WARMER MIXTAPES #23 | by Johnny LeValley of MODERNLESS

1. The Presets | This Boy's In Love (LifeLike Remix)
For me, this song was the absolute song of the summer '08. I remember djing our weekly party at my friends new club and just playing it every night, LOUD as hell, and getting more intoxicated with love and freedom and Jack Daniels too. The melodies are great, the straight housey/club/disco beat, the way the layers so subtly fold into each other. What a genius way of bringing the original song into an entirely different feeling for me. I should call ASCAP or BMI, whoever collects their royalties, and ask where my commission is because for the whole summer I must have told thousands of people about this song. We even considered doing a live MODERNLESS version. HA!!

2. Friendly Fires | Paris (Aeroplane Remix)
Here is another remix that I couldn't live without. I remember, another night, when i first heard this song. We were throwing a party at Sway in NYC. I walked out of the bathroom and my drummer at the time (Mikey Jones), was djing. The intro high hats and bass kick came on and I was like Ok, this is nice, and then that keyboard/synth melody. I felt like i was melting. I was wondering where i had been all this time, when I was later at my friend DJ David Katz's gig and asked if he played that song. His reply was Dude, yeah, all the time...I love it. This seems like a long time ago but it was actually the beginning of last summer, 09'. Me and Mikey would fight over who would get to play it at our parties while we were taking turns dj'ing, but if he happened to play it first, i would just play it at a faster bpm again later.

3. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club | Whatever Happened To My Rock 'n' Roll (Punk Song)
This song gives me reason to believe that all the bands trying to sound like this band in New York should just stick to the magazine gigs they get from picking up a guitar and leave the music alone. One band in particular is the Young _______. I can't use their full name because then I would be a full hater, haha, but let's just say that these dudes, BRMC, just hold the shit down like heals on a hooker. This song, like many of theirs, are dirty and raw and although fit into a classic style, they take just enough, but leave just enough to make it believable for me, and not just another band trying to have an image and play pentatonic riffs. WHEW!!, finally someone to carry the torch forward.

4. 120 Days | Sedated Times
I traveled to Bergen, Norway in the summer of '07 and decided to climb all the seven mountains there. Of course you need music for this so I had mine in my ears the whole time. I felt like I was floating off the Earth's surface with all those amazing views and luckily I had just discovered the sound of 120 Days at the same time. That is the best way to describe their sound. It feels like a dangerous/beautiful place and the longing to remain and escape. Absolutely beautiful music. Especially this song.

5. Singapore Sling | Listen
In short, I discovered this band in Texas in '05. From then, till now, I've listened to them probably thousands of times. I was living in an artist collective in SOHO off and on from '05-'07, and the number of times this record was played was surprising because Jerry Foust, the President, would always get wasted and destroy EVERYTHING, so how the cd survived is a miracle. It's music that is confusing to me because I've been so close to death so many times when I've rocked the fuck out to this bad ass shit. Many thanks to these Icelandic rockers whom for a long time i suspected had kidnapped an obscure 80's rocker they were holding captive in a glacier somewhere forcing them to write the best rock n roll songs ever for this band to play.

6. René & Angela | I'll Be Good
Just sit back with a Quaalude and a nice smooth drink in an empty club, watching the lights dance across the floor while imagining a beautiful black woman in '85, slowly moving around to this track. This is where this song takes me. She has to be black, and she has to be wearing tight ass jeans, and white boots, and maybe strings of leather falling off. She catches your eyes. You feel your stomach tingle and your heart sink. You're in love, and its true.

7. The Warlocks | Come Save Us
You're lost in a haze of confusion. You feel like your life is going nowhere. It's getting faster and faster. Things are starting to get very, very strange. Things are making less and less sense. The substance abuse is being less forgiving. People are starting to look strange. All is becoming more and more disillusioned. And then you catch yourself in that moment, singing the chorus, at the top of your lungs, with your arms held back, and your chest to the sky. You're gazing into the ceiling, as though it were the sky, swaying about, and you only see the expanding universe. You sing Come save us, from ourselves, come save us, from ourselves. And you realize that we're all in it together. And we're all doomed. And it's ok.

8. Hot Chip | Over And Over
Every time I go onto a stage, whether it be to play live, or dj, or just crash some really stupid awards ceremony, (ha!), I imagine myself as a monkey on a stage, entertaining the people. I don't even know why, but this song is embodies that feeling. It creeps into my mind and seduces me, literally, to become addicted to its intoxicating melodies and groove. It makes me want to set it to repeat and see how long I can keep her on the edge of coming, without going over the edge, into complete orgasm.

9. Primal Scream | Some Velvet Morning (Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra Cover)
For some reason, this song will not get old. The synthy intro sounds so demonic and sexy that I'm instantly a loyal worshiper to the next three minutes of delicious imagery. And then, just as it began, the piano intro returns to invite you back to chapter two. I guess when I first heard it, I was fascinated with Kate Moss's sexy sounding voice, which is still sexy, but I get to hear my lady's sexy voice now, in real life, and she's MUCH hotter. But we'll debate that one later. For now I'm just gonna play this song very loud and make out with my hand.

10. UNKLE | In A State
My lady told me a story about this song while it was playing yesterday. She lived in Paris for a while and would put this song on and walk around the streets of Paris alone, blasting it into her ears. To me, my story of how I like this or that about the song would be boring compared to this. Just imagining the most beautiful girl I've ever seen walking through the streets of Paris is enough to leave me dreaming for days. Not just the streets tho. The cemeteries, the clubs, the pubs, the alley's the bridges, and so on. It's a fearless expression of beauty to me. For someone to remove their sense of sound in such a dangerous place where any psycho could just jump out and attack from behind or a dark corner is a bravery derived from the absence of fear which has been removed by the beauty of art and love. Time to go to Paris, I guess...