled with a more complex vocal reverb, set a more distinctive background for more charming and cutesy vocals: 'anything to make you smile, you are the ever-living ghost of what once was...And no one's ever gonna love you more than I do'. Yup, it's pretty fucking mushy right? The melodies keep it undefeatable.

Weed Party - Less ambitious but much more upbeat track off the first album. Harmlessly indie crunchy guitar riffs and drums cue yet more classic Bridwell vocals, complete with that down-the-scale melody at the end of a line.

Cigarettes, Wedding Bands - Rarely bitter-sounding track off the second album. 'The house is not the same since you left it that day...our parents held cigarettes, wedding bands while they lie tonight'

The First Song - And another off the first album, this one essentially serving as a template for the whole record. Except for the unbeatable The Funeral (see above), expect nothing too different from this track.

Yellow Wings and Caribou in Sweet Harmony flooded with Pretty Lights. Could This Be Real?

Here's a few recent tracks to whet your tastebuds for a hench plateful of 'is-it-the-best-thing-since-DJ-Shadow' sampling genius, that's Pretty Lights.


Caribou - Odessa

Bear with those funky noises in the intro (I realise it sounds like some kind of muppet orgy), although the psychedelia does continue, it becomes more interesting. Hazy vocals seem to narrate some sort of odd eighties acid trip musical comprised of funky guitar, tambourine, tacky bass and, yes, muppet orgasms.

Keepaway - Yellow Wings

Still pretty psychedelic here, this all very Animal Collective. Chanty samples and tribal tom beats precede reverb-laced and chunky-toned guitar (oddly reminiscent of Friendly Fires) and VERY Animal Collective vocals, those campfire harmonies easily ripped off of My Girls. Still, influence-bordering-on-thievery is prerequisite these days so no harm done, and it does sound very nice.


Danny Byrd - Sweet Harmony (feat. Liquid)

It's already been B-listed by radio 1 (even better than his massive Red Mist VIP achieved) so grit your teeth and prepare for its day-time hammering by Jo TWATTING Whiley amongst others. Apparently a re-work of an early-nineties classic, that would make the (also good) Jungle Mix a remix of a rework of an original track. Nice. Well Danny's done well (despite his horribly bald head), fitting the classic 90s piano riff and vocal to some updated liquid breaks and enveloped bass. Also that 'let's go' sample will seem familiar from being used (more effectively) on The Prodigy's Everybody In The Place. Also the midpoint of the track boasts a mightily cheeky jittery bass dive. Still, the Jungle mix is a bit more obviously satisfying, the similar mix being inevitably torn apart in CLASSIC Danny Byrd fashion with a cheeky sample, some jungle rolls, DnB klaxon and bleeps. Very reminiscent of his eclectic and bouncy Shock Out. Noice.

Still hungry? Better be.



Derek Vincent Smith (yeah, name as badass as his hat) AKA Pretty Lights is a BLADDY magician with a sampler. As you can see from the clip above, all he needs is a fucking box with lights on (that's a monome for anyone who gives a shit) and a few gadgets to seamlessly cut and loop samples with the cold efficiency of a Bosnian general.

To be honest, his music isn't really anything like the aforementioned DJ Shadow (top picture, those ignorant please for the love of god check out Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt, ...Meets His Maker and Midnight In A Perfect World) but there haven't exactly been all that many alternative white baseball-cap-wearing hip-hop-sampling artists with as compositional an attitude as it's possible to have when using ONLY samples - at least not on my radar, and they do look very similar. DJ Shadow's Entroducing... made it possible for artists (I think it's fair to say the man has transcended the title of DJ to artist) like Pretty Lights (bottom picture) to stick with the free and adventurous philosophy of creating individual, rich and profound music without technically 'composing' anything. What's also amazing about both of these guys is their record collections - how the fuck can anyone find SO MANY amazing samples from presumably obscure soul, funk and hip hop records?

