Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #47

After a small break, here's both the first post of 2009 and the first weekly mix of 2009. Because the last mix was a New Year's firecracker, this week's compilation is more about catching up on sleep after the holidays and the partying (okay, maybe I didn't exactly fill my holidays with partying, but I definitely stayed up late watching my A Bit of Fry and Laurie box set for several nights). This mix can be the antidote for your credit hangover headaches, or hangover headaches of the more conventional kind. Or this mix can act as a cure for those of you out there who are insomniacs. Although, when the temperature dips to -34 Celsius (which it is at the time of writing this), sometimes all you want to do is slow your heart rate to that of one comatose and hibernate until spring.

This mix takes in several mellow, dream-inducing genres like shoegaze, twee and ambient, and it encompasses the tinkling music box sounds that begin this compilation, including M83, Emilie Simon and soundtrack work from both Yann Tiersen and Trevor Jones; the light acoustics from Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Brett Anderson and Lanterns on the Lake; the soothing, twee pop of The Brunettes, The Bridal Shop and Camera Obscura; and the semi-aquatic murmurs of The Daysleepers, Japan, and Mazzy Star. This one is called Lullaby. Sweet dreams.

Violet Tree - M83

Chanson de Toile - Emilie Simon

La Valse d'Amelie (Orchestra Version) - Yann Tiersen

Sarah - Trevor Jones

Stay Awake - Asobi Seksu

Somewhere Around Here - Chairlift

Hope, You Know - Celestial

Chinese Whispers - Brett Anderson

Leave My Dreaming - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

I Love You, Sleepyhead - Lanterns on the Lake

Wall Poster Star - The Brunettes

Marine Thing - The Bridal Shop

A Sister's Social Agony - Camera Obscura

Twilight At Carbon Lake - Deerhunter

Pink Shadow - Mary Goes Round

Falling Sky - Autumn's Grey Solace

Space Whale Migration - The Daysleepers

The Experience of Swimming - Japan

Nothing Ever Dies - The Starlets

Andvari - Sigur Ros

Coast is Clear - Windermere

Not a Number - Apparat

Umbilical - Mazzy Star

"I bet that you look good on the dancefloor...but nowhere else": Mikrofisch's Masters of the Universe

Though Masters of the Universe by Mikrofisch released last year, I only just discovered it. I actually only just discovered Mikrofisch, so that could be part of the problem. Apparently, Mikrofisch began in 2001 when Mawe N. Klave and Silvi Wersi met in Cologne. Though they intended to cover The Smiths, they ended up producing original material, and a year later, they released their debut album Gleichstrom/Wechselstrom. After Wersi moved to London, the duo ended up recording Masters of the Universe over a three-year period, and the product is a magnificent anti-hipster shot in the arm. With lyrics like these, making countless music and pop culture references and observations about the trappings of being twenty-something in the 21st century, I'm surprised Klave and Wersi's tongues haven't come clean out the other side of their cheeks.

The album begins with Alien Monsters, a hilarious send-up of alien attack films complete with deadpan vocal delivery and rot-your-teeth twee background. Let's Kiss and Listen to Bis starts with a Peter Hook-like bassline and then '80s synthesizers kick in to augment a sweetness worthy of the twee mentioned. The narrators stalwartly refuse to make love to DFA; instead they want to regress into the '90s of their adolescence, including the Glaswegian pop-punksters. The '80s influence continues as arcade video game aesthetics, drum machines and vocoders cover the track Bad Hair Days with a retro veneer. Shifting into a more down-tempo feel, I Never Get Much Sleep on Weekdays emulates the catatonic state of the fatigued, apathetic twenty-somethings they sing about. The sarcasm and ennui drips off the chorus: "We're the twenty-somethings/We're the part-time punks/We got our records from Ebay and our clothes from H&M/Don't look back in anger/Today will okay/Tomorrow will be much like yesterday." The following track, Morrissey, Jeff Mangus, Stephin Merritt, John Darnielle, is a brilliant existential anthem for indie moper-loners everywhere.

Not only lonely indie songwriters get mentioned. Referencing the '60s model and muse of fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, Peggy Moffitt Look-alikes pops about like a soft drink or a fun fair as it satirizes those hipster girls who come to gigs dressed like thrift store mods. Then, whizzing into life and making a personificative address to the theremin, Drum Machines Will Save Mankind uses fuzzy, lo-fi synths and drum machines to revivify the twee genre - it's a bit like if someone decided to use Darling Buds songs in an Atari game. Then disco is given an 80s 8-bit makeover in Disco Fantasy as Klave and Wersi's vocals drift dreamily over top. They even use the galactic leitmotif that often comes with disco and funk music. The album then shifts into pure power-pop bliss with We Love You, a cutesy song ostensibly sung from the perspective of crazy fans, but which adds a brilliant twist to the narrative. It features a screamy chorus akin to Robots in Disguise or Chicks on Speed.

