Mux097: Iced Out

Available via some Droppable Box.

Somehow kinda really quiet. Probably because I had to take the A Place To Bury Strangers track way down and the Sonic Youth track way up.

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero (It's Blitz!)
2. YACHT - Beam Me Up (Shangri-La)
3. Hot Chip - Over And Over (The Warning)
4. Sleigh Bells - Crush (Reign of Terror)
5. Cloud Nothings - Separation (Attack On Memory)
6. A Place To Bury Strangers - I Lost You (Onwards To The Wall EP)
7. Sonic Youth - Wish Fulfillment (Dirty)
8. The National - Think You Can Wait (Single)
9. Frankie Rose - Apples For The Sun (partial edit) (Interstellar)
10. Wiping Out Thousands - Closer (Reaction Machine EP)*
11. Phantogram - 16 Years (Nightlife EP)

TRT 39:34

Rookies:
Frankie Rose
Wiping Out Thousands

Wiping Out Thousands is a Minneapolis duo. No, they aren't on here simply by dint of their locality; it's because I really dig their Reaction Machine EP, which you can get completely free at their bandcamp page.

Mux095: Still Burnsvillainous

Boxed.

1. Boris - Pink (Pink)
2. A Place To Bury Strangers - Onwards To The Wall (Onwards To The Wall EP)
3. Metric - Collect Call (Fantasies)
4. Real Estate - Younger Than Yesterday (Days)
5. The National - Exile Vilify (Single / Portal 2 soundtrack)
6. The Radio Dept. - A Token of Gratitude (Clinging To A Scheme)
7. The Flaming Lips - Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (The Soft Bulletin)
8. Cloud Nothings - Wasted Days (Attack On Memory)

TRT 38:13

Rookies:
Cloud Nothings

Mux075: Spring Feverish

You know the drill.

1. Joy Division - Failures
2. A Place To Bury Strangers - Deadbeat
3. PS I Love You - 2012
4. The National - Blank Slate
5. Japandroids - Crazy/Forever
6. Radiohead - Optimistic
7. The Joggers - Since You're Already Up
8. The Kills - Heart Is A Beating Drum
9. The Rural Alberta Advantage - The Dethbridge In Lethbridge
10. Marnie Stern - The Things You Notice
11. Bear In Heaven - Ultimate Satisfaction

I was going to start a little feature called the HALL OF FAME, in which I honor the exceptionally-rare albums in which all their tracks have been on muxes. But it's pretty apparent that said Fame-Hall might only get one entry by dint of its few tracks:



Congratulations to Japandroids, whose 2009 album Post-Nothing (MPC's 2009 Album of the Year) and its eight tracks have been cannibalized across nine muxes.

The tracklists are valid but the download links are dead (yell at me if you want them fixed), and here is the Post-Nothing lineup with its corresponding mux:

1. The Boys Are Leaving Town (Mux036: October 2009)
2. Young Hearts Spark Fire (Mux030: Oh Nine)
3. Wet Hair (Mux022: May 2009)
4. Rockers East Vancouver (Mux073: Lousy Smarch Weather)
5. Heart Sweats (Mux026: August 2009)
6. Crazy/Forever (Mux075 and you're already there)
7. Sovereignty (Mux023: June 2009)
8. I Quit Girls (Mux071: Muxsplosion)

This feat may never be repeated. To knock Jpndrds just a tad, their LP is kind of within EP-length territory, but it speaks volumes when an entire record is solid front-to-back. Kind of like Weezer's The Blue Album. Hmm. Too bad I'm not a big fan of "Holiday," and I'd really need a huge gap to close with "Only In Dreams."

The Archive: Mux007: Noisy

Lest they fade into oblivion, I've taken the task upon myself to listen to all my Muxes. If nothing else, it's a nice progression of my listening tastes starting way back in May 2008.

While most are pretty good (that is, back in the era before I was totally obsessed with sequencing), there are some surprises that, like grandmaster Mux028, just flow.