Pretty Lights' sound is a lot less dark than DJ Shadow's , sampling warmer soul/disco/funk records in as melodic but usually less atmospheric way, more modern hip-hop snippets and old school hip-hop beats adding punch to an otherwise warm and accessible sound. The closest his sound gets to Shadow's (and probably his most impressive track) is More Important Than Michael Jordan which lays atmospheric piano down and teases the stereo extremes with poignant spoken samples and echoes. What separates the man from Shadow is a slightly more eclectic range of genres (the bass wobbles on this track come close to dubstep) and a more progressive feel to most of his tracks. Also, while he doesn't boast QUITE the variety of sounds Shadow manages, there is the odd deviation from squelchy, warm and soulful (best encapsulated in Hot Like Sauce, ) such as his rarely short and sweet ode to the badass How We Do. More recently released and proof he's still shit hot was Fly Away Another Day from last year (again with plenty of wobbles, the man makes more clear why Snoop Dogg, Rihanna and hip-hop in general are feeling some links to dubstep).

What's also pretty impressive about his music is that there's a whole fucking lot of it (just the one double-disk album Filling Up The City Skies lasts a hefty near three hours) and all for free. Seeing as the man deals only in non-original material he's been kind enough to provide EVERYTHING for free download on his site, although the music itself merits a donation, which you can do alongside the downloads. The only thing I might say critically about the project is that each track packs an individual punch, but (as with many albums) when you listen to entire album the dynamic is diluted a bit, which isn't surprising given that each track averages six minutes or more. But that's no reason not to scoop it all up like gold dust. Munch away.

Oh, and


Sub Focus - Could This Be Real (Sub Focus DnB Remix)

Cos I'm Sub Focus' bitch. And the original was pretty shite...

Mixt Ape Snippets

Just to say that from now on I'll be filling in those ghastly musical silences between weekly major posts on this blog with ramblings and mini recommendations on Mixt Ape's Twitter and Facebook pages, see box to the right to follow/become a fan.

Mixt Ape loves you.

Have a treat. From the Mixt Ape teat.

Hunter-Gathering

My imaginary female self has been foraging for the odd rock/folk/alternative berry, while masculine tribe leader me has been hunting a whole lot of meaty dnb/dub/electronica with a MASSIVE FUCKING SPEAR. Here you go tribespeople:


Berries first.


Surfer Blood - Floating Vibes

What's this? Guitars? Yeah, I found some unassuming and simple indie rock that didn't send me running for the hills. Catchy, muddy guitar riffs open a track that does exactly what it says on the tin. Although ironically the kind of guys who completely oppose surfer kids, this track really wouldn't seem out of place sound-tracking some American teen drama while the sun sets over the wash and some unrealistically-beautiful 'teenagers' (25, minimum) frolic hilariously about in celebration of the happy ending of a classically dramatic year. Oh, what? They're from Florida? Cue some strings in the closing minute to lather some thin layer of 'integrity'. Actually, I quite like it all.


JJ - Let Go

I think these guys also produce some hip-hop-infused electronica, but I'm happy with what's here. Dreamy vocals float over sparse, echoey pianos and guitars and retro synths. Think of tacky eighties-esque school disco slow dances. 'I like your sleeves, they're real big.'


Laura Gibson & Ethan Rose - Younger

If I'm entirely honest I'm not yet completely convinced by this track, but something about it intrigues me. Minimal and with very little direction or apparent structure, it's basically an odd scattering of soothing female vocal mumbles over ambient samples of rattling, jingling things. Having said that, whack some headphones on and those shimmering synth pads smothering the corners of your ears do seem to glue it all together pretty pleasantly.

But don't let those measly berries put you off. The lads are bringing in the prize kills.


Meaty, meaty meat.

Sorry, not much clever here, but BIG for sure.

Noisia - Deception

MEATY MEATY dnb! Noisia bring that persistently MASSIVE drop for this characteristically pounding new release. Although inevitably not a patch on last year's Stigma, it's still quite a banger. This is the kind of music that was made to scare grannies.


Johnny L - Evah

And then some more. This sounds like someone took a big spoonful of the late nineties and poured it into a modern-day dnb jelly-mould. Basically, it's plenty trancey, with tinny house hi-hats incorporated into its breakbeat, and beautifully cheesy trance pianos and blaring synth lines completing the distinct flavour.


AC Slater - Jack Got Jacked (Jack Beats Remix)

So why not something more housey? I've gone all club here, but it's a cheeky one. Saw-synths cue blistering wobble mania.


Rusko - Cockney Thug


Yeah, definitely nothing subtle about this one. What could make dub even more in-your-face? Oh, apparently Vinnie Jones samples and synth-horn. 'WAKE THE FUCK UP'.

