hwæt! And when you least think of you…

I had originally thought that I'd put out a mix of songs with exquisite mouth sounds, inspired by Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld's incredible "Menschenentsafter" but I need to spend a little more time sifting through my collection to make sure I've truly assembled the best of what I have.

So instead, I built a mix around another of the tracks off of the incredible album Christian & Mauro, "Bisogna Morire" or 'you must die', which is a more cheerful memento mori than the name might suggest. The resulting mix is by turns playful and melancholy, autumnal and heartening, and hopefully a balm for the listener's soul.

#	Artist	Track
1	Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld	Bisogna Morire
2	Elysian Fields	This World Is Just a World
3	Unwoman	Falling Leaves
4	Lankum	Cold Old Fire
5	Rogér Fakhr	Rainhill
6	Mick Harvey	Alone with the Stars
7	Philip Glass	Mishima (Bob’s Burgers Arrangement)
8	Allie Goertz	We’re in This Together
9	Chris Connelly	Fini Chagall
10	Anita Lane	Bella Ciao
11	Einstürzende Neubauten	All of No Man’s Land is Ours
12	The Young Gods & The Lausanne Sinfonietta	She Rains (Live)
13	The Legendary Pink Dots	Space Captain (Extended)

I also made the mix as a youtube music playlist, though since all the songs are at the mercy of google making them available, you're really better off listening on Mixcloud where they won't disappear unless the whole mix is taken down...

hwæt! moody mittwoch mixes

It's been a rough week with anger and sadness rolling through in waves, so, as I have done before, I focused on channeling those emotions into musical mixes.

First, hwæt! she’s looking down with sadness... Sometimes when the world seems full of muck and it feels like a great portion of humanity lets you down, you want to listen to some beautifully sad songs, so here are a baker's dozen of tunes for just that...

#	Artist	Track
1	Zola Jesus	Dead & Gone
2	Mark Lanegan & Duke Garwood	Ghost Stories
3	The Legendary Pink Dots	Stigmata (Part 4)
4	Chris ConnellyHeartburn
5	Lankum	Go Dig My Grave
6	Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin & Ultan O'Brien	All Our Lonely Ghosts
7	Allfather	A False Peace
8	Foetus	Here Comes the Rain
9	The Mon	The Manure of Our Remains
10	Chelsea Wolfe	Little Grave
11	Panopticon	The Wandering Ghost
12	Scott Walker	The Ballad of Sacco And Vanzetti
13	Green Lung	One for Sorrow

Allfather's excellent, defiant anthem "Take Their Eyes" was the anchor for this mix, that I gathered a dozen more tracks of rage and defiance around.

#	Artist	Track
1	Green Lung	Leaders of the Blind
2	Allfather	Take Their Eyes
3	Svalbard	Defiance
4	Frayle	Burn
5	Verminlord	Everywhere is burning
6	Pig	The Keeper of the Margarita
7	The Legendary Pink Dots	This One-Eyed Man is King
8	Nomadic War Machine	I Hate Every Cop In This Town
9	ZAMILSKA	BLIND
10	Ashenspire	The Law of Asbestos
11	Mass Culture	Bones of this World
12	Transgressive	Extreme Transgression
13	Order of the Wolf	A Plague on Conservative Houses

hwæt! Halloween 2024 Mixes

Unexpectedly deciding to buy a house in August 2023 sure derailed this blog and my little hobby of making thematic musical mixes. But with this pair of Halloween Mixes, I'm hoping to get back on track.

You can find my previous Halloween Mixes here:

hwæt! Halloween 2021 Mixes

hwæt! Halloween 2022 Mixes

First is the Candy Bowl Mix, a mix of slightly eerie, slightly silly songs that should be suitable to have on in the background while you're passing out treats to costumed children.

#	Artist	Track
1	The Surfrajettes	Banshee Bop
2	Henry Hall BBC Dance Orchersta	Here Comes the Bogey Man
3	Binaural Space	Ghostbuster Busters
4	Sean Thomson	Witches Be Trippin’
5	Four Eyes	The Dead Can’t Rest
6	The Vampires of Dartmoor	Dr. Caligari’s Creeps Cabinet
7	Loot the Body	Razor Blades in Apples
8	8-Bit Arcade	Season of the Witch
9	Tall Tall Trees & Kramer	Superstition
10	Uncle Fido	They Visit a Cemetery
11	The Psychic Circle	Lights Out
12	Five Jones Boys	Mr Ghost Goes To Town
13	Hazy Sour Cherry	Hazy Halloween

Second is the Creepy Crawly Dance Party mix, a selection of vaguely sinister and monstrous to outright Halloween themed songs suitable for an adult costume party.

#	Artist	Track
1	ÅRABROT	Skeletons Trip the Light Fantastic
2	Fundustrial	Dance of Doom
3	Pitch Black Manor	Scream Team
4	BARA HARI	House of the Devil
5	Katie Gately	Fawn
6	Liars	There’s Always Room On The Broom
7	Black Market Dub & Wise Owl	Ghouls Dancing
8	Unwoman	Love’s Secret Domain
9	The Glass Beads	Monster
10	Henning Zinoviev & Floating Candles	Jessica Van Helsing
11	Bussy Kween Power Trip	Slap Me In My Panties, Brah
12	Church of the Cosmic Skull	Last Words of a Dying God
13	Leæther Strip	Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

For those who don't want to use MixCloud, I also compiled two YouTube Music playlists combining these with earlier mixes of similar vibes... One for the probably kid-friendly Candy Bowl tracks and one for the more adult Creepy Crawly Dance Party adult costume vibe...

Of course, because YouTube doesn't have all of the tracks that I do, the MixCloud mixes have all of the tracks and the YouTube playlists have some gaps.

