album art:: noah smith // hard mix

I’m a huge fan of Yellow Ostrich, especially since he’s jumped on board with Invisible Children for their La Blogotheque + CMJ showcase. So much so, that I wrote a guest post for Head Underwater all about it. I recently invited Alex to do a mix for the series, and he was gracious enough to do so. Good tracks from Brian Eno, Talking Heads and Bowie- you guys need to check this one out. Also, if you haven’t heard of Yellow Ostrich- head over to his bandcamp and listen to his latest release “The Mistress”.

Tracklist–

1.  David Bowie – “Breaking Glass”  The fact that this is considered one of the “traditional songs” on Low is amazing.  In any other context, this would be a quite peculiar song, if due to nothing else but its short length.  But put next to the many instrumentals on Low, this is one of my favorite tracks on the album, its so catchy and gritty.  Also, I now know where Kevin Barnes got his “ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh”-with-multiple-harmonies motif from.  (see 1:10).

2.  Kraftwerk – “Europe Endless”  I’ve been listening to a lot of krautrock and this song would definitely fall into that category.  But I love how Kraftwerk can use such clearly electronic sounds but make them sound human.  I can picture them actually playing this album, rather than just hitting buttons on samplers and sitting back on their bean bag chairs.  The vocoder on “Europe endless” is so creamy and catchy.  I love krautrock in general because it relies greatly on the listener’s patience, but if the listener commits, than the rewards are usually quite plentiful.  If you pay close attention, you get wrapped up in the different levels and you barely notice how much it is growing until you are there.  Like a more rhythmic ambient piece.

3.  The Beach Boys -  “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”  Lyrically, one of the more depressing songs on here. But it still manages to be upbeat and beautiful.  Soulfully mournful.  I love choruses that seem triumphant and fist-pumping, but really involve rather drab lyrics.  “Sometimes, I feel very sad!”   I would love to sing along with this in a crowd.  I wrote a song where part of the chorus is “Yeah, we’re all gonna die” solely for the potential of a full audience singing along with the chorus all together in one room.  That’d be pretty powerful.  But I don’t like the song too much anymore, so I’ll have to write a new song with a depressingly catchy chorus.  On a side note, Brian Wilson made this album when he was 23.  I’ve only got a year to catch up.

4.  Brian Eno -  “St. Elmo’s Fire”  This normally wouldn’t be one of my favorite tracks on Another Green World, as I tend to prefer the instrumentals over the more traditional songs.  But Robert Fripp’s guitar solo on the back half of this totally wins.  The sound of it is so dense and malleable, I actually want to try and chew it.  It’s not the most complicated or impossible solo, for me it’s all about the tone and the driving nature of it.   One of the best songs on the best album.

5.  Can – “Mushroom”  The dominant krautrock band in my eyes.  This is one of their more vocal pieces, as Damo Suzuki has a pretty catchy melody to go with “When I saw mushroom head/I was born/and I was dead.”  Usually Can is more focused on the groove and the fuzzy outliers, but this one is really focused on the song and melody of Suzuki.  While maintaining a pretty killer groove.

6.  Talking Heads – “Tentative Decisions”  My current favorite Talking Heads song, off of 77, my current favorite Talking Heads album.  The song’s barely over three minutes, but it has several different sections, each of which could carry the whole song by themselves.  The big choral chorus of “Oh the boys want to talk”, the funky “I wanna talk as much as I want”, the building “Decide, decide/make up your mind.”  It’s all about talking and being concerned about feelings, and talking and talking and talking.  Then they let it loose at the end to sort of say “fuck that, let’s just rock.”

7.  Ava Luna – “Clips.”  Ava Luna is a young band from here in NYC, they are my favorite band I’ve discovered since moving here a couple months ago.  I saw them open for a bigger band but I was really impressed by them; they’ve got a slightly nerdy front man with a soulful voice, and three backup female singers.  Of course I thought of Dirty Projectors right away, but after downloading some of their stuff, I saw how they went much further past that comparison, and have built their own funky, gritty sound with great vocals and insane grooves.  Definitely a good new band to check out.

8.  Neil Young – “Cinnamon Girl”  This song kind of sums up all that I love about Neil Young in one song.  Gritty guitars.  Harmonized group vocals.  A wailing, ONE-NOTE guitar solo.  That’s what I love about Neil’s guitar playing, it’s not about technical virtuosity at all (although he’s got plenty of that), it’s all about the attitude that you put into each individual note.  You can only play one note, but if you put thought and feeling into each one, you can make a whole world of sound out of that one pitch.

9.  Andrew Bird – “You Woke Me Up”  This is an instrumental piece from his instrumental album Useless Creatures. I actually think that “bonus album” was better than his proper LP of last year, Noble Beast. He was well due for this kind of experimental album, and he really went all out.  If anyone should be allowed to be self-indulgent, I think he has earned it.  And it doesn’t come off as self indulgent, it’s really quite incredible.  Andrew Bird was the first person I ever saw use a looping pedal live, and it changed the way I make music forever.

10.  Primal Scream – “Movin’ On Up”  Has any band ever sounded LESS like their name?  I got this album, and hearing this, the opening track of the album, knocked me down with how different it was than what I expected.  I mean, PRIMAL.  SCREAM.  But it was a pleasant surprise.  This song reminds me of Spiritualized, something off of his Ladies and Gentlemen album.  Very upbeat and uplifting, I figured it was a decent way to end the mix.  There’s only so much depression one can take.

Download it at the link below:

http://www.mediafire.com/?19a5o6e3b78oqvs

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