Boxcutter - Glyphic

But who said dubstep can't be subtle? I finally found a dub producer and album I consistently enjoy, but then again it's probably cos it's a crossover, dub roots smeared with IDM elements. A lonesome producer of this kind of music out in his homeland of Northern Ireland, this man does for dubstep what Squarepusher and Aphex Twin did for jungle back in the nineties. A slowly dragged out introduction proves worth the wait as the sound-scape is stuffed full of choppy bass wobbles and echoey effects. Probably my favourite track here.


Martyn - All I Have Is Memories

Staggering but chilled breakbeat here, with all the snappiness of earlier garage, but the intelligence of more modern electronica. It's a comedown track, but with plenty of kick for that 'mummy, I don't want to go home' feeling preceding a groggy homecoming, also right at home on a night-time drive.


Here's some I made earlier. 2003 was a good year for dnb it would seem.

Twisted Individual - Bandwagon Blues

Clowny to the extreme, the wobbles on TI's cheeky response to criticisms of their 'singular' sound are over the top in exactly the right kinda way.


Fresh - Signal

Back to the time when breaks were even more aggressive, changing from bar to bar like some ultra-violent bruce lee fight scene. Tasty.

2009 Runoff

In keeping with being CLASSICALLY behind, I'm about to venture yet again back to last year. I'm livin' in the past, what you gonna do about it?

So basically, I've spent the last year holding desperately onto some kind of tasteful independence from the subscribed list of what's good - AKA the Hype Machine.

It's clearly a fantastic resource and a great concept (to merge the collective tastes of hundreds of different music blogs) but I think it gets a bit circular as bloggers notice what other bloggers are saying is cool, then re-post the same music, so that it snowballs and something (very possible SHIT) that a few blogs liked early on becomes invincible in the snooty eyes of the musical blogosphere, and thrives on little more than hype. Hence, hype machine.

HAVING SAID THAT they just finished compiling their 2009 'musical zeitgeist' which listed the year's 50 best albums and artists and a handful of the most hyped tracks as per the musical dogma, and I was forced to eat a small delicatessen bag full of my own words. Yummy.

So, listening to their collection of top tracks, a few sprung out at me that made me feel guilty for leaving them out of my 2009 reminiscing. Here they are in all their outdated, mixt-ape-proving-wrong glory:




Florence + The Machine - You Got The Love (The XX Remix)

This one forced me to sulkily pour away a few of my preconceptions, like non-alcoholic beer you'd been sipping nonchalantly for hours under the impression it was regular 5%. Yeahp, I've been forced to sober up to realising that I might have been wrong about BOTH artists in the title. I've always been weirdly suspicious of female-fronted bands (it's probably cos girls are shit at music. :) ) and the XX seemed annoyingly sedate to me. Plus I was clearly suffering from that arrogant aversion to hype in both cases. But this remix in all its glittery splendour is making me think I shouldn't have ignored two of 2009's most prominent artists. It's fucking lovely, its staccato beats and deep bass are a bit reminiscent of old school UK garage (sweet, like chocolate boy?) but without the guilt that went with it, and the singers' replacement vocals perfectly fit the weirdly dispassionate yet emotional sound to the track (and the XX generally if I'm not wrong) before the actual Florence samples begin bleeding through, chopped up and knocked about with effects. This being the second Florence remix I've fucking loved (see Drumming Song remix a couple of posts down) my words might just end up in the shitter.



Sigur Rós vs Mobb Deep - Shook (Emancipator Mash Up)

Probably my favourite one here, although more for the Sigur side than Mobb Deep's, Emancipator takes Jonsi's vocals from an otherwise gentle and fluid track and supremely beats the shit out of it with a sampler, creating an entirely new melody, before Mobb Deep comes back from the nineties to bounce verse off of an otherwise soul-touching track. Still, he's totally allowed to, it's cool.




Notorious B.I.G. - Party And Bullshit (Ratatat Remix)

Here's where the hip hop can definitely happen. Biggie + Ratatat's cheeky production = beyond the grave satisfaction.


Radiohead - Reckoner (The Twelves Remix)

And I failed to hear this last year probably owing to my sensible suspicion of radiohead remixes. This one does pretty well though, the twelves seem to have a way with the upbeat transformation of very haunting minor songs (hear their remix of Fever Ray).