One such is Mux007: Noisy, which, in this horrific post-drop.io world, has been added to my Dropbox. Hit it up, and here are the tracks:

1. No Age - Teen Creeps
2. Sleater-Kinney - Wilderness
3. TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun
4. Son of Supercar - When Have I Been Wrong?
5. Les Savy Fav - Raging In The Plague Age
6. A Place To Bury Strangers - Don't Think Lover
7. Broken Social Scene - Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)
8. Jay Reatard - Turning Blue (Blood Visions versions)
9. Crystal Castles - Alice Practice
10. The Knife - We Share Our Mothers' Health
11. Justice - New Jack
12. Junior Boys - Last Exit (Fennesz Mix)

And that "We Share Our Mothers' Health" to "New Jack" transition? Get out of here.

JDK's 2009 in Rock

Everyone loves a good gun-jumping. And, while I figure everyone is either on break or about to travel to said break, here's one of four year-end mixes I made that could soundtrack some of that holiday fun/mind-numbing boredom.

Also: I won't be doing any best-of-decade lists. Forget that shit; if I can't figure out what my favorites of the 1990s were, forget the 00s. And you need some hindsight, people.

So here are some of my favorite rock songs of the year. Their respective albums might not have made my list of favorite albums, but these tracks definitely stand out.

Download or stream via drop.io

1. Metric - Help I'm Alive
2. Phoenix - 1901
3. The National - So Far Around The Bend
4. The Thermals - Now We Can See
5. Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
6. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Young Adult Friction
7. Future of the Left - Arming Eritrea
8. Oneida - I Will Haunt You
9. Spoon - Got Nuffin'
10. A Place To Bury Strangers - Ego Death
11. Japandroids - Sovereignty
12. We Were Promised Jetpacks - Quiet Little Voices
13. Franz Ferdinand - Lucid Dreams (Single + Album Version JDK Megamix)
14. The Antlers - Bear

Tomorrow: some of my favorite electronic songs of the year. Thursday: favorite "random" songs of the year (e.g. some hip-hop, some weird stuff, etc.). Friday: my favorite songs at this point in my life (sans "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins because somehow I forgot it). Saturday: All the albums I listened to plus my eight most favorites. Sunday: Notable albums that didn't make the top-eight cut.

Mux005: September 2008, the reissue

It's finally over.

Dropped.

1. Interpol - Untitled
2. Oxford Collapse - Electric Arc
3. Jay Reatard - See/Saw
4. A Place To Bury Strangers - To Fix The Gash In Your Head
5. Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes
6. The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You
7. The Ting Tings - Great DJ
8. Cut Copy - The Twilight
9. The National - Available
10. Chin Up Chin Up - Collide the Tide
11. Born Ruffians - Kurt Vonnegut
12. The Walkmen - New Country

Mux006: September 2008, the reissue

One. More. To. Go.

But despite my more-than-usual muxing compared to, say, when Muxtape first came around and I did just one per month, I should point out that September 2008 takes the record with four muxes.

And here is the second of said four.

1. Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow and Blue
2. Oxford Collapse - Featherbeds
3. Vampire Weekend - Bryn
4. Pavement - Gold Soundz
5. Okkervil River - Unless It's Kicks
6. Franz Ferdinand - All My Friends (LCD Soundsystem Cover)
7. Broken Social Scene - New Country (Live at KRVX)
8. The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)
9. Joy Division - Shadowplay
10. A Place To Bury Strangers - Ocean
11. Spoon - The Ghost of You Lingers
12. Jonathan Mak / Everyday Shooter - So Many Ways

Mux007: Noisy, the reissue

The madness is almost done.

Dropped.

1. No Age - Teen Creeps
2. Sleater-Kinney - Wilderness
3. TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun
4. Son of Supercar - When Have I Been Wrong?
5. Les Savy Fav - Raging in the Plague Age
6. A Place To Bury Strangers - Don't Think Lover
7. Broken Social Scene - Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)
8. Jay Reatard - Turning Blue (Blood Visions Version)
9. Crystal Castles - Alice Practice
10. The Knife - We Share Our Mother's Health
11. Justice - New Jack
12. Junior Boys - Last Exit (Fennesz Mix)

Mux010: Semi-Noisy, the reissue

Just five to go.

