Q#131 - April to May 2020

Please note that the zip file has a password: QCOMPS.BLOGSPOT  

Download mix from  https://www.mediafire.com/file/htw1gr33t1nhsai/Q%23131.zip/file

Now with added Spotify playlist at end of notes - NOTE that METZ, Bailter Space and Del Amitri are not on spotify.

Q's Compilations

Vol #131 – April to May 2020

I’m not going to be able to say anything profound about the pandemic that is still a worldwide problem, I think I’m writing these at the start of week 11 of our “quarantine” in New York City, although I have been getting out for exercise, I think many of us here (and in the UK) forget that a lot of countries put down much tough restrictions. So many have suffered and are continuing to do so

01) METZ – Slow Decay: To help musicians out during the Covid-19 crisis, Bandcamp are doing a very nice thing by waving their revenue share on three days (1^st of May, 5^th of June and 3^rd of July), while scouring for some things I wanted to buy, it dawned on me that METZ had a record that I did not own a physical copy of (albeit Automat is a compilation of non-album tracks), and while I was at it I purchased their new 2-song release digitally, and it’s hard not to open with it.

02) The Reflectors – Act a Fool: LA powerpop act The Reflectors might sound like they’re from the 70s but debut album First Impression is a hoot. Bright and shiny melodies with breezy vocals, it’s hard not to love. You can get this on Burger Records in the US.

03) Savak – Vis-à-vis: During the lockdown I’ve been doing some “On this Day” posts on Facebook since I’m a bit of a saddo and have kept a spreadsheet of all the shows I’ve been to (which will have an impact on other songs on this mix), I was actually at Savak’s first ever show on the 20^th of May 2015 at Cake Shop (I do miss that place). The band have just released their fourth album Rotting Teeth in the Horse’s Mouth and it’s another fine record, and they’ve probably got one of the low-key best local discography’s in the last four years or so, although they’ve all played in some excellent bands over the years, so you’d expect it!

04) Virginia Trance – High: I had forgotten that I used a Virginia Trance track last time around (Hello Lou Reed), but this one has a bit more BPM to it, the record Vincent’s Playlist is well worth your time.

05) Mike Polizze – Revelation: Purling Hiss mainman Mike Polizze is due to release his debut solo record, Long Lost Solace Find, on the 31^st of July, and it’s the kind of solo shift you want to see, being fairly far removed from the shredding and feedback heavy solos of Purling Hiss. If this tune is indicative of the rest of the album then I’m excited to hear it.

06) Harkin – Mist on Glass: Harkin’s self-titled debut came out at the end of April via Hand Mirror Records. She has played an excellent supporting role over the years, playing as a touring member of Sleater-Kinney, Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett to name a few. The album doesn’t invoke any of those artists, having more of an 80s goth-pop tinge to it with enough modernity for it to be it’s own thing.

07) Field Music – Money is a Memory: Another recent bandcamp purchase was Field Music’s latest record, Making a New World, which is their seventh album and was released in January. It’s their first concept record and is about the after-effects of world war one. It’s a pretty coherent piece and rattles through pretty quickly with 19 tracks only taking 42-mintues in total. This tune is classic Field Music, with that XTC snap in full effect.

08) Madness – Embarrassment: I had tickets to see Madness in May which was obviously postponed (until 2021), so I thought I’d just throw this classic on the mix.

09) Gum Country – Somewhere: Kean ears may notice the sound of The Courtneys in this tune, that’s because ½ of Gum Country is Courtney Garvin of The Courtneys, the other half being multi-instrumentalist Connor Mayer. Their new album, Somewhere, is coming out on the 19^th of June.

10) Pure X – Fantasy: Austin, Texas band Pure X return with their first album in six years, and their self-titled comeback is the sort of easy-going, desert breeze that we could all probably use, filled with tunes that feel like a weed halo is above you.

11) Bailterspace – Concrete Square 3: Speaking of comebacks, New Zealand greats low-key threw up some new tracks (their first in seven years?) on bandcamp, hopefully there’ll be a new record!

12) Mint Field – Ella Se Queda: Another recent bandcamp purchase, I loved their 2018 full-length Pasar de las Luces and wanted to support them further so purchased their latest EP, 2019’s Mientras Esperas, which has a bit more drive to it. They put out a single in April so hopefully a new album beckons. Having previously been based in Tijuana, they now reside in Mexico City.

13) Adelaida – Mundo: You should all know I love Chilean bands, this act appeared back on Q#103 (August/September 2015), hailing from Valparaíso, which is a coastal city about 75 miles north-west of Santiago. Their latest album, Animita, was released in April.

14) Flores Silvestres – Born From Dawn: Another Chilean band, this time from Santiago, “Silver Flowers” just released their first album in April and it hits that classic (I think the scene has been going long enough to call it classic) Chilean psych rock sound. The record is called How the Story Goes.