We Plants Are Happy Plants - Apollo

Unsigned euphoric bleepy electronica. I possibly only remembered this artist when mishearing the name as 'Weed Plants Are Happy Plants' which I reckon would be much better. Still, ears peeled for this one.


Yeah, so there are the ones I'll give Hype Machine. Well done lads and ladettes, you did good. Listen to these tracks and more on their radio show/podcast (and try to fight the temptation to kill things when their presenter speaks. She says EVERYTHING in the same tone of voice like she's a Californian freshman ready for spring break).

Randoms

Just a few tracks that slipped fresh into my ears in recent days, along with some pathetic links between each:

The Knife in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock - Colouring of Pigeons

Splashed all over bloggers this week like snow and swine flu dregs over the British public is this preview into the imminent project involving The Knife (Andersson's Fever Ray project still mustily wafting in 2009's wake, it being almost universally agreed upon as integral to the year's sonic zeitgeist). Basically, this track is one of many that will comprise a Danish opera based on Darwin's On the Origin of the Species. And yeah, it's about as weird as it sounds, though completely accessible. Expect this to be not only the first but the last post I ever make about opera. You can find out more on the group's website, and there's a free download of the track available to anyone who joins their mailing list. It's only about two clicks away, I'm not giving a direct link fool!


Collections of Colonies of Bees - Flocks III

From pigeons to birds in general. Not new this time, but equal in length (yeahp, both tracks are 11 minutes long, what you gonna do?) The group make up several parts of Volcano Choir, who I've blogged about already and released their album Unmap this year (listen for anyone too lazy to scroll down) in collaboration with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. They're all chums basically, and you can hear the distinctive emphatic swells in instrumentation throughout that both Jagjaguwar-signed artists share. It's essentially a very long and drawn-out lovely mess of traditional instruments sampled in a pseudo-ambient (it's not exactly sleepy) fashion, lots of guitars and repetitive cymbal rushes pieced together like electronica. It's either fantastically profound and complex or victim to a bit too much artistic license, but it sits well on the ears in any case. Try the whole album (Birds), this track was chosen just because it was the only one readily available for download, Flocks IV is actually superior.


Easy Star All-Stars - Airbag

Okay, the best I can do for some kind of link between this and the previous track is as follows: the last track had a lot of cymbal rushes, Thom Yorke released a track called Cymbal Rush (his live version alongside Flea was pretty special), Thom Yorke leads nicely on to Radiohead! Anyway, a massive drop in profundity there, it's the opening track to the dub reggae rework/cover of Radiohead's OK Computer, which seems to equally offend and impress previous fans (I think it's the fanboys who feel insulted. Get over yourselves). Does exactly what it says on the tin, it's the same track, pretty similar arrangement only with accentuated offbeat, horns, rasta vocals and dub-style delays. What I like about these dub reworks of classic albums (see Dub Side of the Moon, Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band) which overly-rigid radioheads don't seem to grasp is that the covers are respectful and playful. They know there's nothing serious about a reggae cover (although the musicianship and arrangements are pretty meticulous) and are only messing about with music they fully respect, leaving the melodies fairly well alone. All these do is provide a bit of a giggle and remind you what you loved about the albums in the first place. To me, Airbag is the definitive Radiohead track of all time (in what other track does each member's input shine through so strongly?) but I don't like this cover any less. The rework of Let Down on this album (Radiodread) is definitely the best - featuring Toots & The Maytals - but I've had that knocking about for ages. Even Thom Yorke himself heartily agreed that the Toots cover of the track was superior. Nuff said.


Future Prophecies - Dreadlock

And we've definitely hit rock bottom in the profundity pot here. It's some pretty old DnB, and it's definitely not the intelligent type. It just reappeared in my iTunes recently after I enjoyed it far too much (causing some temporarily dangerous driving, I'm not gonna lie) in an old Fabriclive mix. Plus, the title has a semantic link to the last track :) Expect a repetitive and coarse synth line. Shut up and take it like a man.

So long Paul MacInnes

Isn't the Guardian a beautiful thing? Proudly-intellectual leftyism aside, the cultural commentary provided in their weekly Saturday supplements the Guide and the Weekend never fails to prove insightful and entertaining. The love-children of these sections includes the fantastic Guardian music website and its regular and on-the-ball Music Weekly podcast.

