WARMER MIXTAPES #1654 | by Jonathan Daniel Donahue [XJ6 Donahue]/(The Flaming Lips, Harmony Rockets, Shady Crady) of Mercury Rev
1. Richard Burton | The Little Prince (Narration)
One of the underlying currents throughout my musical life has been the children's albums my mother would play to me as a very small child. They informed my world view before I was old enough to see out the window myself. The story of The Little Prince was like listening to my own autobiography long before I could write.
2. Ramesh Mishra, Polash Gomes | Raga Todi
From Reminiscence album... A student of Ravi Shankar, his sarangi playing is the closest to my heart of any instrument besides the bowed saw. To me, the North Indian sarangi is what I hear in my head when all other Music fades.
3. Mississippi John Hurt | Pay Day
Today! album... A soft spoken Delta Blues man who had such a subtle approach to Inflection and Word Play that even today when I play this record I tell anyone else in the room to either shut the fuck up or leave. It's that sacred of a listening moment to me.
4. Modest Mussorgsky | Night On Bald Mountain (Performed by State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation; Conductor: Evgeny Svetlanov)
My mother, whose family comes from the Carpathian Mountains near old Transylvania, would often play this music and tell me stories of witches and otherworldly beings when I was young. I grew up to love both this spooky melodramatic style of Classical Music and witches. To this day it is my favorite Classical piece.
5. The Chameleons | Second Skin
Script Of The Bridge album... All my teenage angst and distrust of Society seemed to be already spoken for when I first heard this LP. I was astonished to find something so compelling and articulate on vinyl at a time when most Outsider Music was either to literary or too compelled by hormones. I always thought if I could be in one band it would be this one. Years later I would come to know the group and its singer Mark, though sadly I've never received the invitation to join, ha!
6. Antonín Dvořák | The Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178 (Performed by Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Conductor: Paavo Järvi)
Growing up the Catskill Mountains, this piece of Music often symbolized the discovery of my part of the world many hundreds of years ago. I can still lean on this when I grow homesick on the road.
7. Billie Holiday | I'm A Fool To Want You (Frank Sinatra Cover)
Lady In Satin... If ever there is an LP and songs that know every crevice in my emotional character, it is this album. Her voice, the songs and their arrangements are unrivaled in the 20th Century.
8. Mark Lester, Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Sheila White, Jack Wild & Boys | I'd Do Anything (Oliver! Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
This movie, much like The Little Prince in Literature, seemed to encapsulate so much Emotional Information from my early lives that, even to this day, I cry when watching it. I know its songs by heart, or should I say its songs know me by heart...
9. Ludwig van Beethoven | String Quartet No. 12 in E♭ major, Op. 127 (Performed by Talich Quartet)
All of the Late String Quartets!... For many years I awoke to these pieces of Music every morning. These quartets do something only two or three others have ever done in the entire History of Written Music. The Late String Quartets SQUARE THE CIRCLE. And while I won't go into what this means, for those who understand the import of this phrase... They will understand its profoundness.
10. Silence | No Man-Made Sound
As in no sounds but my own beating heart, the buzzing of my ears and the bubbling of my stream. Greater than all the above, The Quiet of being in Nature is paramount to any Human attempt to mimic it. This Silence is most elusive and fleeting, but in those rarefied moments when encountered my world... Ultimately it's so much better for it.
