2020 mix tape
Now in YouTube and Spotify flavours, noting each platform is missing a different track.
Background if you care:
- Play Dead - Björk. I discovered that this track was a bonus track added to the Australian re-press of Debut. Despite it also being the third single released 'off the album', when I shared this on teh socialz a few people said they'd never heard it. It amazes me that this wasn't part of the original album, it fits so well. Though I like The Anchor Song, it's a challenging track to finish an album. Play Dead though... those soaring strings, big vocals and deceptively tricky drum line... what a finish. It's one of my Bjork favourites and I'm glad I got the allegedly obscure edition of Debut that included it.
- Pneuma - TOOL. Tool turned out to be my only gig of the year, thanks to the covid lockdown. First time I had properly seen them live - despite seeing them at Alternative Nation in '95, I knew them but wasn't a fan yet so that didn't really count. It was a great gig :)
- Catch 22 - Butterfingers. New album with an ecclectic mix, oddly this was the track I got stuck in my head the most (it was going to be this or Dem Billz for the mix tape).
- (not in youtube playlist) The House - Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer. Mr.B dropped perhaps the most-2020 album of 2020 with A Very Modern Existential Crisis. Songs of isolation, garden envy and the social minefield of Zoom calls.
- Inside - Moby. Having my own modern existential crisis, stuck at home, I went back to a fair bit of older music. This one's almost meditative.
- Skyhigh - Yan Cook. Yan Cook was both a new discovery and my most-listened artist of the year. Drawn in by some cool tutorial videos he's made about music production, I listened a live set mix and I just haven't enjoyed a mix as much as that in a long time. So this track stands in for a whole lot more.
- The Business - Tiësto. Not sure how I ran into this one, think it was a YouTube or Spotify recommendation/autoplay. At a tiny 2:41 it feels like a sketch for a full track that got cut off early, but the goofy film clip (zombie breakup song? why not I guess) and weird vocals got stuck in my head so here it is.
- Avenue - Paul Van Dyk. Another one from the vaults, turns out I'll never tire of Out There And Back (2000). I love the big sweeping lines of this track, but most of all the chirpy/bleepy bridge at around 4:15.
- Get Smart - Melbourne Ska Orchestra. Another YouTube discovery. It's just fun. I mean, why NOT do a ska version of the Get Smart theme?
- Sad but True - The Hu. I think we can all agree now that Metallica just wasn't Mongolian enough.
- Mad Poet - Phunkey Rhythm Doctor aka Cari Lekebusch. Somewhere along the line I got into a big 90s techno kick. As in, the actual genre Techno and not just 'some people call all electronic music techno'. A lot of this stuff is tenuously hanging on thanks to perilously-copyright-infringing YouTube rips of obscure limited-press vinyl. Some stuff is in Spotify/iTunes/Bandcamp though. Also I figure 14-20min tracks don't work well in the middle of the mix tape. So this is another kind of 'stand in' track for a whole lot of other stuff.
- (not in spotify playlist) Goth Night (2020 mix) - Cari Lekebusch, Krister Linder. Another Lekebusch track, although I didn't know it when I first picked these two so it stays in ;)
- The Blame Game - HVOB. This is used heavily in the soundtrack for Pikes Peak: On The Edge. So this track got in my head alongside images of cars ripping up the mountain, and it all just works together. Plus it's a weird crossover style of electronic and guitar, so I actually thought it was parts of two different songs until I gave this a listen. When you hit the change at 2:30 you can probably see why.
The Mr.B album isn't on YouTube, but you can listen on Bandcamp and Spotify:
The Yan Cook mix - my reaction to this is a bit complicated. Somewhere between wanting to dance in a very dark room, and feeling like I'm wrapped up in a warm blanket.
Whole playlist of 90s techno:
Honourable mentions to Leo's cover of Walk Like An Egyptian...
...and to The Police, think I need to spend some more time on their back catalogue.
Labels: mix tape
Post a Comment