WARMER MIXTAPES #441 | by Blake Robin [Baron von Luxxury]
1. Soft Metals | Psychic Driving
This song hasn't left my head for days. I love the angular synth stabs over the pedaling bass line, while Patricia's dreamy voice weaves a crystalline path in the sky overhead.
2. Psychemagik | Valley Of Paradise
I found this track on AOR Disco and it instantly jumped out at me as a standout piece of work. A gorgeous, nine minute reworking of a fully harmonized David Crosby track, it's an interesting creative object: part remix, part re-edit, part wholly original composition.
3. Wire | The 15th
This came on at The Echo the other night after my friend Vice Cooler's set. I love when simple vocal melodies wind and meander over surprising chord changes. There's a live version of this track on YouTube where they add a rhythmic figure in the verses and a gruff vocal delivery that gives the song an extra edge.
4. Metronony | The Bay
Totes my 2011 summer jam. I'm really into using just a few weird sounds in an otherwise normal Pop context, which this song does in a few places. And understated sardonic lyrics are the way to my heart.
5. Sébastien Tellier | Kilometer
This came on the other night at the bar in Silver Lake where I live and I felt like someone just made love to my ears without asking me first. So dirty and beautiful, it makes me wish I were French so I could get away with that Gallic Gainsbourgian combination, which just comes across as sleazy in the US.
6. The Alan Parsons Project | Eye In The Sky
Kinda makes me cry. I fought nostalgia and nostalgia won.
7. Glass Candy | Warm In The Winter
This song just came out 5 days ago but it's already in my top 10 for the year. I'm such a giddy schoolgirl about this band, which is why I spent nine months working on a remix for them a little while back. I sorta wish they didn't nick the chords from Where The Streets Have No Name but I will forgive them.
8. Chicago | If You Leave Me Now
You'd have to be an asshole not to sing along with the ooooooo part. And I am not an asshole.
9. John Maus | Believer
So glad goth vocals are back. Love how the tingly synths just float in space, unthethered by any rational sense of sonic balance. Just make everything loud!
10. Elvis Presley | (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear
Sixty years old but still sexy and playful. Like Helen Mirren.
+11. Austra | Spellwork (Baron von Luxxury Remix)
I'm really proud of how this turned out, melancholy and cathedral-like. Actually I'd love to DJ it at Notre Dame in Paris. Anyone know the booker?