Reissued.

1. A Place To Bury Strangers - Missing You
2. Jay Reatard - My Shadow
3. No Age - Sleeper Hold
4. Vivian Girls - Tell the World
5. Nirvana - Lithium
6. Stephen Malkmus - Baltimore
7. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Details of the War
8. Brendan Canning - Antique Bull
9. Deerhunter - Nothing Ever Happened
10. Les Savy Fav - Scotchgard the Credit Card
11. David Holmes - Holy Pictures
12. Liars - The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack

Mux011: October 2008, the reissue

Goddamn shot lists making me work past 2 p.m. Unreasonable!

You know what to do.

1. Fucked Up - Son the Father
2. A Place To Bury Strangers - My Weakness
3. The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
4. The Walkmen - In the New Year
5. Jay Reatard - Trapped Herer
6. Max Richter - A Song For H / Far Away
7. Mount Eerie - Lost Wisdom
8. Brendan Canning - Chameleon
9. Deerhunter - Microcastle
10. Kevin Drew - Frightening Lives
11. Marnie Stern - The Crippled Jazzer
12. Crystal Castles - Tell Me What To Swallow

Mux039: November 2009

I'm going out of town from Halloween until the 9th, so consider this the official chunk of the Pitchfork 500 month-starting mux. And yes, I legitimately like a Weezer track off Raditude, which is surprisingly better than The Red Album. But there's nothing nearly as good as "Pork And Beans."

But anyways--

Download via drop.io.

1. Broken Social Scene - KC Accidental
2. The Exploding Hearts - Modern Kicks
3. Weezer - (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To
4. Guided By Voices - Chasing Heather Crazy
5. Les Savy Fav - The Sweat Descends
6. A Place To Bury Strangers - Keep Slipping Away
7. David Byrne and Brian Eno - Strange Overtones
8. Elliott Smith - A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free
9. The Dismemberment Plan - The Face of The Earth
10. Okkervil River - For Real
11. Smog - Dress Sexy At My Funeral
12. Wilco & Feist - You And I

Two more albums on my shortlist for the year's best

Mux034: Minimux

Consider this the EP of the Muxtapes. And oh, yeah, it's noisy. Handy drop.io download link. 1. Fuck Buttons - Surf Solar 2. HEALTH - Die Slow 3. A Place To Bury Strangers - Ego Death 4. Radiohead - These Are My Twisted Words

Hey look a mixtape

The third for October. Starts with two abrasive tracks and then gets a little indie and then all the way around somewhere.

1. Fucked Up - Son the Father
   
2. A Place to Bury Strangers - My Weakness
   
3. The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
   
4. The Walkmen - In the New Year
   
5. Jay Reatard - Trapped Here
   
6. Max Richter - A Song For H/Far Away
   
7. Mount Eerie - Lost Wisdom
   
8. Brendan Canning - Chameleon
   
9. Deerhunter - Microcastle
   
10. Kevin Drew - Frightening Lives
    
11. Marnie Stern - The Crippled Jazzer
    
12. Crystal Castles - Tell Me What To Swallow

The last track is one of my favorite songs of the year (and totally out of place on their album), and the intro is so jarring that I've never been able to get it to transition well on a mixtape. It still doesn't mesh, but fuck it, it's a great song.