15) The Men – Children All Over the World: One of New York’s finest, The Men released their eighth album, Mercy, this year, and it generally mixes between rockers and delicate folk tunes, basically doing whatever they want, like they always have. This tune has a big 80s feel to it for sure.

16) Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Talk About the Weather: During my “on this day” flashbacks I was reminded that I hadn’t really thought of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry much since I saw them back in April 2008, their music still holds up and I just had an urge to throw this song on.

17) Counting Crows – Children in Bloom: Another OTD-inspired song, I saw Counting Crows on the 15^th of May 1997 and it was a really spectacular show that still seems very vivid. For those first two records they couldn’t really do much wrong, I remember this song in particular from the show and it always stuck with me.

18) Sleater Kinney – The Swimmer: All Hands on the Bad One turned 20 on the 2^nd of May. What a great record, again, just something I felt like throwing on.

19) Aimee Mann – Deathly: Another record that just turned 20 (also on the 2^nd of May) is Bachelor No. 2, so naturally I just felt compelled to use a track.

20) Del Amitri – Just Getting’ By: Probably the best news in a very trying year so far is that Del Amitri have just recorded a new album that will be released in January 2021, it will be their first album since 2002’s Can You Do Me Good, which this song closes, so I just felt like using it.

As always, Peace and Love - Q

NOTE NOT ALL THE SONGS ARE ON SPOTIFY!!!!

Q#120 - June to July 2018

Please note that the zip file has a password: QCOMPS.BLOGSPOT  

Download mix from http://www.mediafire.com/file/br466zoqsjki1r8/Q120.zip/file

Q's Compilations

Vol #120 – June to July 2018

Greetings! I’m writing these notes on a plane returning from the UK back to New York having had a nice two week holiday. Went to two Del Amitri gigs (Edinburgh and London) and in general spent too much time drinking. Most of the songs on this mix are fairly new to me, either from shows or recent press releases. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

01) Valley Queen – Supergiant: I was a little stuck for an opener this time around but having gone through a bunch of press releases this seemed to fit the bill. It’s not the most blistering of tracks in the world but it’s got a lovely sense of melody. This is the title track to the LA quartet’s debut album, out via Roll Call Records.

02) Terra Lightfoot – No Hurry: One of my favourite bands, The Posies, are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year and most recently included a show at the Bowery Ballroom with the Frosting on the Beater line-up. The next two songs feature tunes from the opening bands at that show, Terra Lightfoot played a nice power trio / bluesy set. 

03) Valley Lodge – All of My Loving: WFMU’s Dave Hill heads up Valley Lodge, a tongue in cheek powerpop act who unbeknownst to me at the time, provide the theme tune for John Oliver’s show. This is an unabashed catchy triumph, tongue in cheek or not. Go to see them live if you get the chance and feel like some deadpan humour to go with your 90s rock. 

04) Frigs – Talking Pictures: It seemed like the best acts at this year’s Northside festival were all Canadian, these Torontonians released their debut album, Basic Behaviour in February and I caught them on the Brooklyn Vegan showcase that included Corridor, Protomartyr, Deerhoof and more, the post-punk guitar tones on this track really stood out and the rhythm section are no slouch.

05) Corridor – Demain Deja: Montreal’s Corridor are one of those bands I’m amazed I hadn’t heard of until last month, from the dueling guitars to the busy drums and punchy bass, there’s little more I could want in a band. The outro is just about perfect.

06) Protomartyr – Wheel of Fortune: Protomartyr have a pretty poor record in terms of the amount of times I’ve listened to them and seen them play to the number of mixes they’ve ended up on… you may recognize Kelley Deal’s backing vocals on this track.

07) Mourn – Over the Wall: Barcelona’s Mourn are on Captured Tracks and while I haven’t heard their latest album yet, their Over the Wall EP is very good, which and this is the Echo and the Bunnymen cover/title track to that, a fairly faithful rendition all things considered.

08) Gang Gang Dance – Lotus: Having been away for seven years, GGD returned with all of their classic trademarks on this tune, the lead single from their new record, Kazuashita.

09) Clipping – Shooter: My buddy Felix had sent me a raft of recommendations a while ago that I’m still working my way through, but this one jumped out, I love the way the song builds, simple but inventive. This track is on their Wriggle EP from 2016 which was released on Sub Pop. Rapper Daveed Diggs is also an actor and currently stars in the movie Blindspotting which is getting a lot of praise at the moment.

10) Sammus – Comments Disabled: Don Giovanni records have certainly been diversifying more recently, and Sammus’ 2016 record, Pieces in Space, is one of the best rap albums I’ve heard in recent years.

11) Shana Falana – Cool Kids: I saw Shana Falana open for Follakzoid at Rough Trade a couple of months ago (a lot of opening bands on this mix…), the live experience is a little more soundscape/psychedelic than this track (which was played), there’s an impressive amount of layering for a two-piece.

