00101010010101110010101011100101010:
A COSMIC BUM TRIP

The first thing to consider was the medium - even the best of all possible mixtapes can't save humanity if the aliens can't play it back. I assumed they wouldn't have CD players or turntables, but if they've mastered space travel, they must have at least mastered binary, and if they've mastered binary then they've most likely mastered some form of binary encoding that could at least be converted from an .mp3. So I chose to send them my mix as binary images of the files.

Included on the first page are simple pictorial instructions for decoding the images. A colored dot represents a 1; a white or black dot represents a 0. I chose small .mp3s - 128k - so the aliens won't have much to decode. Track one, for example, is four minutes and 38 seconds. 128 kbs * 276 seconds = 35,328,000 bytes of audio, or 282,624,000 bits. At 32 bits per pixel (a nice color-space) we get a 2972x2972 image.

I tried to make the mix as much of a bummer as I could, in the hopes that by the end of the mix they'll be too bummed out to blow us up or whatever. I have been listening to it a lot since putting it together, and it would be hard to get in a xenocidal mood.

1. Grouper - "Come Softly"
2. Brian Eno - "By This River"
3. Desire - "Colorless Sky"
4. Julee Cruise - "I Remember"
5. Gigi Masin - "Call Me"
6. Hatchback - "Orinoco Waltz"
7. Roger - "Emotions (OPN RMX)"

TRANSMISSIONS FROM HUMANITY

Recipient/Alien Overlord: Matt Neubert
Creator: Brady Harvey

Ok you guys, I am the WORST at getting anything done. I most likely would never be able to save the human race on my own due to tardiness and procrastination. Some of these were obv. I mean, what alien is gonna say no to an MJ dance party? C'MON!! Also I made you a tiny radio that will look like it's been to space and back once you get it in the mail. JAMMIN

Dearest Aliens,

Enclosed is an audial interpretation of the lovely range of experiences & emotions humans go through every day– loneliness, love, anger, jealously, happiness, revolt, sex, loss, our beliefs and so on. Some of these songs are simple, and delicate, while others are just pure rock n roll. There are millions of us on this planet, and even though we come from different backgrounds, we all have the same complex feelings..Please don’t kill us off, we’d love to stick around and show you what we’re made of.

Tracklist:
1. People of the Earth - GRAHAM COXON
2. Picture Book - THE KINKS
3. Billie Jean - MICHAEL JACKSON
4. This is Hardcore - PULP
5. Et Meme - FRANCOISE HARDY
6. Communication Breakdown - LED ZEPPELIN
7. True Love Will Find You In the End - DANIEL JOHNSTON
8. A New England - BILLY BRAGG
9. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - GIL-SCOTT HERON
10. Eliminator Jr. - SONIC YOUTH
11. Because - THE BEATLES
12. Johnny B Goode - CHUCK BERRY
13. Baby's Arms - KURT VILE
14. My Sweet Lord - GEORGE HARRISON
15. This Is the Day - THE THE
16. Don't Bring Me Down - ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA

Aliens Attack

 

With the theme of aliens, I knew I had to make a space ship of some sort...

 

 

 

So, here is the CD case/ship. The top is made from a wood bowl I found at Value Village. I sanded the foot down so that it wouldn't be as flat on top. I added the nubs, made the bottom half of the saucer out of a scrap of MDF, and welded up some legs. Then I painted it all silverish. The only problem is that it is top heavy when open, but it can always lean on a wall.

Inside is a three-eyed alien I made to fly the ship. The CD is under the wing nut.


As for the music, I went with the idea the idea of aliens arriving on a planet and the stages of their reception. The songs work themselves through the alien arrival, the leaders of the planet welcoming them with false promises, the fear of the general public, the fighting and threats of fighting, the doomsayers, the riots, and finally the coming together of everyone - the party!