Anyway, the chronological relevance of my unashamed arse-kissing here is that the long-standing main presenter of the podcast, the firm-tasted and (in terms of new music given the 'cool' label) hard-to-convince Paul MacInnes, has just had his last cast. Definitely worth checking out (I'd recommend a trip to the iTunes store to subscribe the the whole podcast), the last podcast summed up Music Weekly's place in 2009 through a series of exclusive live performances from guests they'd had on the show, including performances by Ellie Goulding (in one live track boosting my opinion of her) and Mumford & Sons. Although unrepresentatively acousticy, the mix of artists on this week's cast do mirror the variety yet persistent quirk rife on the podcast generally.

So anyways, I mourn the loss of the bloke, and hope the podcast retains its reliability without him - the man had a rarely free-of-bullshit attitude to music commentary and tastes which were comfortably compatible with mine. It's definitely worth checking out any previous episodes to reel in the last of his musical-taste-juices before his replacement comes in.

Oh, look, I didn't really talk about music at all. Just music journalism. And I gave away one of my sources! Fuck it, if there's one thing wrong with music blogs, it's their pretentious avoidance of mentioning the places where all their recommendations usually stem from. No, we're not all musical hunter-gatherers waiting by the proverbial stream for the first catch, we're just nicking the best crop from others' nets.

Definitive Christmas Mix

In keeping with my unavoidable keenness for shoving my music taste down people's throats, I carried on with my yearly tradition of making a series of individual compilation CDs for close friends this year as Christmas presents.

But is this nearly keen enough of me? Nope. I thought, fuck it, why not make a definitive mix-tape for the masses - one for those unlucky enough not to receive a CD in the first place, and for those who've already received one but JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH!

Although inevitably to translate to the universality of a blog, the purpose of this mix has become more of a 2009 gap-filler, a late opportunity to mention tracks and artists (mostly) little dwelt on in the posts below (I know I just said dwelt on by the way - big whoop, wanna fight about it?), as well as a rare moment to stray away from the usual confines of chronological relevance to my posts. That's to say, a lot of tracks here are a bit old, but have resurfaced in my attention or just come to my knowledge late. You'll get over it.

Now, I got a bit carried away with length, and got to the point where I could cull no more, feeling physically sick at the thought of deleting another track of the mix, but still having an 18-track-long mix, spanning 1.5 hours, so the mix takes the form of two phases. So basically, for those who can stomach it, it's meant to all flow together as one mix, but it's in two halves for convenience's sake.

Download links are to zip folders containing each track of each phase, all painstakingly re-tagged to preserve the order of the mix, so keep it that way yeah?

Phase I
(Tracks 1-10)

1. Dizraeli - Bomb Tesco

Things start off light-heartedly with some earthy-sounding homegrown white pseudo-hip-hop from the Bristolian dub poet/spoken word scenester/frontman for rootsy family-friendly reggae band Bad Science. It's basically a pretty whimsical fairy tale of Dizraeli starting a rhythmical revolution amongst the workers of a local supermarket ('In the car park a strange guy is playing a djembe/What a weird way to waste a wednesday') with the usual familiar British undertones and lyrical mastery that make Dizraeli special (yet fairly underground). For a more upbeat version try the Scifax DnB remix but also listen to some of the man's fantastic spoken word before this musical ship sets sail:

("And here are three kids, their mother aged 18/And they dream of stardom, watching the X-Factory/But they have no garden and nowhere to practice being/And therefore they wonder what they're there for/And why there's armed policemen outside Mr. Blair's door/Then they reach their teens and learn how to count up to ten Bensons/Hiding behind hedges burning pubescent tensions/What's progression? Let the Daily Mail write your star chart/This week you'll lose your virginity in a car park/Next week you'll take your first ecstacy pill, nine pints of white lightning and get messily ill/The week after that perhaps you'll get a job in Lidl")

Back to the music.

2. Nightmares On Wax - Jorgé

Bit of a jump back in time there, precisely a decade ago to some Warp-released chillout. A masterpiece of funky ambience, let that repeated vocal slide from ear to ear like Scarlett Johansson across butter. Lovely.