12) Wax Chattels – It: New Zealand trio Wax Chattels label themselves as “guitarless guitar music”, which isn’t a bad way to describe them, there’s an intensity to their self-titled debut record that feels like a rock band. In their native homeland they are signed to the legendary Flying Nun label, while New York’s own Captured Tracks distribute the US.  

13) Wand – Perfume: This is the title-track to the band’s latest EP, which came out in May and seems to combine all the band’s changing styles to date in one release.

14) Men I Trust – Tailwhip: It seems like this kind of chill-wave-ish music had died a death a few years ago, but I saw this band opening for Ought at Market Hotel last month and it seemed like a refreshing throwback (albeit only a throwback of a few years ago…).

15) Phantastic Ferniture – Uncomfortable Teenager: Phantastic Ferniture is a Sydney-based side-project which includes Julia Jacklin, and their self-titled debut album cuts loose from all the members’ regular bands. There’s a spontaneity to the material and it seems like everyone is having fun.

16) Peaer – I.H.S.Y.A: This year’s Northside Festival was definitely on the low-key side of things compared to previous years, but I still managed to hit something each night. Peaer opened up for Weaves at the Knitting Factory and I enjoyed their mix of math rock, slowcore and even some Weezer-esque melodies.

17) Jonathan Coulton – Ikea: I’ve seen Jonathan Coulton twice now, both times opening for Aimee Mann, this time was at Prospect Park for a free show which also featured Superchunk. This track was his set closer and displays his typical wit and humour.

18) Del Amitri – Before the Evening Steals the Afternoon: This was a b-side from the Not Where It’s At single, and also appeared on the b-side compilation Lousy with Love. Needing to fill around 2:30 left on the mix, it seemed apt to use a Del Amitri song given the shows this month. Alas, they did not play this rather delightful tune (the only b-side on offer this tour was The Verb to Do).

19) Lola Kirke – Born to Die: I just love the production on this track, those bright acoustic guitars get me every time. Lola’s album, Heart Head West is out in August. For the classic rock nerds out there, Lola is the daughter of Bad Company / Free drummer Simon Kirke.

20) Dusk – Eyes in Dark Corners: It seems like Dusk’s debut album has been a long time coming, I saw them at Saint Vitus back in 2016, and you should know Amos Pitsch’s work from the band Tenament. Their self-titled debut was released on Don Giovanni records in June and it’s an at times excellent country-tinged record.

21) Hand Habits – Yr Heart: When I heard this track I instantly knew it would be a mix closer, with that wonderful lullaby-esque sway, as close to a sunset in a song as I can think of. Meg Duffy has spent time in bands such as Mega Bog and Kevin Morby’s band, the latter of which is definitely in this wheelhouse (though I think this is better than anything either act has written). 

And that’s it, these notes are a little unresearched for my liking so apologies that these are bad but I had to just get the mix through the line, it’s amazing how bad one’s memory can be without the internet to fill in the gaps these days!

As always, Peace and Love

Q

Please note that the zip file has a password: QCOMPS.BLOGSPOT  

Download mix from http://www.mediafire.com/file/br466zoqsjki1r8/Q120.zip/file

Q#108 June – July 2016

Please note that the zip file has a password: QCOMPS.BLOGSPOT

Download mix from: http://www.mediafire.com/download/x6awk3toikyeswn/Q108.zip 

Q’s Compilations

Volume #108 June – July 2016

Happy excruciating summer, everyone! Here is another hastily thrown together mix. I managed to survive another orbit around the sun with a birthday in June, managed to fit in a long weekend in Montreal, and am somehow still alive just in general. Onwards and upwards!

01) Royal Headache – My Own Fantasy: Australia’s Royal Headache released one of my favourite records of 2015 with High, and I saw them this month at Music Hall Williamsburg. It took them a few songs to get going but once they hit their stride they reached heights many bands can’t these days, and most of that is down to frontman Shogun, who barely stops moving and his Otis Redding-ish soulful croak really sets them apart from most other garage-rock bands these days. “I used to dream of love but I never dreamed I’d be all alone in my own fantasy”

02) Honey – Monk: NYC psyche trio Honey released their debut album, Love is Hard, via Wharf Cat Records in May. I’ve seen the band numerous times in the last couple of years and the album captures their sound very well, as I write this, the weather is featuring 90% humidity and this song sounds like how I feel.

03) Girl Band – Paul: I was surprised to find out I’ve only used a track by Dublin’s Girl Band once, and that was the June/July mix of 2015. Since then the band have released their rather excellent debut full length, Holding Hands With Jamie, via Rough Trade Records. Some bands end up reigning in the sound of their early Eps by the time they release a full length, but thankfully Girl Band have kept that abrasive quality, it’s a fearless record.