1. Humans From Earth - T. Bone Burnett
2. Amerykan Promise - Eryka Badu
3. Y'all Scared - Outcast feat. T-Mo, Big Gipp, and Khujo
4. Something Wicked - 2Pac
5. Demolition Man - Grace Jones
6. Mama Said Knock You Out - LL Cool J
7. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' - Michael Jackson
8. Superstition - Stevie Wonder
9. Sign O' The Times - Prince
10. Fire - Ohio Players
11. Survival - The O'Jays
12. Save Me - James Knight and The Butlers
13. Synchronicity I - The Police
14. Rhythm Nation - Janet Jackson
15. There's A Party - NASA feat. George Clinton

The Joyous Cosmology

The Joyous Cosmology

129 Meters. Round 3. FDR Fuckin' Werewolf!!!!

Recipient: Brady Harvey

Creator: Anna Kronzer

Commentary:

When brainstorming this, I had a difficult time. By the time I sat down to actually make it, I had very little in mind as far as what the songs would be. I kept feeling like I should find the BEST, or most EPIC, or most BEAUTIFUL pieces of music in the world. But it's really hard to make those calls. So I just started looking through my music, and ignored those thoughts and then it came together pretty quickly. My choices were based on various things: I chose songs that seem exuberant or dramatic or hyperbolic in some ways, just to show the aliens what a strong capacity for depth of emotion we humans have. I chose songs with lyrics that described what the world would be like should they end it or kill us. I chose songs that describe the earth. I chose a few weird songs, thinking they might better relate to them. And I chose songs I love. 

The packaging consists of the book The Joyous Cosmology, with a CD sleeve at the end.

Brady, you are the cutest little alien and I have faith you'll make the right decision. 

Track listing: 

1. Love, Love, Love (Everyone) - Akron/Family

2. I Hear a New World - Joe Meek

3. The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore - The Walker Brothers

4. All The Sun That Shines - Peaking Lights

5. The Glorious Land - PJ Harvey

6. Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen - The Andrews Sisters

7. It's Obvious - Au Pairs

8. From The Rivers To The Ocean - Bill Callahan

9. Disaster - Besnard Lakes

10. Tick Tock - The Kelley Deal 6000

11. To The East - Electrelane

12. Plains of Nazca (edit) - Sun Dial

13. Farewell Transmission - Songs: Ohia

14. The Purple Bottle - Animal Collective

15. Spaceships - The Telescopes

16. Revolution #9 - The Beatles

Hey Aliens, We Like It Here! Bob to Jessi

This was pretty tough. I started by compiling every song I had that involved space, aliens, war, death, and being good (all of the songs). I put on Journey's Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) on first because it's hilarious and great and people need to relax about not liking Journey. After that I kind of based the rest off of that vibe. I tried to make a pretty diverse mix of songs that Jessi-Aliens would like enough to beam down from their space crafts and just party, man.

The packaging is inspired by the gold record shot into space by Carl Sagan and some scienteists. It is supposed to contain music and audio that would best represent the entire human race and its existence. Apparently it is still floating in space, waiting to be picked up by a hip alien race that still listens to vinyl. I spray painted a record I never listen to gold and then slipped the CD in the sleeve.

TRACK LIST:
1. Maggot Brain - Funkadelic
2. 30 Century Man - Scot Walker
3. Solitude Is Bliss - Tame Impala
4. To Be Happy Too - Curtiss A
5. Bow Down And Die - Almighty Defenders
6. Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
7. Cat People (Putting Out Fire) - David Bowie
8. Heaven or Hell - Salt-N-Pepa
9. Gold Dust Women - Fleetwood Mac
10. Cover Me - Bruce Springsteen
11. Comfortable Home (A True Story) - Ty Segall
12. London's Burning - The Clash
13. Beds Are Burning - Midnight Oil
14. Strange Magic - ELO
15. Hairdresser On Fire - Morrissey
16. Us V Them - LCS Soundsystem
17. Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) - Journey

Recent Findings from the White Heart of Beta Solae VII

129M - Round 3 - FDR Fuckin' Werewolf!!!!!

