WARMER MIXTAPES #189 | by Peter Pearson, Emilie Friedlander, Jon Williams and Toshio Masuda of La Big Vic
SIDE A | by Emilie Friedlander
Songs I like listening to on YouTube on repeat (with suggested listening scenario):
1. Public Image Ltd. | Poptones (live)
Lying on the couch after a long night of work, drinking a tall boy, feeling generally beat-up by the world, and kind of reveling in it.
2. Christian Death | The Drowning
Getting revved up on busy work of any kind.
3. The Shocking Blue | Love Buzz
Getting fresh at the weekend.
4. Michael Bundt | Neon
Cooling down after band practice, drinking Arizona iced tea.
5. Amon Duul II | Surrounded By The Stars
Feeling revolutionary.
6. The Electric Prunes w/David Axelrod
Waking up, brewing some coffee, and checking your morning email.
7. The Incredible String Band | Creation
Walking in any park in New York City after Sunday brunch, late April.
8. Pure Ecstasy | Alexandria (Live at the Tortilla Factory)
Hanging out on a roof with your buds on a summer's eve and falling silent when you're all talked-out.
9. Mulatu Astatke | Tezeta
Idealizing the one who got away, in that liminal zone between sleep and waking life.
10. Steve Hillage | All Too Much
Starting a road-trip.
SIDE B | by Toshio Masuda
1. Steve Reich | Music For 18 Musicians
This is my masterpiece.
2. Stevie Wonder | Too High
Been listening to it since I was 9.
3. Steve Vai | Tender Surrender
I like Zappa.
4. Stevie Salas | Third Eye
This band is dreamin’ band. It’s awesome.
5. Stevie Ray Vaughan | Pride And Joy
His blues guitar was great.
6. Toto | Africa
This was my theme song when I was in the college.
7. Steve Perry | Foolish Heart
Very sentimental.
8. Stevie Nicks | Landslide
Of course everybody loves.
9. Stevie B. | Because I Love You (The Postman Song)
Because he is the king of freestyle.
10. Steve Griesgraber and Redhooker | Trip And Fall
He is the most talented young composer and Guitarist in New York City.
SIDE C | by Peter Pearson
1. Universe | I
Universe makes some of my most favorite sentimental synth-pop ever. His newest album Gazing Gazing should be out soon and it's going to be (gazing) amazing.
2. The Beach Boys | Feel Flows
Beach Boys + Moog synth = I'm in love. I used to play this song on repeat while I was sleeping when I was in college.
3. The Beach Boys | Holidays
Just when you feel like you have this song down, the drums kick in and take you that much higher. Perfect music for a sunny afternoon.
4. The Beach Boys | Big Sur
The version of this song that made it on album is great, but this early version blows it away.
5. The Beach Boys | Let Him Run Wild
You can hear the band reaching for the kind of production that would later show up on Pet Sounds on this track. Pure genius.
6. The Beach Boys | Surf's Up
Can you tell I've been listening to lots of Beach Boys?
7. Mark Verbos | Frozen In Time
There's a story about Steve Reich and Ramon Sender doing mushrooms on the Haight back in the 60s. I imagine this song sounds like their jam session that night.
8. Jamie Principle | Baby Wants To Ride
I love trippy synthesizer music and early Chicago House is some of the best.
9. Hans-Joachim Roedelius | Schoner Abend
Roedelius recorded this while on break from recording Cluster. The track is off one of his Selbstportrait (self-portrait) albums, which is a perfect description for the music. It's a 5 minute long personal moment in a private world.
10. Ash Ra Tempel | Deep Distance
Head trip music with enough of a beat that it makes you feel like dancing.
SIDE D | by Jon Williams
1. Yello | Homer Hossa (At 45)
I grabbed this pitched-up jam off the Dream Chimney a few months ago. Sort of a spiritual sibling to the more cosmic of Sega Genesis jams; ECCO The Dolphin soundtrack (via-a-vis John C. Lilly), Spyro The Dragon etc. The atmospherics (elephant, birds) sound as if they were recorded on the warmest night of the summer.
2. Spacemen 3 | I Love You (Remix)
I'm a latecomer to the Sonic Boom oeuvre, not sharing the teenage fandom of my friends. I dig the interplay between their rock elements, and textural & spatial elements - the radio noise (referenced in the lyrics, natch), the whisperings of an attentive audience heard in the 45 minute An Evening Of Contemporary Sitar Music. Hot clarinet riff at the end!
3. Guru Guru | Samba Das Rosas
This one is sort of an oddity in Guru Guru discography, a Spanish-guitar / hand percussion campfire freak-out with sandwiched between the hard psych of their earlier material and the Talking Heads-inflected prog of the late 70s.
4. The Human League | Empire State Human
Heard this on a DJ Chaos X mixtape a few years back at the height of my Boredoms trainspotting years, and I keep coming back to this choon. Pretty essential vocal round at the end, plus a helium-vox call-and-response!
5. Pom Pom | Untitled (from Pom Pom #1)
Stupid people think it's cool, smart people think it's a joke - also cool. (See also, Rotterdam Termination Source - Poing)
6. Telex | Plus De Distance
Telex has a reputation for their sense of playfulness in both their lyrics and production, but I think this sentimental francophone electropop might have their tongue planted most firmly in their cheek.
7. Model 500 | The Flow
1990's Juan Atkins production with a raw, syncopated 303 line underneath ice-cold shimmering crystals with a fractured amplitude envelope. I've been spending some time considering the lyrical move from a lover's attributes to Christ's.
8. Faust | Liebeswehen 2
Late-era Faust gets a bad rap, but this stuff holds up well. I used this synth-drenched 90s tune in a short film in which comedian Rodney Dangerfield performs the improbable Triple Lindy dive in the 1980s comedy Back To School superslow.
9. Hans-Joachim Roedelius | Johanneslust
The pastoral themes of kosmiche music have always touched a sentimental streak inside of me. Sunlit pools in the forest by day and the far-off sound of the stormy ocean at night.
10. ALTZ | Hilltop Greeting
First heard this song during one of my semi-monthly bicycle pilgrimages to the funerary greenbelt in Queens. Japanese DJ bros in chill Kangol hats on a John Oswald rampage through the Windham Hill catalog, afrobeat comps, steel guitar samples; ends up sounding like an urban Neu!, but more of a J Dilla groove that a Bohannon stomp.