04) Del Amitri – Hammering Heart: Del Amitri’s self-titled debut album from 1985 is the sound of a completely different band, one obsessed with Orange Juice and The Smiths (Morrissey loved this album and the band opened for The Smiths), there is so much melody on this record it’s hard to keep track. Alas, after early promising press, Chrysalis delayed the release and no-one cared by the time it came out. Anyway, I suppose if they had blown up they probably wouldn’t have turned into the band that changed my life, but there’s always that “what if…” feeling when I listen to this wonderful, wonderful album. If a band came out with this today they’d be adored. “I suppose love lives in a dustbin behind the garden wall, You have to grovel on the ground and be pretty disgusting to find it at all”

05) Guided By Voices – Please Be Honest: Calling Robert Pollard prolific is one of the most understated things one can say, and having broken up Guided By Voices (again…) in 2014, it almost seemed inevitable that they’d get back together, though few would have thought it would only take 18 months. After reforming with a completely new lineup and releasing Please Be Honest, Pollard has since recalled former GBV and all round indie-legend Doug Gillard into the lineup. The future of GBV is hopefully bright…

06) The Nils – Daylight: My friend Herb frequently gives me bargain CDs, the most recent of which is 80s Montreal act The Nils. The band only recorded one full length LP, but Green Fields In Daylight includes that and connects the dots in the discography of a few Eps and live tracks. It’s a fine collection of pop-punk tunes and you can see why they’re heralded in cult circles (as well as some of my favourite bands, Superchunk, Meat Puppets, Bob Mould, etc). It seems like the band had a pretty raw deal during their active years to say the least, but actually released their 2^nd album (after 28 years) last year.

07) Lush – Untogether: I have to confess that Lush were a band that I always heard of but barely listened to when they were active first time around. The band reunited this year and I have tickets to see them in September, having given their best of, Ciao, regular spins in the last 6 months (which feels about how long I’ve had tickets for), the show can’t come around soon enough. “I'm sorry it's come to this but why are we here, bothering?

08) Eagulls – Velvet: Leeds has a decent reputation for goth/post-punk bands with the likes of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Sisters of Mercy, etc, and Eagulls are the latest, formed in 2010 the quintet have two albums under the belt, the latest of which, Ullages, came out in May. The record should appeal to any fan of The Cure!

09) The Cure – Prayers for Rain: Speaking of The Cure… I felt like I couldn’t not follow up Eagulls with anything else. I also just saw The Cure at Madison Square Garden (the third time I’ve seen the band), where they played almost all of Disintegration, so this seemed appropriate.

10) Fear of Men – Trauma: Brighton trio Fear of Men just released their second album, Fall Forever, and it sounds like a band really pushing themselves. Rather than rehashing their rather excellent debut, Loom, the group have crafted a record that demands attention, there are barely any chords on the record for a start, while singer Jess Weiss’ seemingly ultra-personal lyrics can strike a few chords of their own. “Just my words repeat I don't need you to see I'm beyond good and evil today I'm a force to fear, you're a void to be killed Now there's nothing to keep me here”

11) Codeine – Tom: I feel like I’ve talked about Codeine a lot recently but I’ve never actually used any of their tracks before, which may be my biggest oversight in this series. While most fans might gravitate towards Frigid Stars, there’s something that makes me gravitate to the follow-up album, The White Birch. One of the pioneers of the slowcore genre! “I'll throw sand in your eye, You need a reason to cry, I'll throw sand in your eye, I need a reason to smile”

12) Yowler – Bedroom Wall: I saw Maryn Jones fronting her indie band, All Dogs, opening for Superchunk last year, who I liked but her solo project, Yowler, seems to hit more buttons for me. There’s a definite sad/singer songwriter vibe on the album, which seemed a little at odds when I saw her live in the blistering heat outside during the Northside festival, but I enjoyed it all same!

13) Smog – Dress Sexy at my Funeral: Sadly, all good things in New York have an end, and my favourite record store, Other Music, closed recently. They went out with a bang by hosting a show at Bowery Ballroom with 12 acts playing including Bill Callahan, he played this song and I was instantly won over by the cheekiness of it. “And when it comes your turn to speak, Before the crowd, Tell them about the time we did it, On the beach with fireworks above us”

14) Red House Painters – Mistress: Since I’m in the sad part of the compilation, I was listening to Red House Painters recently, and I’ve always preferred the piano version Mistress but something really resonated the last time I listened to Rollercoaster (as it always does) and I just felt like putting this onto a mix. “I've had enough of the, Brutal beatings and name callings, To lose me to this bed, Bruised internally, eternally”

15) Black Hearted Brother – (I Don’t Mean to) Wonder: Neil Halstead will probably always be best known as the singer in Slowdive, but as well as Mojave 3 and a blossoming solo career, he formed Black Hearted Brother in 2013 and released Stars Are Our Home on Slumberland Records. It’s a fairly indulgent album which twists and turns all over the place, but all the better for it.