Recipient: Rosa Castaneda
Creat0r: Jacob McMurray
Mix dropbox link: HERE

Blog commentary: This one was a hard one for me. I kind of ignored thinking about it for 2 weeks and then realized, "shit, I have to get on the ball and figure this out!!" The hardest part was coming up with a rational, at least to me, reason why to choose what tracks. I finally decided that if I was tasked with impressing a flotilla of inscrutable alien invaders enough to spare our planet, it'd be futile for me to try and show the utter diversity and wondrous infinity that is the world. I just couldn't do that, since only a tiny tiny slice has been experienced by me. I couldn't do the world justice, not in a million years. Then I realized that since I was a citizen of the Earth, I was also a representative sample, and if I focused on what music totally moved me personally, that might be the best tack, since I could certainly represent myself better than I could represent the whole of the Earth. And maybe in that way, I could impress the fuckers not to stomp on our planet.
   After that it was easier. I had an initial selection of 90+ songs, that I whittled down to 18 songs. On second thought, that part was really hard. And kind of depressing, since the resulting list that I came up with didn't feel very surprising to me - as in, I don't think anyone would really find these songs to be surprising picks from me. I kind of felt a little musically stagnant when I realized that. But then I figured that most of these songs made an impact on me at a certain point in my life where I gave a shit about the music probably a little bit more than I do now. Not that I don't care about it now, but I think I just don't have the bandwidth to have my mind blown to quite that capacity or intensity level anymore. So then I didn't feel so bad. (At least that's my rationalization to make myself feel better). Once I had the tracks, I was equally stumped on the packaging, finally deciding to play further with the sf-nal premise of the theme, and incorporate my usual favorites things: libraries/archaeology/books/design. So I made this ridiculous 48 page book (link to a pdf of interior spreads), repurposed a ton of design imagery that I had created over the past decade, and printed the thing via blurb.com.

   Rosa, I hope you enjoy this and spare the planet. You Must Decide!
   Oh, and the Kool Keith song at the beginning is 50% a joke, but it was a good, weird and funny song to kick it off.

Recent Findings from the White Heart of Beta Solae VII
by Sevniline Uyur

INTRODUCTION

During Fevren Year 1493.A26y, I received an interesting comm from a colleague, the Esteemed Weyshlan Apu-Punchau, stationed on the Culture Plate What Has Two Thumbs And…, currently orbiting the blue gas giant Beta Solae VII. Apu-Punchau and its researchers were dimension-mapping the white hole gnawing at the heart of the impressive stellar furnace and interleaved within their topographical shift data was significant noise that didn’t correlate with recent solar or singularity flux. The noise alone wasn’t necessarily odd – it is a white hole after all, with all the weird physics that accompany one. It was the structure, repetition, and interval that was curious. My colleague hyped me a copy of their dataset and using their typical readings, I was able to strip out the legitimate mining data, leaving the offending effluence. Keying off of repeating handles and gaps, and with a ​
battery of environmental and non-Euclidian filters, a intelligible comm of sorts revealed itself. Why it was subsumed within the mining data signal is the mystery. Consulting with Apu-Punchau, as well as checking outgoing and incoming comms/xmissions and the localized data ovoid surrounding
Beta Solae revealed no correlations – leaving only the perplexing conclusion: the comm was transmitted through the white hole itself!

Who was the transmission from? Where did it come from? Our universe, or another? As this has never occurred before, at least according to resources available in the Library (which are nigh-infinite), you can understand the excitement generated by the community at large. Over the last several monad, the comm has been thoroughly examined and is presented here in the following blads for your assessment, with little comment or speculation – insert on the Aether at any node and follow the myriad theories in depth.

Sevniline Uyur,
Senior Research Librarian
Third Encyclopedia of Tlön

PLEA

The original communication language, which is standard sub*Cal_4x-based, but as with other examples of that mongrel language, gives no real clues as to the provenance of the source civ. For ease of use, it has been translated into modern Marain and tesselated into fractal variants for localisation.

