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.