3. Pretty Lights - Hot Like Sauce

Let's take that inevitable journey from funk to hip hop, things are getting a bit exciting now... The man (/men?) behind this project knows his way around a sampler like Brosnan does a tux. The man passes Compton through a filter and comes up with a vial full of slick and bounce, while the crass runs off through a tube into dead air. It's fucking sweet basically, the smartest hip hop since DJ Shadow's better work. And the man gives away all his music for free alongside optional donations.

4. Alix Perez - The Cut Deepens (feat. Foreign Beggars)

Thinks are getting darker now... Perhaps a bit repetitive for some, but some more flowing and intelligent British rhyming (Although we're closer to South London now than Bristol) sit comfortably over this breakthrough young DnB producer's characteristically dark and minimal beats and tense horror-film strings. If there's another Kidulthood sequel this is gonna be in it.

5. Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart

We've passed through the hip hop gate now into something darker but less malevolent. Yup, it's 2009's favourite Swedish songstress, leaving her role as one half of The Knife (the duo responsible for the electro original of José González's 'Heartbeats') for her debut project as Fever Ray. I probably couldn't add anything to the numerous words music critics have had to say about the beautiful weirdness that her album exudes. The spooky and grandiosity of her arrangements that characterise her sound sometimes become transparent to reveal her charming Nordic quirk ("Accompany me by the kitchen sink/We talk about love, we talk about dishwater tablets") which is what really shines out for me. This track's all-encompassing bassy synth drone is layered with the singer's pitch-shifted ogre voice, which occasionally delves into normal frequencies to squeal into the echoey flanks of the track.

6. Florence + The Machine - Drumming Song (Boy 8-Bit Remix)

Firstly I'd like to point out the above isn't actually some kind of weird sum. I wouldn't know the answer. I've actually spent far too long ignoring her soulful voice but it baited me out of my stubborn female-vocalist-free cave like the smell of roast chicken in a Warner Brothers cartoon, having only listened to the track for the remixer (who released the excellently quirky club track Baltic Pine earlier this year). Don't be put off by the slightly repetitive lead line (shut up and take it) and give the man a chance to gradually unleash the full effect of Florence's vocal sample in a euphoric crescendo, alongside pulsing bass drums and tribal yet industrial snare crackles. Let it creep up on you and throw you about like a ragdoll before placing you gently back down amongst the sawdust of the song's subdued entrails...

7. Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler

...And you're up again dancing! We're back a couple of years to the birth of this production team, but it's still slick as fuck and unfalteringly sexy (watch the music video, you'll understand. Sorry ladies). If this is how good electro house sounds when it's so simple, why aren't they all doing it like this? What the fuck is you gonna do? What the fuck is you gonna do about it? Nothin.

8. Ratatat - Wildcat

While we're still here in 2007 let's pop back another year. Keeping the electro feel of the last track, we're dropping the sultry sexual undertones for the relative innocence and harmless quirk of this track. Gentle beats and simple synths sit alongside funky guitar lines and all come together in a tornado of buzzy electronic melody at the track's climax. And back down...

9. Animal Collective - My Girls

We're back in 2009, and did things just get echoey? Yeah they did. Enter the stereo-filling helmet of trilling retro synth repetition that marks the entrance to the personal highlight of this year's (probably) most buzzed about album Merriweather Post Pavilion. Rhythmically sparse and gripping, the track boasts chanty vocals and an acceptable degree of psychedelia.

10. Three Trapped Tigers - 6

And we're continuing in that mode of experimental indie/rock/electronica crossover. Lemme be lazy and just copy and paste how I summed up this track when I threw it on a monthly mix earlier this year: 'Sounds like Foals having acid-laced tea with Aphex Twin on the wall of China. Trust me'. Yeah I'm gonna go with that. And so finishes phase I. Please take this opportunity to get some light refreshments or take a toilet break and the show will resume in a short time.


Phase II
(Tracks 11-18)

In terms of energy, this phase is set to be the climax and comedown of the mix.

11. Enter Shikari - Havok B

How's this for a return to the fray? Enter Shikari doing what I think they do best: inventive dance/rock crossover intermission tracks for their albums. Let the provocatively subdued synth intro (the quiet before the storm) give way to a winning combination of grizzly distorted guitar rhythm and wobbles, before it all comes together in seamlessly rock-infused dubstep when the real elastic bassline announces its presence. Add rou's signature growling throat ejaculation and some pseudo-political chanting to round the whole thing off.