Oh Sister,

I, merely one among billions of our only Urth, have been chosen by the ruling Gang of Four to represent our planet and species during this imminent travail. Your motivations are unknown to us, your visage monolithic and resolute, and our rejoinders toward your Decree so far impotent. As a last and desperate attempt at parley, I can only call upon as salvation the import of what we do share: sentience. So precious and rare amongst the black seas of infinity, so easily extinguished. Let us be siblings, traversing the fustian void together, not apart!
    I could attempt to present Urth’s fecund diversity and endless wonders, but as I am me, I can give you only that with which I am most intimate: my passions, my emotions, my innermost thoughts, my yearning toward the Increate. Against hope, mayhaps this humble offering will resonate and sway your inexorable encroachment. Accept this vessel with solace and friendship, Sister.

A Citizen

 TRACKLISTING

1. “Intro” - Kool Keith - Black Elvis/Lost in Space, 1999 = savant insanity
2. “Thalassocracy” - Frank Black - Teenager of the Year, 1994 = highbrow squawk
3. “Satan” - Deerhoof - Holdypaws, 1999 = naive trickster
4. “Cristo Redentor” - Donald Byrd - A New Perspective, 1963 = sublime reverence
5. “Only Shallow” - My Bloody Valentine - Loveless, 1991 = impressionistic bliss
6. “Black Eyed Dog” - Nick Drake - Time of No Reply, 1986 = haunting despair
7. “Banned in D.C.” - Bad Brains - Bad Brains, 1982 = jackhammer nihilism
8. “Expressway to Yr. Skull” - Sonic Youth - EVOL, 1986 = paradigm shift
9. “Gently Johnny” - Magnet - The Wicker Man soundtrack, 1973 = wistful fecundity
10. “Auditorium” - Guided by Voices - Alien Lanes, 1995 = neolithic dadaism
11. “The True Wheel” - Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), 1974 = pre-verbal jubilance
12. “Baby” - Os Mutantes - Jardim Elétrico, 1971 = sunburnt love
13. “Shangri-La” - The Kinks - Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), 1969 = ritual acceptance
14. “Dance of the Inhabitants of the Invisible City of Bladensburg” - John Fahey - The Yellow Princess, 1968 = autumn reverence
15. “Beat Bop” - Rammellzee and K-Rob - Beat Bop 12", 1983 = street surrealism
16. “From the Nursery” - Wire - Chairs Missing, 1978 = potential energy
17. “So Shy” - Sam Prekop - Sam Prekop, 1999 = lush security
18. “Will the Night” - Low - Secret Name, 1999 = final goodbyes

EPILOGUE

So what really happened with this, the Tompule-Wallabi of our times? The goal of this publication is to merely present, but how can you not speculate, even a little? The planet Urth is absent from any current charts, perhaps arguing that the Citizen’s Plea failed. Or maybe it was heard and made an impact on the equally opaque aggressors, who re-evaluated their trajectory and spared the Urthan sphere from (assumed) annihilation. And since we are now fully in the demesne of conjecture, possibly that decision caused a paradigm shift, a civ-wide species reflection resulting in the eventual societal sublimation into some upper-dimensional afterlife? Equally possible given the utter dearth of data, beyond the comm itself. Who knows. The unfortunate aspect of forays into civ-level archaeology of obscure sub-galactic localities is that answers are often not forthcoming. The universe is too vast, the civs come and gone innumerable, and unfortunately, academic research budgets far too limited.

MIX IMAGES

(Check out the whole layout here)

Theme: Color Bomb
Recipient: Brady Harvey

October, 2012, Colour Bomb. For Jacob

I had a few ideas for this, but ended up going with color songs that I like, and when my OCD-ness took over, I grouped them by colour. Good times!

You can download it here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/80875307/ColourBomb.zip

