Alien Pop Monday 00.12 - Sing für mich in gelb

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Twelfth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Aus den Zeiten." 

“In another solar system, Einstürzende Neubauten would be as famous as The Beatles are in ours,” says Blixa Bargeld

Wesley Doyle. “Loving The Alien: Einstürzende Neubauten Interviewed.” The Quietus, https://thequietus.com/interviews/einsturzende-neubauten-blixa-bargeld-interview-2/ 

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Aus den Zeiten
2	Karen O	Sing Along
3	Dead Luke	Yellow Sunshine Superstition
4	Dawn Ray’d	Strike Again the Hammer Sings
5	Wolven Daughter	Sing to Me the Gospel
6	Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter	HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING
7	Th Da Freak	Sun King (The Beatles cover)
8	Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld	Nerissimo (Italian)
9	Lake	Sing 99 90
10	Baker / Coloccia / Mueller	Yellow
11	Stereolab	Fiery Yellow
12	Azar Swan	Sing Me Back
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	MoDiMiDoFrSaSo

Music and colo(u)r are constants in Blixa's lyrics, and though there are songs that more directly quote the Beatles (e.g. "Headcleaner."), I decided instead go with "MoDiMiDoFrSaSo" for the final cap of this mix to contrast with "Aus den Zeiten."

Bargeld: Listening to mindless music on the tour bus radio. I developed a simplified version of an upbeat, stupid pop song made up of "MonTuesWedThursFriSatSun", with "FriSatSun" sung enthusiastically every time. That was the idea for this piece, with various quotes from other songs and regulations in the lyrics. It's a little bit like a comic strip.

Bargeld, B., Zinfert, M., & Partridge, M. (1997). Headcleaner: Text für Einstürzende neubauten = text for collapsing new buildings. Die Gestalten Verlag. Pg. 256

Alien Pop Monday 00.11 - I try to drag myself out

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Eleventh track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Planet Umbra." Of course after remarking that the last mix was one of the longer ones, this mix ended up exceeding it in length.

I had an unexpectedly busy Memorial Day weekend, so I decided to delay posting this mix for a week, but I plan to go back on schedule next week, so instead of the every other Monday, everyone will get two Alien Pop Monday's back to back. Then after that, I'll go back to the every other week schedule mostly because it means the final mix will post on my birthday.

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Tar & Feathers
2	Boris	D.O.W.N -Domination of Waiting Noise-
3	Fever Ray	What They Call Us
4	Fragile Self	This Is My Existence
5	Zamilska	Fragile
6	Cold Specks	Let Loose the Dogs
7	The High Confessions	Along Come the Dogs
8	Zola Jesus	Run Me Out
9	ANOHNI & the Johnsons	Scapegoat
10	GGGOLDDD	This Shame Should Not Be Mine
11	Chris Randall	Wait 03
12	David Bowie	Lazarus
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Seven Screws

This was one of the hardest mixes to put together, because it's built from the same improvisational rampen as "The Pit of Language," but I think it turned out well in the end and feels poignant for this moment in time. Only four more mixes remain, and while that means there are two months of this project left, it does feel a little odd to be in sight of the end. 

Alien Pop Monday 00.10 - We cast no shadows

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Tenth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Planet Umbra." Of course after remarking that the last mix was one of the longer ones, this mix ended up exceeding it in length.

I think that I've finished assembling the mixes, but I'm sure that I'll change a few things around as I continue to put out the remaining mixes.

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Planet Umbra
2	X-TG	Emerge to Space Jazz
3	/A\	Hotel Stellar
4	Strange Attractor	Black Earth
5	Stereolab	I Feel The Air {of another planet}
6	Neu!	Negativland
7	The Sisters of Mercy	Black Planet
8	Holger Czukay Jah Wobble Jaki Liebezeit	Twilight World
9	Gary Numan and Titan	Dark Rain
10	The Bug vs Earth	Another Planet
11	Tiny Star	Gravity
12	Moon Duo	Planet Caravan
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Zebulon

Perhaps it's fitting that what might be the longest mix goes with the longest track off the album.

Alien Pop Monday 00.9 - Words, syllables and fragments

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Ninth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "The Pit of Language."

By happenstance this ended up being one of the longer mixes, and another mix that came together relatively easily. Even though I'll continue to publish the mixes every other Monday, I'm nearly done assembling them, with two mixes that need one final song added to complete them unless I change my mind about some.

It's a little unsettling that by coincidence Alexander Hacke announced he was leaving the band the weekend before I'm posting this mix, since "Babel" might be the last of his 'solo' tracks that made it into the mixes. The band has announced they'll continue and my first full album was Ende Neu, so I am hopeful there will be more Einstürzende Neubauten to come. 

