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