16) Sleep – Holy Mountain: I saw stoner/doom le`gends Sleep at House of Vans recently and it was inevitably an incredible show. Since I couldn’t exactly put Dopesmoker on a mix (itself clocking in at an hour), I’ve used the title track from the classic Holy Mountain. While the band broke up in 1998, they reformed to play sporadic shows since 2009, and may well release a new album at some point.

17) White Zombie – Pig Heaven: The best re-issue label in the business, Numero Group, gave White Zombie their customary excellent treatment this year, compiling their long out of print early Eps and LPs in a package called It Came From NYC. This track is originally from their 1987 EP of the same name.  

18) Menehan Street Band – The Contender: I mentioned the Other Music farewell show at Bowery Ballroom earlier, and it was the first time I’d seen Menehan Street Band play. The instrumental soul/funk band tap into an old school sound, as anyone on Daptone records does, it was pretty easy to convert me. The bass playing in particular is on point.

19) Future Islands – A Dream of You and Me: To continue the Other Music theme, I went the day before it closed, and inevitably left with a few things, one of which was Future Islands’ Singles album. It’s a record I should probably have owned for years but always just listened to it on Spotify. Anyway, it seemed to be an appropriate record to be my last purchase for some reason, this song resonates pretty strongly these days. “All that glitters is gold, Don't believe what you've been told, People lie, people love, people go, But beauty lies, in every soul”

Yeah, I guess there are some sad and angry songs on this one…

Until next time

Peace and love - Q 

Please note that the zip file has a password: QCOMPS.BLOGSPOT

Download mix from: http://www.mediafire.com/download/x6awk3toikyeswn/Q108.zip 

Q#100 - February - March 2015

Please note that the zip file has a password: Q100

Download mix from: https://www.mediafire.com/?csk4s0ue4luemxt

Q’s Compilations

Volume #100 February – March 2015

Well this is number 100… the first in this series was September 2002, and the first 50-or-so mixes were monthly rather than once every two months! Not quite sure how I managed to keep that up so long, but here we are. I guess I wanted to do something commemorative for it, and this is basically a collection of my very favourite songs, things that make me tick and get to the very essence of my passion for music. Of course, no amount of tinkering could actually make me happy with the end result because you worry about things left off, but as a snapshot, this is probably as good as I could have done.

01) Rush - Bastille Day (live): In an ideal world I’d just throw on 2112, but real estate is limited to 80-minutes on these mixes and time constraints do play a major part. This version is taken from the third disc of Different Stages: Live, recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1978 (my Dad was actually at this show). While it’s not Geddy’s strongest vocal, there’s something about the performance and the amps seem turned up a notch from previous years. Is there a better way to open a gig than with this riff?

02) The Posies - Definite Door: Frosting on the Beater is quite possibly the best power-pop album ever made, and that’s a bold statement, but almost every song is hit after hit (not commercially speaking!). I first heard this song on a mix a friend made for me, which really just goes to show the worth of doing these things. I can only hope I’ve introduced one band to someone who went on the love them as much as I love The Posies. Thanks Andy. “Better cross your heart, make it people proof”

03) TV On the Radio - The Wrong Way: I remember reading about Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes from a magazine called Plan B (I bought it because Stephin Merrit was on the front cover), and the description was such that I just had to hear it. TV On the Radio were probably the first band of the new millennium that I got incredibly excited about… and they opened the door to a passion for new music in general. I became a fan just before the record came out but somehow missed them in Oxford by about a week. I actually spoke to Kyp Malone in New York shortly after I moved here and he thanked me for not being at that show as they almost broke up as a result of it, he said it was that bad! I doubt that, I’d have still wanted to be there!

04) The Flirtations - Nothing But a Heartache: The question of “what is my favourite song of all time?” has had an easy answer for the last few years, it’s this one. It’s just absolutely perfect, from the lead and vocal harmonies, the horns and don’t forget the incredible bass! They never bettered this song, or even really came close, but that’s ok when you give something this fantastic to the world.

05) Otis Redding - Security: Thinking of an Otis song to use was one of the hardest tasks for this mix. In the end I went with the classic Security, it swings and Otis’ vocals have that clear emotion that few could rival. Overall, I prefer the intensity of the live material, with In Person at the Whisky a must for any home in my opinion, but one of my most treasured possessions is my Definitive Otis Redding 4-CD box set.