1. The Rolling Stones - She’s A Rainbow -- This was the first song I thought of when I heard the theme...Jacob actually gave me the record that this song is on -- Their Satanic Majesties Request -- for my birthday a long time ago, so I thought it was appropriate to start with.
2. The Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes -- One of my favorite songs of all time. Beautiful.
3. Galaxie 500 - Blue Thunder -- Embarrassingly I've just recently gotten into this band while reading Dean Wareham's autobiography. I really like 'em!
4. Split Lip Rayfield - Blue Tick Hound -- I miss Kurt.
5. International Submarine Band - Blue Eyes -- Gram Parsons before he was Gram Parsons. Some great songs on this record.
6. Thurston Moore - Silver>Blue -- Thought about removing this song, since there is a SY song later on in the mix, but I think it's a really cool song.
7. The Knitters - Silver Wings -- John Doe doing Merle. I love John Doe's voice. So sad sounding.
8. The Clash - White Man In Hammersmith Palais -- According to Encyclopedia Britannica, The Clash are the most important rock band in the world, and this, IMHO,  is the best song ever!
9. Sonic Youth - Green Light -- This song reminds me of my apartment in college, sitting around getting drunk and stoned, listening to Sonic Youth in the darkness, with only a green light shining in the distance.
10. Fruit Bats - Heart Like An Orange -- One of the better songs on their latest album.
11. Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Yellow Brick Road -- Wasn't planning on including a Beefheart song, but I really love this song (and this album).
12. The Pogues - A Pair Of Brown Eyes -- Reminds me of my dog Shane...
13. Circle Jerks - When The Shit Hits The Fan -- Went back and forth trying to decide whether or not to put this on. Finally decided to. Oi vay the brownness!
14. Small Faces - Red Baloon -- I like it when Ronnie Lane sings. He and Steve Marriott share the singing on this song...
15. Beat Happening - Red Head Walking -- The first Beat Happening song I ever heard, and still my favorite!
16. Minor Threat - Seeing Red -- So angry...so, so angry.
17. Arthur & Yu - Black Bear -- I wish this band was still around, for many reasons. I love this song.
18. Tom Waits - Big Black Mariah -- So many "black" songs to choose from, but I wanted to include a Tom Waits song, so this is it.
19. David Bowie - Black Country Rock -- A very stony song off of my favorite Bowie record.
20. The Paragons - Black Bird Singing -- Token ska song. I really like their take on Black Bird.
21. Spoon - Black Like Me -- One of my favorite Spoon songs.

CHROMA CLAP

Sounds like something I don't wanna catch. 

Title: Chroma Clap
Recipient: Liam Barksdale

Tracklist
1. Dawn - Brian Jonestown Massacre
2. Pretty Green - The Jam
3. Black and White Town - Doves
4. Golden Brown - The Stranglers
5. Golden Years - David Bowie
6. Blue Jeans - Ladytron
7. Blue Jeans - Blur
8. White Lines - Grandmaster Flash
9. Temptation - New Order
10. Chord Organ Blues - Daniel Johnston
11. Colours - Donovan
12. Pale Blue Eyes - The Velvet Underground
13. Bros - Panda Bear
14. Mr. Blue Sky - E.L.O.


Artist's Statement:

Color is ever changing with our moods and actions. In my eyes, a color bomb should be explosive, shattering hues and emotions in every direction. It's also both destructive and constructive. You have to break the packaging to get it out, and you get extra space on the flash drive inside to continue it's chameleon-like journey in color.  

This mix mainly calls out colors by name in the lyrics, though I did add two which I felt really emanated various colors. The first, "Dawn" by BJM, since the rising sun invokes an incredible amount of colors, and the second Bros by Panda Bear. Got really attached to having this one on the mix even though it's 12 minutes long. It takes me on such a journey, I'd never noticed its length before. Liam mentioned that he liked the color blue, so I focused on that for a bit as well. 

I wrote the artist's statement out on tiny scrolled up papers inside, so it'd really explode when you opened it. The tracklist folds out from the lid in various colors. Uh yea!!!!! Sorry I am so late ARGH!

Color Bomb, Bitches

Title: Color Bomb, Bitches

Recipient: Michael Ashby

1. THE MUSIC MACHINE - Double Yellow Line

2. MIKAL CRONIN - Green and Blue

3. BEES - Voices Green and Purple

4. ELVIS COSTELLO - Greenshirt

5. ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI - Bright Lit Blue Skies

