WARMER MIXTAPES #234 | by Sean Earl Beard [Plastic Flowers]

1. The Glove | This Green City
I don't know what they did to this album to make it sound like this, but I love it. It's sweeping and romantic, psychedelic, and somehow very DIY. What is this song? Who writes like this? It's so dense and driving but so delicate. It's one of those songs that just lingers over me in the past years. Showing off. The closing guitar solo kills me.

2. The Clientele | We Could Walk Together
First things first. This may have one of my favorite guitar melodies I've ever heard. At about 15 seconds in. But beyond that...I first heard this album in its entirety when i was very ill. I was sleeping on the living room floor in a weird fever dream. I kept on slipping in and out of sleep. And I would only pull myself out of the covers to start the album over and over again. Now looking back, I think it was the very best way to hear this album. It's achingly beautiful, haunting, distant, and somehow insanely intimate.

3. Altered Images | See Those Eyes
I first heard Altered Images when I was about 14. I was at my then-girlfriend's house and her parents had a great record collection. They had a flexi-disc single for I want to say See Those Eyes. I got obsessed with it. These chiming guitars and this baby-like voice, it was weird and wonderful. We just danced around to it in the living room. Remember when people just did that?

4. The Smashing Pumpkins | 1979
I can't help it, this song is a complete classic. It reminds me of being a poor kid that did bad things. Growing up in a awful part of town with an awful life and learning to find my own way with friends I cared for. Leaving the house for days at a time and spending the night running around in the streets with my friends, going to punk rock shows and girls' parents' houses. Knowing that life can be wonderful even when it isn't.

5. The Horrors | Sea Within A Sea
They started out as such a kitch band. Really silly. Then they surprised me with how much I liked their second album. The drama is infectious. They have got a great command of the sound they are going for. They always seem to have it under control. The second half of the song becomes something wonderful.

6. The Cure | All Cats Are Grey
Still haven't heard a song sound like this. It's so serene and restrained. It has alot of passion as well, without ever going over the top. That warm little synth pad driving the chords through the song. Makes me think of alot of long quiet nights alone in my room, but in the best possible way.

7. Fine China | They Will Love Us For Our Instruments
I can't believe anyone out there had the nerve to write a song like this. It's a plead for a simple exchange between a songwriter and its listener. I will write a song and if you like it, sing along with me. That's it. Wonderful.

8. Felt | Down But Not Yet Out
Lawrence's music came to me in a time i needed it most. I'll always remember that. A friend played them for me and I immediately went out and bought Forever Breathes The Lonely Word. I was almost living out of my car and working a terrible job. My CD player was really testy and seemed to only like when I played Felt, and I didn't complain. I remember getting out of work, pulling a pair of old ratty oxfords out of my back seat and blasting this song in a parking lot. I spent 2 seasons living skint with a heavy diet of Felt.

9. The Drums | The Future
For a band that tends to taut their minimalism the instrumentation on this is almost overwhelming at moments. It's hard for me to like this song for personal reasons, but I do despite myself.

10. Arthur Russell | Soon-To-Be Innocent Fun-Let's See
A dear friend said that this is one of the most haunting songs ever recorded and I tend to agree with him. I don't think many people would let you get as close as Arthur did. It's barely intelligible but that makes it all so much more intimate. It makes me think of the cold New York apartment it was recorded in and the quiet loneliness of the singer. It's almost too much to bear.

+11. The Sundays | You're Not The Only One I Know
I bought Reading, Writing, And Arithmetic when I was 16. I remember it was fall because I brought the album back to my house inside my grey pea coat jacket. It was sort of a secret. Because it was not cool to like music this gentle. I would listen to it over and over again but never told anyone about it. It wasn't until years later that I could admit how much I loved it.

+12. The Field Mice | I Can See Myself Alone Forever
I've played this song so many time I feel like I know every nook and cranny. I feel like I've absorbed it and it's just part of me. I feel this way all the time. And it is probably my fault. I have such a hard time connecting even when I want to.

+13. OMD | Silent Running
A song that gives me hope for the future. We're walking on air, we're taking our time.