06) Big Star - September Gurls: I’d probably put this forward as the most beautiful sounding song of all time, those guitars alone make my bleary-eyed every time I hear them, I’m struggling to even write about this because I just want to put this on repeat. In fact, stop doing what you’re doing and buy Radio City, assuming you’ve been leading an empty existence to this point and down have it already. That wooo-ooohhh at 2:20 kills me every time. “I loved you, well, never mind, I've been crying all the time”

07) Nada Surf - Always Love: I tend to think or Del Amitri and Rush as my default favourite/most important band but that order should probably go to Nada Surf. They were the first band I felt like I had discovered on my own, hearing Popular in the UK when it came out, where it wasn’t the hit it was in the US, going out and buying the record with what little money I had as a teenager and just pouring all over it. They’ve always felt like my band more than any other. I also think Matthew Caws is a criminally underrated lyricist. “To make a mountain of your life, Is just a choice, But I never learned enough, To listen to the voice that told me, Always love, Hate will get you every time, Always love. Don't wait til the finish line”

08) XTC - The Mayor of Simpleton: As an Oxford boy it’s hard to admit that anything from Swindon is of worth to humanity. However, XTC have contributed some of the finest pop-rock songs, this song appeals to my pathetic, hopelessly romantic side. “Well I don't know how to tell the weight of the sun, And of mathematics well I want none, And I may be the Mayor of Simpleton, But I know one thing, And that's I love you.”

09) REM - Fall On Me: The first song I ever liked was Man on the Moon, you could say I was a bit of a latecomer to music, I’d have been 10 I think when that song came out, but I put that down to pop-music in the 80s being a bit naff. REM are probably the only band I find it hard to be objective about, I just love everything (apart from Around the Sun, which is really a damp squib). If I had to pick a favourite album it may well be Life’s Rich Pageant, and this song just has all the ingredients that made them a fantastic band.  

10) Radiohead - Let Down: Oxford’s greatest export, the one-two punch they delivered with The Bends and OK Computer is surely up there with the best. I remember the weeks leading up to the release of OK Computer there was such incredible excitement, it seemed like an event that certainly no-one has come close to since (at least not locally). Picking Let Down for this mix probably just shows how much of a miserably bugger I am, but I do often find the saddest songs to be the most beautiful.  “Let down and hanging around. Crushed like a bug in the ground”

11) Red House Painters - Summer Dress: My first exposure to Mark Kozelek was hearing Have You Forgotten on the Vanilla Sky soundtrack, and I might have put that version on if I had the time, but I swiftly picked up the 2-cd Retrospective that 4-AD put out, it actually took a few listens for it to get under my skin, but now I’m firmly one of those ugly dude obsessives that Koz writes about so often!

12) Tim Buckley - Song to the Siren (Live - Monkees TV Show): This song, and this version in particular, might be the most significant of my life, it captured a certain time so perfectly and painfully. A love that seemed unobtainable. I haven’t listened to it in a while and now it just makes me feel sad. I really should have also found the time to fit Jeff Buckley on this mix as well… “Did I dream you dreamed about me?Were you hare when I was fox? Now my foolish boat is leaning, Broken lovelorn on your rocks”

13) Del Amitri - Nothing Ever Happens: My love of Del Amitri is completely unapologetic, and they are probably the least cool band to have ever existed. They were my first absolute and complete obsession. I’m still slightly amazed I got to interview Justin Currie last year: http://freewilliamsburg.com/interview-justin-currie/ and I’ll just copy and paste something I wrote from that piece: “There are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and Justin Currie’s ability to write moving lyrics for the lonely, heartbroken, misanthropic and disenfranchised; sprinkled with just enough hope for us all to carry on.” This song also features the greatest lyric ever written “Computer terminals report some gains in the values of copper and tin, While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs for the price of a hospital wing”

14) The Flaming Lips - Do You Realise?: I think this song captures mortality better than any other, with an unbridled realism and beauty. The Oklahomans also put on some of the best shows I have ever seen as well, but their studio output doesn’t really get the credit it deserves IMO.

15) Guided By Voices - Glad Girls: Bob Pollard is one of the most prolific artists around, to the point where he has released a lot of average material, but when Guided By Voices get it right, and they frequently do, the results are spectacular. This song shouldn’t really seem that special, but it never fails to get my pulse racing and want to jump around. While it probably isn’t a shared opinion, if I really had to pick a favourite GBV album it probably is Isolation Drills.  

16) The Church - The Unguarded Moment: In a 35-year career, have these Aussies ever released a bad album? I’m not sure (I can’t claim to have all 17), but they also lay claim to this song, which I first heard on the Children of Nuggets boxset, and I think as a result, I do prefer this single-edit as opposed to the album version.

17) Porcupine Tree – Synesthesia: I very, very rarely listen to PT these days, whose run from Up the Downstair until In Absentia (6 albums between 1993-2002) is amongst my most loved of any band. This version is from the original 1993 release, with electronic drums, which I much prefer. The album got a re-issue a few years ago with real drums but it just doesn’t work for me.