This is followed by one of my favourite tracks on the album, The Kids Are All Shite, which namechecks Brit indie rock mediocrity in monotone vocal delivery against an intense bassline. It lampoons the MySpace generation perfectly, including their propensity to follow "indie" trends slavishly and to idolize NME bands whose music plays in supermarkets "before the sell-out's even started" and who "all look like Johnny Ramone." One of the best lines is "I bet that you look good on the dancefloor, but nowhere else." The chorus also reminds me melodically of Depeche Mode's New Life. The record takes a slower turn with See You Next Tuesday, a delightful, electro anti-ballad with interplay between male and female vocals. The tempo comes back up for Evil Customer, a perfect track for anyone who's felt stifled by their city or town or chained to a crap retail job - they create a perfect contrast between the pleasant sing-song of a polite front and the deteriorating mental state of the narrator that descends into Tourette's-like hysteria by the end. Just as astute as Evil Customer, (No One Listens To You When You've Got) Flat Hair is one of the better songs I've ever heard about the mind-sickening "reality" of reality TV; the verses are delivered with a cool detachment like that of Black Box Recorder's Sarah Nixey. The record concludes with Focus On It, the harshest song on the album with its dirty, crunchy beats and its play on and with hypnotic trance and house genres.

With the generous use of drum machines and minimal synth sounds, there's something lo-fi and homemade about the record; indeed, it was recorded in various bedrooms and living rooms. At the same time, it is the perfect aural document of the love-hate no-win situation of being an indie music lover in the noughties. Mikrofisch intelligently deconstruct the world they live in while paying unironic tribute to the music they love. You can download the entire album for free here with the band's blessing. This album is a bit like finding a He-Man action figure inside a Kinder egg: a nostalgic but nerdy cool surprise inside a sweet, waxy chocolate shell. The perfect gift for a generation who know too much to care very much.

Let's Kiss and Listen to Bis - Mikrofisch

The Kids Are All Shite - Mikrofisch

Evil Customer - Mikrofisch

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #33

I've been realizing that within the past few years my music collection is not only growing in the anglophilic way but in a Scandinavian (scandinavilic?) way as well. I've been amassing music from all four corners of Scandinavia, especially in the genres of electro and jangle pop. Oddly enough, as much travelling as I've done in Europe, I've never been to any of the Scandinavian countries, but I always have this image in my mind of clean, progressive places where post-secondary education is free and society is more open. And everything would be . Up until about four years ago, I hadn't really thought of Scandinavian music at all. Sure, I liked the Danish Raveonettes and Norwegian Sondre Lerche, and I didn't like the Swedish Hives, and I was well aware of the disco behemoth ABBA, the music video prowess of a-ha, and the fact a lot of pop tarts and boy bands had their songs written by Swedes, but I didn't really think about how many truly exceptional bands and artists come from the Nordic countries.

Sweden, especially Gothenburg, seems to dominate the music scene in what would seem a rather disproportionate way. In fact, it's such a prolific scene that there's an MP3 blog dedicated just to Swedish music: Swedesplease. The sheer amount of material coming out of that country deserves its own IKEA storage system, and I will not attempt to give any comprehensive look at Swedish music, let alone all Norwegian, Danish and Finnish music as well. For a start, you can visit specific record labels that focus specifically on Scandinavian artists (at the moment Labrador, Despotz and Cosy Den come to mind). Scandinavian artists pillage older genres like Motown, surf rock, synthpop, and jangle pop to come up with some of the tweest and memorable pop tunes. At the other end of the spectrum, Scandinavian countries also seem to produce a lot of death metal. I don't like death metal.

(Relatively Random Tangent: I also think Scandinavians have created the patent for visually striking blonde-brunette duos, starting with ABBA, but continuing through The Raveonettes and The Deer Tracks.)

Because I had so many Scandinavian artists, I decided to make this mix a bit of a megamix with 28 tracks. Of course Sweden has the lion's share of artists featured (The Knife, Alice in Videoland, Zeigeist, The Tough Alliance, Air France, The Radio Dept., The Deer Tracks, The Cardigans, Twig, Peter, Bjorn and John, Elenette, Blind Terry, Irene, Pelle Carlberg, The Mary Onettes, The Sound of Arrows, El Perro Del Mar, Club 8), but there are also bands from Norway (Don Juan Dracula, Lorraine, a-ha, Bedroom Eyes, Sondre Lerche), Finland (Viola, Cats on Fire) and Denmark (The Raveonettes, Mew, Windermere). You get your electropop from the likes of The Knife, Alice in Videoland and The Tough Alliance while you get some truly airy and pretty tunes from The Deer Tracks, The Radio Dept. and Mew and some wonderful C86 from Blind Terry, Bedroom Eyes, El Perro Del Mar and Irene. And check out the Edwyn Collinsesque vocals of Twig. So put on your cultural stereotype hat, grab some meatballs, quickly assemble a chair to sit on and take a listen. I'll call this mix No Death Metal.