12. Dirtyphonics - Quarks

Now we're really getting somewhere. It's the only real submersion of this mix into something really dirty. It's like someone got the illegitimate love-child of drum 'n' bass's uncle that is dubstep to make friends with dnb once and for all. It sounds like either things worked out very well or very violently, as the characteristic tempo and buzz-saw synth lines of dnb give way to some serious wobbles. A reversion to classic dubstep tempo in the middle ensures dubstep gets his way. It's not subtle, and the near seven minutes it takes to complete its cycle is almost certainly unnecessary, but it does the job.

13. Klute - Hell Hath No Fury

We're still on the dnb train (which has inadvertantly travelled back to 2007) although things get refreshingly more jungle here, and we're entering the realms of the subtle for the final leg of the journey. Here incessantly evolving snappy jungle breaks storm through the sea of melodic piano ambience, with a result that's euphoric in a very distinctive way. This sound seems to encapsulate the long-standing purity of drum 'n' bass alongside the modernity of more experimental production. Nothing much changes, retaining that comforting sense of harmony, but there are just enough barely-present ambient swoops across your ears, as well as fluctuations in rhythm and melody for it not to get boring.

14. Sunchase - Violet

Don't prop your bags on your lap just yet, the drum and bass train is still well and truly on its way. Its clarity is warping somehow now, as sounds turn more refined and echoey. The continuous beat is met by a number of unexpected sonic rips and tears as the haunting piano melody drifting in and out of audible distance. Expect mind-numbing lapses into gentle ambience as the beat disappears, only for the melody to bait your attention into its disappearance, just before throwing the drop back in your face. Overall, it's stunningly beautiful and ever-changing, and the perfect soundtrack to a lonely night-time drive. Only don't take your eyes off the road, as the mix is becoming ever sleepier.

15. David Holmes - Hey Maggy

I'm afraid that beat's not coming back, it's ambience and lullabies from here on out. We're slipping back to last year for the next two tracks. Let those electronic lulls wash away to reveal a more acoustic ambient sound here, as Holmes unleashes the brilliance of his dream-like instrumental composition. Gentle guitar and piano harmonies are softened to the point of the whole mix sounding like a chocolate mousse (if that's possible). The man tends to write as if he were composing a film score, but this track is so unfalteringly peaceful and soul-calming that it's difficult to imagine images alongside it. For more similar stuff from the same album try The Ballad Of Sarah And Jack (The reason I bought the album in the first place.

16. The Acorn - Lullaby (Mountain)

Familiar musicianship returns here for a folkier number, albeit one with equal sleepiness potential. Having seen the band support Bon Iver a few months ago I felt their album was worth a chance and just about enjoyed it, despite being oddly unable to concentrate on it for more than a few seconds. That is up until the closing track, which abandons the vocalist for the more serene and gentle female croons of  Ohbijou's Casey Mecija, her angelic voice having at least as much hypnotic effect as the last track.

17. Jónsi & Alex - Boy 1904

No, I'm no avoid Sigur Rós fan (although more for foolish reasons of annoyance from listening to avid Sigur Rós fans drivel on about them) but the track Happiness from last year's Dark Was The Night compilation had be hooked, with its gentle repetition of fluid, barely-changing strings. This track utilises choral vocal samples to similar effect, the melodies drifting in and out as soothingly as (undeniably) some of Sigur Rós's quieter tracks.

18. Bop - Tears Of A Lonely Metaphysician

We're at the spiritual peak of the mix now, this track just about ready to float your consciousness off into auditory neverland. I've harped on about this producer no end in my college paper, but I can't help but feel it's just representative of the seamless awe that his music continues to stimulate in me. I won't go on about him, although for anyone ignorant you are completely obliged to download this micromix (right click, it's direct), but this track alone delivers a fairly concentrated payload of his ice-cold subtlety. Bop's characteristically soothing pads are met with the inconceivably emotive crackles and pops that reflect the song's title. Altogether unbeatably celestial. And so ends the mix, although you're probably asleep by now. I challenge anyone to listen to these last few tracks in bed and still be awake by the end. And I maintain that that's a good thing.