18) Ann Peebles - Trouble, Heartache & Sadness: As I was making this mix I was starting to realise how little soul I had on here, which is definitely a mistake… fortunately after a bit of fine-tuning I managed to squeeze on this lovely Ann Peebles tune. Straight from the Heart is my favourite soul record, despite the annoying trait to fade out every single song before the 3-minute mark. I never understood why Quentin Tarantino never used this in a film. “Heartache, stop knockin' at my window, I don't wanna hear what you have to say, You can go down your list of trouble, And be on your merry way”

19) Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight: I’ll end this mix with a couple of classical pieces, the first is by Max Richter, which is fairly well known and has been used in at least a couple of movies (Stranger than Fiction and Shutter Island spring to mind), but The Blue Notebooks is a lovely collection as it is.

20) Arvo Pärt - Spiegel Im Spiegel: You might need to turn the volume up a little on this one, but I couldn’t not include my favourite piece of music of all time, and it seemed like the right thing to end with. There are many versions of this piece but by far and away the best are on Alina. I can barely get through this without feeling overwhelmed, it’s just the very best of the best. Spiegel Im Spiegel means Mirror in the Mirror in German, and the music is in the tintinnabular style, that Part basically created.

This mix probably describes me as a person better than I can with words. I love every track dearly, and I hope at least one person discovers a new favourite, or at least makes them think about a song they love to the very core of their being. Sometimes it feels like the only thing we have.

Until next time, probably not another 100, but who knows…

Peace and love - Q 

Q#97 - August to September 2014

Please note that the zip file has a password: Q97

Download mix from: https://www.mediafire.com/?hhc19wsztb61eyb

Q’s Compilations

Volume #97 August – September 2014

Well hello, everybody. Summer is coming to an end, although September seems hotter than most of the summer combined… anyway, enough about the weather. It’s a case of good news / bad news at the moment. The bad news, and it is rather terrible, is that my favourite music venue, Death By Audio, is closing at the end of November, I can’t even accurately portray how much I like that place… as for the good news, well, I did get to interview my favourite musician of all time and someone whose music changed my life, Del Amitri singer Justin Currie (http://freewilliamsburg.com/interview-justin-currie/). So that was cool… anyway, this mix is the usual mishmash of things I’ve been listening to and seeing live lately.

01) Tsunamis – Homework: Cast your minds back to Q#89 and my fantastic Chilean mix (if I do say so myself) and you may remember Tsunami’s incredible song, Rosita Queen. Well, the good news is that after a few years absence, the band are getting back together! This is basically just an intro song that I’ve edited because it’s the next track that I wanted to include…

02) Tsunamis - Eterno Retorno: These two tracks appear on 2012’s EP Crac!, which is a bit more polished than their other records, but the songs are still wonderful. This popped up on a shuffle the other day (not a feature I usually use but it’s nice to mix things up from time to time) and it always jumps out at me when I listen to the band.

03) Black Wine – Komrades: This track opens the band’s latest record, Yell Boss, which was released in August. I went to the record release show at Death By Audio which also included labelmates, Brick Mower. The new record (released on Don Giovanni records) hits a little harder than their previous record.

04) Hectors Pets - School Days: I was surprised that I hadn’t used anything from Pets’ debut album, Pet-o-feelia, which was released at the end of May. I’ve been watching the Pets live with some regularity over the last couple of years and was wondering if they’d be able to capture the essence of their live shows on record, thankfully they have.

05) Monotonix - Late Night: I saw guitarist Yonantan Gat play at Death By Audio a while ago and after some digging around found he was in an Israeli band called Monotonix. During the last few days of Kim’s Record Store (RIP) I picked up a stack of vinyl and CDs, including a couple by Monotonix. This track appears on their record, Not Yet, and has a really chunky guitar sound, like Swervedriver in overdrive. 

06) Peace Creep - Interstellar Alimony: San Francisco’s Peace Creep put out a self-titled EP this year on Alternative Tentacles and it is an unashamed in-your-face SST-influenced rocker.

07) Beverly - All the Things: You may remember the fantastic Honey Do demo from a couple of mixes ago, well now the band have released their first album proper (Careers), another purchase from Kim’s (RIP, yes I will say that each time). This tune has a lovely uplifting arpeggio and now I’m typing this I realise I probably don’t use enough of those…

08) Anna Calvi - I'm the Man That Will Find You: Covers albums and EPs are nice enough but one always hopes they’re just stepping stones before new original material. Having said that, Calvi’s covers EP, Strange Weather, features a nice mix of modern and classic material. This particular tune is originally by madcap Kiwi, Conan Mockasin. “Listen to your heart,When feels right from the start.
Your empty kind of strange, Yours is for the past. Listen to your head, When you're drowning every day”

09) Gemma Ray - Shake Baby Shake: I can’t remember how I heard this song… I think I was just browsing through show listings and finding tunes by unfamiliar names, but I could be wrong. Anyway, on first listen this tune seemed a bit standard but then I found it was in my head with some regularity, so I’m putting it on the mix. I saw Gemma live a few weeks ago and she didn’t play this, which was a shame and the other material didn’t seem as interesting, but I like how this builds and the strings rising to a crescendo.