You Take My Breath Away - The Knife

Candy - Alice in Videoland

Sad Eyed Disco Dancers - Viola

No Control - Don Juan Dracula

Pressurized Chamber - Zeigeist

Touch Me - Lorraine

Living a Boy's Adventure Tale - a-ha

1981 - The Tough Alliance

Collapsing at Your Doorstep - Air France

Pulling Our Weight - The Radio Dept.

Slow Collision - The Deer Tracks

Am I Wry? No - Mew

Here Comes Mary - The Raveonettes

Lovefool - The Cardigans

Indigo - Twig

There's a Sun - Windermere

(Here's One For You) Underdog - Bedroom Eyes

The Chills - Peter, Bjorn and John

Jag hatar män - Elenette

The White Mantled King - Cats on Fire

When Prefab Sprout Wrecked My Mind - Blind Terry

Baby I Love Your Way - Irene

1983 (Pelle and Sebastian) - Pelle Carlberg

Void - The Mary Onettes

A Very Sad Song - The Sound of Arrows

People - El Perro Del Mar

Track You Down - Sondre Lerche

The Girl With the Northern Soul Collection - Club 8



Weekly Mix #33 (Megaupload)

Rekindling My Words: Kingfishers Catch Fire

I'm in one of those exhausted, used-up moods. With a bit of writer's block thrown in for grim measure. Blogs are a lot more work than I anticipated - I truly admire those who manage to blog everyday and yet have something substantial and interesting to say. I'm having one of those weeks where I just want to curl up with old music because all the newer stuff isn't inspiring me at all. I'm also still in the middle of cutting my 100-page thesis down into a 12-page paper to present at a conference next week. So I'm caught between a writer's block and a difficult headspace.

Despite my frantic scrabbling through some of the promotional emails I received in the past couple weeks to see if I could find something to write about, I came up empty-handed. However, through the serendipity of MySpace, I did manage to find a band that cleansed my brain of some of its cobwebs with its romantic, pastoral music. London duo, Kingfishers Catch Fire, which features William Robertson and Lucinda Godwin (not to be confused with the Australian band of the same name) is named for a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and captures my imagination in the way any sort of decadent/romantic literature does. While their music may just be for the sake of a creative outlet without any intention of selling it to anyone (it's too early to tell and there's something distinctly personal about it - as though you've stumbled across some poet's secret hideaway), I would definitely purchase it if it were ever for sale.

As stated in their MySpace profile, the songs are personal, presented with the fragility of a candied violet. Lily on the Grass begins with an acoustic guitar and a strain of violin that capture the simultaneous exhilaration and temporality of a beautiful moment: "But I can't help but sing/Foreboding notwithstanding/Lily on the grass, I'm delighted." It is the ephemeral nature of these sublime moments that makes them so perfect in the first place, and this song gently breathes that sentiment like sun-warmed grass. Thérèse has a darker undercurrent to it as the vocal swings between bittersweet melancholy and howling passion and electric guitars buzz in the background. Namechecking Rudolf Arnheim, the German art theorist/perceptual psychologist, Between Light and Dark sounds like a ramble over a forest floor blanketed with leaves in dappled autumn sunlight while the song actually entitled Autumn is delicate as lacework and fills my nostrils with the smoky, crisp scent of fall. The poetry of the lyrics in Autumn transports you back to a time when poetry was unabashed and ornamental and when language was wielded skillfully: "Boy wonder, torn asunder;/Blind mirror of a mercurial Nature./Sunrise 'phemeral world alive in amber/With a redwing in flight from the shade of a bower." Kingfishers Catch Fire's music makes me feel a Victorian picnic by a bubbling brook. A decadent garden party at a manor house. A place where Bright Young Things can congregate in the last hedonistic summer of their youth, where simply looking divine gives you immortality. Somewhere where people love and feel too deeply to survive very long.

It's nice to know that when I'm at a loss for words, music can gently coax them back.