6. LADYTRON - Blue Jeans

7. THE BATS - Made Up in Blue

8. DAVID BOWIE - Sound and Vision

9. PRINCE - Computer Blue

10. ROXY MUSIC - Grey Lagoons

11. JEFF BECK - Hi Ho Silver Lining

12. ELECTRIC PRUNES - I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night

13. THEE OH SEES - Rainbow

14. NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS - Red Right Hand

15. BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB - Red Eyes and Tears

16. ROBERT JOHNSON - They're Red Hot

17. T. REX - Ride a White Swan

18. DAVID BOWIE - White Light/White Heat

19. PIXIES - Into the White

20. GORILLAZ - White Light

21. THE BLACK ANGELS - Black Grease

22. THE KINKS - Big Black Smoke

23. THE BEATLES - Old Brown Shoe

24. THE DAMNED - Born to Kill

[please note unicorn stationary]

This compilation is meant to sound like lit fireworks in a washing machine. All of the songs have a color (or colorful entity) in the title or lyrics, I grouped like colors with one another, while trying not to jeopardize the flow of the album. It's intended to be a fun, fucked up rainbow to be listened to while drunk, or wishing you were.

In his questionnaire, Michael said that his dreams are extremely colorful and intense, which is why I included the Electric Prunes song. The last song on the album, "Born to Kill" was included in honor of his mythical forest creature's lust for tourist blood. 

Hope you like the mix Michael, I had fun making it, despite an epic beer spill ruining the first version of the album art.

Indian Summer

Theme: Color Bomb
Title: Indian Summer
Recipient: Bob Martin

I put together the mix on an airplane flight from Seattle to London - 9 hours of uninterrupted nerdery. At first I was heading toward doing something about the color red. And then I decided to call it “Incandescent” and focus on colors in the sunny side of the spectrum - yellow, orange, red, etc. I bought a bunch of glass vials and with the help of my daughter, started finding things around the house, yard and neighborhood that were yellow, orange, and red, trying to get as many different kinds of things as I could. It ended up being a lot of natural materials: various leaves, honey and dead bees from our beehive, berries, crushed lava rocks, turmeric, sunflower petals, chili powder and peppers, a lock of my daughter Izzy’s hair, dandelion petals, feathers from my chicken Rosie, pine needles, a burnt match, and tree sap. Things started to feel more like autumn, especially with all of the organic materials drying out and fading slightly in color, so I changed the mix name to Indian Summer. The liner notes are rolled up as a little scroll and inserted into one of the vials. The base I made from leftover elm lumber from EMP’s Nirvana exhibition. The elm came from a tree that fell on land owned by Gray’s River Grange in SW Washington, and Krist Novoselic from Nirvana is Grange Master there. I bought the wood from him for the exhibit and the monies went to the Grange. There were lots of leftover pieces with some good thickness. It’s pretty wood. I cut it, used a jointer to square it up, drilled the holes with Forstner bits, cut the CD slot with an oscillating multi-tool (note the smell of burnt wood - bonus!) and after sanding, did a light walnut stain and a beeswax coat. Ultimately, I wanted to create something that sounded awesome and could be a cool, minimal-ish, but quasi-scientific/natural history feeling.

Track listing/Liner notes:

1. Boards of Canada – Dandelion (Geogaddi, Warp, 2002)
This has a nice dreamlike dog-days of summer quality that I like, complete with Leslie Nielsen talking about underwater lava floes. The dandelion referred to in the title and song is referring to a deep sea anemone.

2. The Beakers – Red Towel (Red Towel 7” single, Mr. Brown, 1980)
Awesome skronky No-Wave from 1980 Seattle about hanging out on the beach on a … Red Towel.

3. David Bowie – In the Heat of the Morning (Live on BBC, 1968)
“In the heat of the morning, in the shadow I’ll clip your wings. And I tell you I love you, in the heat of the morning.” -- the lyrics are kind of weird and serial killerish, but what a great song. Maybe it’s because that lyric makes me think of “Polly” by Nirvana (“Let me clip your dirty wings”). This is a live BBC version of the song, which was on his debut LP.

4. Caribou (Manitoba) – Cherrybomb (Up in Flames, Domino, 2003)
I love Caribou, especially the older stuff where it’s mostly him playing instruments and cutting up shit by himself in his house.

