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ALBUM REVIEW: Kid Reflux's Summer Mix 2010.3


music is so bloody beautiful,
more than any other form of art; it connects souls,
instantaneously. when someone sings to you, right,
you understand everything about them;
you're best friends for a minute.
it throws into relief the inherent beauty in the world around you that you'd've overlooked.

people put music in the most important parts of their lives
- their weddings, funerals, intercourses. even suicides are set to music
(it's not that music soundtracks these; it's us making the music video for them).
it's played in lifts and shopping centres because it makes the people there feel better.

it is a current that runs under society.
doesnt it say something about humans that 99% of our songs are about love (or lack thereof)?

it's the only thing in the world other than a person that can wrap itself around you.




A: "The street people agree"


1. [something noodly and raw] - genus: Tim Kinsella
2. Gig Intro - Hot Club
3. Bonded By Blood - Hot Club
4. I Wrote A Song For You Called "Welcome To The Jungle" - Hot Club
5. Dream Operator - Talking Heads
6. Liberation Conversation - Marlena Shaw
7. Spoonful - Howlin Wolf
8. [cut!] [damn, was really big; boingy track]
9. [cut] Waterfalls - TLC
10. [some subtle tenor sax] - too trad for 'Trane, so Getz?
-->
[jarring cut] -->
11. [fuck... some soaring, busy indierock] - ?
12. Just Like A Drummer - Wave Pictures
13. Bye Bye Bubble Belly - Wave Pictures
--> 3s of WP's "Softly" -->
14. [cut] Stop Dat - Dizzee
15. I Luv U - Dizzee
16. [impressive cut] [what LCD Soundsystem wanted to be]
--> 5s of addictive lo-fi pop --|


B - "Time put aside to fuck"


17. --> continues, still dunno.
18. Breaking Away - Ratatat
19. Colouring of Pigeons - The Knife
20. Another Hollow Line - The Young Knives
21. An Inscription At Salonae - Mountain Goats
22. Onions - Mountain Goats
23. Song For A Friend - Mountain Goats
24. Going To Georgia - MoGos
25. Party and Bullshit (Ratatat [teeth-shaking guitar] Remix) - B.I.G
26. Matching Houses - Zen Baseballbat
--> "2s of After Laughter (Comes Tears)" -->
27. [some demented falsetto biz] - Wild Beasts?
--> clip of Fearne Cotton, socratic irony -->
28.
Grapevine - Slits
--> clip of N-Dubz cheese, palate cleanser for -->
29. Lose My Breath - Destiny's Child
[violent cut]


---Rassafrackin invisible jukebox shite rassafrackin masochism rassafrackin I do love a challenge though. Observation on memory: Resolution counts. It's a lot harder to identify these half-remembered things on tapes - listening back on mp3 to, say, Howlin' Wolf, you hear the cracks and the slides and the man where on cassette there is only the choked roar.


---First four are a linked set, a stick poked into two bits ("emo" and "indie") of the damp rockery, "alternative music". (The underbelly is where too many good things crawl, or at least the rocks are never overturned.) First is a demo cut which must be Tim Kinsella (it's not on "Analphabetothology", so I'm outmaneouvred). It's exactly the kind of thing which made confused people in 2004 google "emo" again, and get no good answers again.

Next three together is like an overview of Hot Club de Paris' inventive breadth - you got their filthy little acappella opening riff; their burbling, almost J-pop riff energy ("An Ice Cube cover"); their quiet, earnest, literary nocturne.

---It frightens me how well the last HCdP track feeds into "Dream Operator"; it could be the same song's next movement. Finding links like these are the hardest bits in mixtaping - you have to split music at the joints and reassemble flows that could have been written that way. (Well, they have been; by you.) The more different the two artists, the more perfect the payoff.


"But he doesn't recognize his own face
His health is fading and he doesn't know why
Three letters to his final resting place
Y'all don't hear me"

Yeah, RnB's so vacuous and consumerist, innit?


---Thought (10) was Charlie Parker at first, but, on playing (impatiently) through a coupla albums, soon realised that the man never recorded anything anywhere near as gentle or sincere as this; boy played like an ass.




"From the earth to the street
to the bridge in the east
where the green man wears a hat
the sun came up like a pack of orange spaniels
through the window over the ledge
under the curtains on their bellies
creeping and bending
and in your hands I sleep just like a drummer..."


---I don't understand all the hostility that folk have for the Wave Pictures. Most of the pieces I see on them do these massive qualifying bits, begrudge liking them; mention David's quiet spitefulness. I dunno; I reckon it's closer to artful stream of consciousness (i.e. composing honesty about the contents of our heads at any given moment) than pop often gets.

---Dizzee's dervish brutality...

---I want more of whatever (16) is - a smart, cello-riffed club collage ("They called me black man...")

---In all fairness: Ratatat have a properly lovely custom organ and bass sound. It's kinda inspiring - feels like being embraced after walking home with someone.
In all unfairness: all their songs are the same.

---Both The Knife and Fever Ray confuse me - despite being glacial and sinister, they rarely fail to make me feel better about the world. Maybe the musicbox at the side of my crib was broken.


"Under over through
Donkey peacock goose
A strange scene it is
Every thing in flames
A strange scene it is
Under over through

Erasmus grab a spoon
Europe hides wool"


--- James probably knows the Young Knives from schooldays; that's probably what he spent his "youth" doing, meeting and advising every band within Cheap Day Return of Crewe, as well as losing a bidding war for Jet's UK contract (only way to explain his bizarre, contrarian bitterness for the seminal Oz-rock masters).

Isn't it?


---John Darnielle is on this tape. John Darnielle is a punishing master, for the completist fan. John Darnielle was made to be listened to on tape. In fact, my (crappy) speakers are a bit too good for this service. (Grab some free MoGos stuff, including "An Inscription" here. I love his apathy; "oh, just have it then.")


"The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway
is that it's you and that you are standing in the doorway"


---Never did get much of Zen Baseballbat, despite prompting from my UKDIY subconscious.


---Properly surprising how well Destiny's Child handle getting slammed against the Slits; if you were to decide which was the more ferocious expression of female vitality...


Overall character? No idea. I know it's one mix rather'n two sides, but that's yer lot.




It was a grim day. Grey and stuff.

And some wanker was determined to play an absolute torrent of shit. It began with a busted/mcfly collaboration of 'build me up buttercup' (why does that exist?!?! who suggested it? why did they agree? how did they think it was suitable for release? so many questions) and just trawled on from there really. Then the opening chords of 'sweet home alabama' came on and i just got up and stormed out in the way that girls do in the common room when they want everyone to know they're upset about something.

I could take no more.

It's not that getting decent music played on the common room is even that bad once you manage it. I remember i once got Owls on the common room stereo and when i looked round and saw the subdued faces craving some mariah pissing carey i went back to voluntarily withdraw my cd (popularity is very important to me) but some people actually ask me to turn it up!

I was so happy.

People do want to try new things, deep down. It's making the jump and accepting that listening to the latest lostprophets album again and again is terminally dull and there's a whole sea of stuff beyond them and razorlight that you're not exploring - that's the hard part. People are adventurous in so many aspects of their lives but often so conservative about music.

Let's bring it up to pace before all we listen to is 'lift music'-
music for the sake of music,
music you put on just because you think
music should be on, anonymous and
lifeless.

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