WARMER MIXTAPES #629 | by Alex Bălă of Plurabelle
1. Éric Satie | Gymnopédie No.1
Because it’s breathtakingly beautiful and deceptively simple and because Éric Satie just may be the most interesting musician in a century (20th) quite full of them, no? You can very well replace it with whichever of his wonderful piano pieces you desire.
2. Björk | Unravel
Because I can never quite understand if it’s Björk’s half-singing, half-speaking thing, or Mark Bell’s and Guy Sigsworth’s exquisite production or just the insanely beautiful lyrics... While you are away/ My heart comes undone/ Slowly unravels/ In a ball of yarn/ The devil collects it/ With a grin/ Our love/ In a ball of yarn/ He'll never return it/ So when you come back/ We'll have to make new love... That kill me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
3. Neutral Milk Hotel | Oh Comely
Because... Well, it’s quite obvious, ain’t it? The number 1 sobfest-inducing piece of Melodrama in all of 90’s Indie-musicdom, perhaps. Or maybe I’m just dangerously obsessed with the middle part, after Mangum starts with the Your father made fetuses with flesh-licking ladies.
4. Talk Talk | Runeii
Because it’s the last track on their wonderful last album and it’s crazy pretty and I can’t really get through it without wanting to return to Myrrhman, which is the first track, so I kinda feel bad and this is a sort of silly mea culpa.
5. Aphex Twin | Pulsewidth
Because, if I’d only have to choose one (I don’t, really, but it just feels right for this mixtape), why not go with the unapologetically clubby?
6. Burial | Ashtray Wasp
Because I just went bonkers with frantic teenage Love and pure green Envy when I heard it and it really is a masterpiece in and of its own, without even needing to peruse his otherwise generous back catalogue. Although one, of course, should. And those final two and a half minutes! Oh, those final two and a half minutes...
7. Grizzly Bear | Ready, Able
Because the hi-hat flutter on the first choruses and those crackling guitar fireworks after the middle part go together like any commonplace dual association you can think of on the spot. And because it’s good clean fun to try and imitate the ohwa-ohwa-ohwa-oohwa effects near the end.
8. Death Grips | Get Got
Because it’s Filthy and Obnoxious and Blood-Curdling and... I think I’m already way over my adjective quota for this mixtape. They’re crazy good, and MC Ride is one of the few man crushes I have that I’d genuinely be afraid of meeting face to face.
9. Depeche Mode | The Things You Said
Because of that sneakily inescapable pulse and because it’s so darn underappreciated (what a dastardly way of trying to not pick an obvious favourite, no?). Also, Martin Gore, you honey-voiced curly blonde demi-god, you!
10. Radiohead | Pyramid Song
Because it just might be the most Powerful, Glowing, Heart Wrenching moment in the oeuvre of Alternative Music’s definitive genre-bending outfit, to go overboard with my faux Music journalist persona. I don’t really like to admit I fell prey to drunken fits of crying the first few times I listened to it, so I won’t.
+11. Patsy Cline | Crazy
Sorry for cheating and adding an extra one. It’s obviously hard to name just 10, but that’s not why I’m doing this. This song is butterscotch sweet and sad and Patsy looks like a young version of my grandmother, so I always try to squeeze it in any sort of list.