5. Loretta Lynn – Little Red Shoes  (Van Lear Rose, Interscope, 2004)
I like to think that she is just telling this story in the studio and someone just recorded it and then they wrote a killer groove around it. Who knows.

6. Squarepusher – My Red Hot Car (My Red Hot Car, 12” single, Warp, 2001)
My old boss Jim Fricke played this for me when it came out, and at the time it kind of blew me away, how awesomely bizarre the breakdown in the song is.

7. King Crimson – Happy Family (Lizard, Island, 1970)
I’m not sure how many people listen to this era of King Crimson. People usually are totally put off by Adrian Belew-era or later wankery, but the first three albums are pretty amazing weird art rock that aren’t in the prog realm at all. Lizard is my favorite of this era. This song is about the breakup of the Beatles.

8. Flin Flon – Red Deer (A-OK, Teenbeat, 1998)
This band was so killer. Awesome on record, awesome live. Nattles wrote such great bass lines, and their drummer was so robotic in the best way. The best indie rock spy music ever.

9. Guided by Voices – Hot Freaks (Bee Thousand, Scat, 1994)
A classic. How can you not love this song. Robert Pollard’s bullshit lyrics are sung with such conviction that I need to find meaning in them: “She took me to the new church and baptised me with salt.” What does it mean?!

10. Hella – The Devil Isn’t Red (Acoustics, 5 Rue Christine, 2006)
I’ve never liked Hella. They grated me in the same way that a lot of free jazz does. I feel like I’m not smart enough or masochistic enough to appreciate it. Like with severe math rock or black metal. BUT, for some reason I love this “acoustic” version of this song. The electric version, not so much.

11. Looper – Burning Flies (Up A Tree, Sub Pop, 1999)
Side project of the bass player from Belle and Sebastian. Early electro-indie-whatever. Back when not many people seemed to be doing that in the indie realm. Anyway, great tune.

12. Momus – Old Friend, New Flame (The Little Red Songbook, Le Grand Magistery, 1998)
I had to review this CD for the Seattle Weekly in 1998. I didn’t know anything about this guy, and still don’t, but I guess that he’s released 20 albums or something. I love how happily evil it is.

13. Santo & Johnny – Summertime (Summertime / Caravan, 7” single, Sonet, 1960)
This has to be one of the most beautiful songs of all time.

14. Brian Eno – Zawinul / Lava (Another Green World, Island, 1975)
It’s never wrong to include a song from Another Green World. I wonder if Eno just really liked Joe Zawinul - the song certainly sounds like his atmospheric stuff on Miles’ In a Silent Way, etc.
 
15. Low – Sunflower (Things We Lost in the Fire, Kranky, 2001)
Sometimes Low just makes me sad, but this song, just fills me mentally with relief and delicious happiness, even though the lyrics (“when they found your body / giant X’s on your eyes”) seem pretty dark.

16. Neutral Milk Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1 (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Merge, 1998)
I don’t know what this song is about, and it’s almost too precious, but still on the side of dysfunctionally great.

17. Fennesz – Endless Summer (Endless Summer, Mego, 2001)
This makes me want to hang out and watch a long, slow sunset.

18. Syd Barrett – Golden Hair (Octopus / Golden Hair, 7” single, Harvest, 1969)
Poor Syd. His stuff is so great because he’s so tragically off. There’s not much to this song, but it feels so gravid with weird emotion.

19. Wire – Heartbeat (Chairs Missing, Harvest, 1978)
An album like Chairs Missing is a good example of why I never liked the Ramones. I have to admit, I am a fan of snobby art school punk. I almost put Big Black’s cover of this song on here instead, but the original felt better, since this mix has a more mellow and less abrasive vibe.

20. Tape & Minamo – Honey Buzzard (Birds of a Feather, Headz, 2007)
Tape and Minamo separately are amazing, textural, heady, fantastic. There must be something about the Swedes and the Japanese working together. It feels like a slow, glowing , growing denouement to the season.

21. Broken Social Scene – Pitter Patter Goes My Heart (You Forgot It in People, Paper Bag, 2002)
A pretty way to go out.

Bob, enjoy -jacob