Another semi-noisy mux

How this turned into a mixtape blog, I'll never be certain. But lo! Another mix/mux/whatever that warrants my standard preface: it starts out a bit noisy, but it smooths out into less in-the-red rock by the time "Lithium" hits. Thus, the tracklist:

1. A Place to Bury Strangers - Missing You
   
2. Jay Reatard - My Shadow
   
3. No Age - Sleeper Hold
   
4. Vivian Girls - Tell the World
   
5. Nirvana - Lithium
   
6. Stephen Malkmus - Baltimore
   
7. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Details of the War
   
8. Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene) - Antique Bull
   
9. Deerhunter - Nothing Ever Happened
   
10. Les Savy Fav - Scotchgard the Credit Card
    
11. David Holmes - Holy Pictures
    
12. Liars - The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack

Speaking of Deerhunter, I'm really into their LP Microcastle. Considering, of course, that I was really lukewarm on Cryptograms and their Fluorescent Grey EP, and that I think Bradford Cox should get his blogging rights revoked. Also, Atlas Sound was a bit too out there for me, or maybe I didn't want to hear a bedroom-rock record about Cox just talking about Oh So Horrible his teenage years were. But Microcastle digs in with some solid rock hooks, as evidenced on the jammy "Nothing Ever Happened," and outside of the fits-well-with-the-album-but-slow-on-its-own mellow middle, Microcastle has many solid tracks worthy of getting it on MPC's prestigious year-end best-of list. Dare I even hint that it might be tied with No Age for my favorite rock record of the year?

Oh, right, film update: Finishing up my master schedule today, then rehearsing, shooting inserts and cutaways, and creating some props before I shoot from Saturday through Thursday. I hope my camera holds out, and I hope my arriving-tomorrow deck works in the way I expect it to work.

Early Shooting / Another September Mux

My three time chunks of shooting Transmissions are fast approaching, and my daily pre-pro has kicked into medium-high gear. I'm pretty far down the film's own rabbit hole, and it's strange to think the genesis of the project only began after I finished something else in early July; only two and three-quarter months of this thus far, while all my other projects and stories have been measured by years.

A few things snuck up on me: a major shooting-schedule change; and then another; and another. Another came the other day, and my four days in early October has turned into three. This vagueness warrants a simple explanation: I'm shooting at my parents' house, and for sound and continuity and whatnot, I need to have the house under my exclusive control, e.g. they need to be somewhere else. In early October they're going to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit my grandmother, but the four-day trip was downgraded to three and, well, I don't blame them. Yes, the Upper Peninsula is quite picturesque, but said picturesqueness can only sustain interest for a maximum of about thirty-six hours.

So tomorrow, said parents are shooting a wedding all day, and it looks like I have to turn my planned day of Test Shoots #3 into a partial day of Real Shooting. Nothing major, only some inserts and close-ups of inanimate objects. But having to adapt my finely-tuned scheduled this close to the shoot really rattled me, and I had to rethink my whole strategy. I'm not exactly gunslinging this; it's still as planned and well-coordinated as any one-man film can be.

But still, tomorrow I start shooting and will probably shoot whenever I have a spare hours on hand instead of my original plan of going hardcore for a few select days. So if there was any time to justify my upcoming/relative reclusiveness, now would be that time. But I feel good about the project, and unlike the abandoned Old War and a bunch of other stuff that never got off the ground (a few shorts, a few ideas, a few scripts), I have the confidence to see this one through.

So: Shooting randomly now; shooting not-so-randomly through most of October and early November; then finishing it sometime before February. Considering I'm doing the brunt of the post-production sound work now, the picture editing shouldn't take very long.

And oh yeah here's another muxtape. The tracks before you take the potential dive:

1. Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow, and Blue
   
2. Oxford Collapse - Featherbeds
   
3. Vampire Weekend - Bryn
   
4. Pavement - Gold Soundz
   
5. Okkervil River - Because It's Kicks (special JDK edit)
   
6. Franz Ferdinand - All My Friends (LCD Soundsystem cover)
   
7. Broken Social Scene - New Country (Live at KRVX)
   
8. The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)
   
9. Joy Division - Shadowplay
   
10. A Place To Bury Strangers - Ocean (JDK edit)
    
11. Spoon - The Ghost of You Lingers (JDK edit)
    
12. Everyday Shooter - So Many Ways