Kingfishers Catch Fire's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/williamofellington

Thérèse - Kingfishers Catch Fire

Between Light and Dark - Kingfishers Catch Fire

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #13

So, lucky weekly mix number thirteen...and it's the inevitable C86 mix. Many others have written about the legendary C86 cassette from NME (after all, there's even an excellent blog called Indie MP3 - Keeping C86 Alive), and I doubt I have anything particularly new to add to the discussion. However, it continues to amaze me how one mail-order cassette spawned a genre, a scene, and an attitude toward music. Though NME had released a cassette five years earlier in conjunction with Rough Trade, appropriately titled C81, it never gained the same mythical status despite the fact that the artists featured on it, including Scritti Politti, Orange Juice, The Specials and Buzzcocks, were far more successful. In contrast, C86 included the likes of The Shrubs, Close Lobsters, and The Servants - not exactly well-known or long-lived. In fact, the only bands on C86 that really seem to have achieved longevity were Primal Scream, The Wedding Present and Half Man Half Biscuit.

Whether you call it jangle pop or twee or just plain shambolic, these artists came to represent the ultimate DIY aesthetic. Although the term C86 has come to mean almost exclusively twee, the actual original compilation featured many bands with an edgier sound. What is perhaps more important than whether these bands all fit into the same genre of sound is the way they came to define what it meant to be truly indie when indie still felt like a pure concept. Indie has become a completely irrelevant and bastardized term with the majority of those classified as indie actually on major labels and mainstream radio. However, with the advent of music blogs, there has been an increase in exposure for truly independent bands and even unsigned bands. In my perfect world, every band would be able to produce, distribute and promote their own music without overblown intervention from businesspeople. So while bands like Belle and Sebastian may owe their sound to C86, countless other bands owe their philosophy to it. Philosophically, C86 was like punk for the '80's.

The original tracklisting for C86 was:

Side One

Primal Scream - "Velocity Girl"
The Mighty Lemon Drops - "Happy Head"
The Soup Dragons - "Pleasantly Surprised"
The Wolfhounds - "Feeling So Strange Again"
The Bodines - "Therese"
Mighty Mighty - "Law"
Stump - "Buffalo"
Bogshed - "Run to the Temple"
A Witness - "Sharpened Sticks"
The Pastels - "Breaking Lines"
Age of Chance - "From Now On, This Will Be Your God"

Side Two

The Shop Assistants - "It's Up to You"
Close Lobsters - "Firestation Towers"
Miaow - "Sport Most Royal"
Half Man Half Biscuit - "I Hate Nerys Hughes (From The Heart)"
The Servants - "Transparent"
The Mackenzies - "Big Jim (There's no pubs in Heaven)"
Big Flame - "New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology)"
Fuzzbox - "Console Me"
McCarthy - "Celestial City"
The Shrubs - "Bullfighter's Bones"
The Wedding Present - "This Boy Can Wait"

Twenty years after the original C86, a double-disc CD, compiled by Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley, was released as CD86. Rather than a re-release of the original compilation, it celebrated many of the artists that weren't originally on the C86 tape, but that nevertheless were considered part of the C86 scene. While it still included the odd track from the original (Primal Scream's Velocity Girl, The Wedding Present's This Boy Can Wait) and alternative tracks from most of the original bands, it also included the likes of The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Pooh Sticks, Talulah Gosh, The June Brides, and The Darling Buds. Keeping with this idea, but expanding yet further to include other British indie bands of the '80's, I made my mix with some original C86 tracks, some tracks by original C86 artists (both the cassette ones and the CD ones), and then some other bands like Felt, Bubblegum Splash, and the superbly named Dalek Beach Party. Many of them are a little rough around the edges and quirky, but that's their charm. I'm going to call this mix I Don't Need Anyone, No Not Anyone At All. Perhaps C86 has become myth because it represents an ideal and and an innocence that seems pretty much impossible in the realm of the music industry.

Velocity Girl - Primal Scream

Plastic Smile - Bubblegum Splash

Close My Eyes - Strawberry Story

Penelope Tree - Felt

Wee Timorous Cowering Beastie - Dalek Beach Party

Charlton Heston - Stump

This Boy Can Wait - The Wedding Present

Disdain - Kind

He's Frank (Slight Return) - The Monochrome Set

This Town - The June Brides

I'm On the Side of Mankind As Much As the Next Man - McCarthy

Nothing to Be Done - The Pastels

Hit the Ground - The Darling Buds

Stop Killing Me - The Primitives

Happy Head - The Mighty Lemon Drops

Whole Wide World - The Soup Dragons

Safety Net - Shop Assistants

Transparent - The Servants

The Revolutionary Spirit - The Wild Swans

You're Kidding Aren't You - The Field Mice

Apple Orchard - Bouquet

It's a Fine Day - Jane