Mittwoch Mix - hwæt! & all of the birds will sing to your / Beautiful heart / Upon the bough

 

A selection of tracks that feature Bird Songs, either sampled, synthesized or cunningly mimicked.

#	Artist	Track
1	Panopticon	Tamarack’s Gold Returns
2	WYS	In The Fields
3	The Legendary Pink Dots	This Hollowed Ground
4	Shirley Collins	At Break of Day
5	Piyakdu	Righisnesse
6	Nurse with Wound	Gulls Just Want to Have Fun 2
7	Harjo	Handful of Dust
8	Margaret McKee	Bird Imitations
9	Coil	Strange Birds
10	King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard & Mild High Club	The Spider and Me
11	Blixa Bargeld	Little Yellow
12	Nell and the Flaming Lips	No More Shall We Part
13	The Tear Garden	New Eden

Mittwoch Mix - hwæt! Top Forty

To celebrate my 40th year, here are forty songs, one a year for each year I’ve been around, plus one for this 41st year. As with all of my birthday mixes, there is a tiny bit of Memento Mori, but mostly these are just songs I like.

Year	#	Artist	Track
1983	1	Einstürzende Neubauten	DNS Wasserturm
1984	2	Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds	Well of Misery
1985	3	The Legendary Pink Dots	I’m The Way, The Truth, The Light
1986	4	Skinny Puppy	Dig It
1987	5	The Sisters of Mercy	This Corrosion
1988	6	KMFDM	Disgust
1989	7	Ministry	Never Believe
1990	8	Meat Beat Manifesto	Deviate
1991	9	Edward Ka-Spel	The Baker’s Man
1992	10	Chris Connelly	July
1993	11	Machines of Loving Grace	Limiter
1994	12	Nurse With Wound	R+B Through Collis Browne
1995	13	Earth	Tibetan Quaaludes
1996	14	Chemlab	Jesus Christ Porno Star
1997	15	Stereolab	Miss Modular
1998	16	The Legendary Pink Dots	Hellsville ‘98
1999	17	Nine Inch Nails	We’re In This Together
2000	18	MDFMK	Get Out of My Head
2001	19	h3llb3nt	Jet Boy Machine
2002	20	Steroid Maximus	Chain Reaction
2003	21	Sister Machine Gun	Influence
2004	22	Einstürzende Neubauten	Selbstportrait mit Kater
2005	23	Alexander Hacke	Sanctuary
2006	24	Yeah Yeah Yeahs	Phenomena
2007	25	The Young Gods	The Color Code
2008	26	Alec Empire	On Fire (The Hellish Vortex Sessions)
2009	27	Current 93	Not Because the Fox Barks
2010	28	The Fall	Dr Buck’s Letter
2011	29	Wire	Red Barked Trees
2012	30	Scott Walker	Corps De Blah
2013	31	How To Destroy Angels	Welcome Oblivion
2014	32	Swans	She Loves Us
2015	33	Cocksure	Razor Invader
2016	34	Grumbling Fur	Heavy Days
2017	35	Xordox	Antidote
2018	36	Gazelle Twin	Hobby Horse
2019	37	Test Dept.	Information Scare
2020	38	Einstürzende Neubauten	Ten Grand Goldie
2021	39	The Lion’s Daughter	Become the Night
2022	40	The Bug	Fractured ft Dälek
2023	41	Henges	Suffocate

Mittwoch Mix - hwæt! Before My Time

 

As the anniversary of my birth approaches again, I've collected a mix of thirteen songs that I love and that were recorded before I was born. The very slightest theme of Memento Mori threads through many, but not all, of them.

This continues my tradition of making birthday mixes for myself, following my Better In My Day Mix and Vertrocknet im Sonnenlicht 

#	Artist	Track
1	Scott Walker	The Seventh Seal
2	Can	Oh Yeah
3	Rogér Fakhr	(Such A) Trip Thru Time
4	Neil Young	Old Man
6	Faust	Krautrock
7	Jerry Goldsmith	Main Title from Alien
8	The Monks	I Hate You
8	The Velvet Underground	Heroin
9	Shirley Collins	The Unquiet Grave
10	Apocalypse	Only the Children Know
11	The Stooges	Fun House
12	Sun Ra & His Arkestra	Sea of Sounds
13	The Birthday Party	Mr. Clarinet

Tasting Menu Mix - Dessert Volume II

Here is the continuation of a second set of Tasting Menu Mixes. Thirteen more of my favorite bands & musical artists presented in three, themed mixes, as an audio three course meal. Featuring (in alphabetical order): Binaural Space, Dälek, Divide & Dissolve, Emma Ruth Rundle, Gazelle Twin, Let’s Eat Grandma, Lingua Ignota, Matmos, Panopticon, Pharaoh Overlord, Shirley Collins, Thor Harris, Zola Jesus

Here is a second volume of the Dessert Mix, the songs are decadent and indulgent, meant to leave you feeling overstuffed. A sense of the artist at some of their most expansive and sublime.

#	Artist	Track
1	Let’s Eat Grandma	Donnie Darko
2	Emma Ruth Rundle	Don Danann Dana Danu Ana
3	Lingua Ignota	DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR
4	Shirley Collins	Awake Awake /The Split Ash Tree/ May Carol /Southover
5	Pharaoh Overlord	Black Horse
6	Divide & Dissolve	Denial
7	Gazelle Twin	See How They Run
8	Zola Jesus	Drone for Spiritual Carcass
9	Dälek	Black Smoke Rises
10	Dorian Wood & Thor Harris	The Angel
11	Panopticon	Dead Loons
12	Binaural Space	All Along the Spacecraft
13	Matmos	EXTRATERRESTIAL MATTERS