10) Matt Kivel – Underwater: Ok so Matt Kivel has now appeared on the last three mixes, call me unoriginal, but they are three different releases. This tune appears on his just-released 2^nd full-length album, Days of Being Wild.

11) Tim Woulfe - Naked Waves: Speaking of Matt Kivel, you may remember the last mix featured a song by him called Palomar, that featured on a split EP with this man, Tim Woulfe. The lo-fi production is endearing rather than distracting and Woulfe has one of those voices that on first listen sounds basic but further listens reveal an earnest depth. “And I want my songs to remind me of how I felt.”

12) R.E.M. - Get Up (acoustic): This is an oldie but this year REM officially released both of the VH1 unplugged sessions. It’s quite amazing to think that this song was released as a single in September 1989… twenty-five years ago. As Stipe sings in this song, Where Does Time Go?!

13) Tom Clark - New Toothbrush on Your Sink: Tom Clark hosts The Treehouse at 2A on Sundays (25 Avenue A, corner of East 2nd), I went a few weeks and enjoyed his set of Byrds-esque originals. And you never know who is going to turn up at the sessions, Lenny Kaye got up and played a short set when I went. Sorry for the abrupt start, it’s how the song came down. “You had something else in mind, I guess you thought was better”

14) T.V. Smith – Lies: I picked up the hard-to-find album Channel 5 from Kim’s (RIP) recently, it had been on my radar for a while after watching a documentary about him and how it seemed like the underappreciated ugly-duckling in his discography. It’s a lovely little album with some real pop sensibility that I guess fans just weren’t into at the time. Just listen to that guitar at 3:20, gorgeous.

15) St. Vincent - Birth in Reverse: I bought the St Vincent album with a Best Buy voucher a few months ago and have to say, I wasn’t buying into the hype at all, it seemed very disappointing. However, I went to see her in Prospect Park last month and she really won me over, a great performer, singer and guitarist. I certainly enjoy the album a lot more, just goes to show the power of live music.

16) Total Slacker – Satisfied: NYC’s Total Slacker had been playing most of the songs on Slip Away for the last couple of years (it was released in February) and again there was a question of whether or not the band’s fiery live performances could be captured on record, and again the answer was yes! The band have since parted ways with guitarist David Tassy which was a shame as I thought he was fairly integral to their live appeal.

17) David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights – Dropper: I recently saw The Clean live in Brooklyn (review: http://freewilliamsburg.com/kiwi-legends-the-clean-played-rough-trade/) and also managed to score a copy of David Kilhour’s latest solo album End Times Undone, which is a fine mix of jangle-pop and Neil Young-esque guitar wigouts, of which this is a fine example.

18) Elephant Stone - Wayward Stone: I saw Elephant Stone recently at the Mercury Lounge, having missed out on seeing them last year due to conflicts in schedule. This track is more of a nod to their previous records with that lovely jangley sound, but most of the Three Poisons taps into a sound a bit more like 90s Britpop (but is, thankfully, a bit better than most of that turgid movement (save a few highlights)). Always looking back on tomorrow but never thinking of you.

19) Wand - Flying Golem: I missed Ty Segal this time around in NYC (actually for the second time around…) but I did manage to catch Wand (who are one of his openers on this tour) at Death By Audio and you can immediately hear why he has taken them on tour with him.

20) Dinner – Girl: Anders Rhedin is from Denmark but currently lives in LA and has just signed to NYC-based record label, Capture Tracks. This has a wonderful, lo-fi electro-goth sound to it. Fans of John Maus will no doubt get into this. They played at Baby’s All Right this month but I didn’t end up going, hopefully there will be another chance in the future.

21) Del Amitri – Hadrian’s Wall: It’s been quite the year for Del Amitri fans, Justin Currie has released his third solo album and Del Amitri played some reunion shows (their first in 12 years), to cap things off, they just put up a couple of new tracks on their soundcloud page. This song has some great orchestration with sweeping strings, not something the band used too often.

22) Patter Matthew Bauer - You Are the Chapel: A former member of The Walkmen (who broke up), Peter Matthew Bauer has produced a rather spiffing solo record called Liberation! It almost seems like a shame to take a song out of context with the record which has a great flow to it.

And there we have it, I hope you enjoy something on this, as always. I have some ideas for the next one (I might do a Death By Audio – RIP mix) but it could just end up being the standard mix of whatever I’ve seen live or listened to lately. The two pictures are animals that look like me. On the front a Harpy Eagle and flipside is the red-lipped batfish

Until next time

Peace and love - Q 

Please note that the zip file has a password: Q97

Download mix from: https://www.mediafire.com/?hhc19wsztb61eyb