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	The Pit of Language
2	CAN	Paris 73 Vier
3	Volcano The Bear	My Favourite Tongues
4	Mountain Caller	Dead Language
5	hackedepiccioto	Babel
6	Tanya Tagaq	Tongues (Backxwash Remix)
7	The Legendary Pink Dots	Aarzhklahh Olgevezh - Live
8	Azar Swan	Strange Language
9	Dälek	Abandoned Language
10	Andrew Liiles	I Lost Faith in Words
11	Fever Ray	Bottom of the Ocean
12	Neurosis & Jarboe	His Last Words
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Der Schacht Von Babel - Live

Alien Pop Monday 00.8 - Wo kann ich denn noch hingehen?

 Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the eighth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Everything Will Be Fine." Most of this mix came together very quickly in January and February when I was first assembling these mixes, but as time passed it became more and more fraught and tense with meaning. 

Though as Blixa addresses in the excellent interview with the Quietus, the tile was always cynical and wrestling with the chaos of the world. 

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Everything Will be Fine
2	Arklay Mountains	Everything Will be Fine
3	Rogér Fakhr	Waiting for It Everyday
4	Tumultuous Ruin	Until this dystopic hellscape exists nevermore
5	Bretwalda	All Shall Be Well (Live)
6	The Mayors of Nothing	A Quick Anxiety Attack Over Breakfast
7	Nomadic War Machine	This is not okay
8	Seeming	Knowledge
9	The Legendary Pink Dots	Choose Premium : First Prize
10	haloblack	everything inside
11	Darksol	Burn
12	Unwoman	99 Luftballoons
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Floorpiece / Grundstück

I tried not to let the mix become too bogged down in hopelessness, though it is a darker mix. As bleak as it is, it ends with "Floorpiece / Grundstück," which Blixa has described as a curse the band tried to place on the head of their former label, and I hope that the energy of curses finding targets who deserve affliction and misfortune is coming in our near future.

I had also been extremely tempted to use Andrew Liles' 'version' of 99 Red Balloons off of Colossus Part One, but ultimately having one 50 minute track that would be almost as long than the rest of the mix felt too unwieldy, so I went with Unwoman's excellent cover instead.

Still, you can consider the Liles' version a 'bonus' track, its re-worked lyrics seeming very apt for the moment...

Software souvenir

It's balloons shop red

The one bag of sky

Ninety fighters, the one nine

Something's a something

Meet from dust

Think nine

Just go

The line hero

Worry it up jet

Message focusing flash

High ministers with boys

Hurry, we've the summer

Knights tech free

Eye the machine

I panic. Classify war

Super nine its eager sky

One springs in dawn

Super it

Scrambling. Clarify the floating

Somewhere captain president

Identify money

Everyone's sparks alert

Air this ride

Scurry of pretty decisions

Here in the city, in the bells

One little you

Life sky go call

Mittwoch Mixes - Still I won’t apologize - I took nobody with me / not a soul

Getting back into the swing of things and posting some new Mittwoch mixes... The world might be on fire but I can distract myself by putting together these little mixes and perhaps they'll find a few other listeners too...

First, a mix inspired by track 13 from Symphony #1 for Dot Matrix Printers. I found myself bobbing my head along to the groove of this track and was inspired to put together a mix of other songs on the avant garde/experimental end of my collection that are still hopefully somewhat accessible to less esoteric listeners.

#	Artist	Track
1	Manorexia	Edison Medicine
2	Manorexia	Ataxia
3	Volcano the Bear	splendid goose
4	[the user]	Print
5	anbb	electricity is fiction
6	Klara Lewis & Nik Colk Void	Pop
7	FaUSt, feat.  灰野敬二 Keiji Haino	大海 La Mer
8	LA Vampires & Zola Jesus	In The Desert
9	Cosey Fanni Tutti	Drone
10	Nurse With Wound	Ernest Needs A Kidney (Live Studio Jam)
11	Jochen Arbeit and Mark Spybey	Port Gramsci
12	Edward Ka-Spel	Sticks & Stones
13	White Boy Scream	Fade Away

The second mix was inspired by a re-listen of Chris Connelly's SHELTA and "Fly Away Blues," which got me thinking of other songs with 'blues' in the song name, so I assembled a mix of them. While none of the thirteen are really 'blues' songs, they're all in conversation with the genre and the more traditional song structures made this mix feel like a good contrast to Still I won't apologize.

#	Artist	Track
1	Grails	Reincarnation Blues
2	The High Sheriffs	B4 Resistance Blues
3	Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan	Shotgun Blues
4	Scott Walker	Blanket Roll Blues
5	Chris Connelly	Fly Away Blues
6	Alexander Hacke	Blues Eternal
7	The The	There’s No Room In My Heart (For The Blues)
8	Little Annie And Paul Wallfisch	Price of the Blues
9	The Post-Timey String Band	Blues for Mr. Charlie
10	Across Tundras	Powder Keg Blues
11	King Woman	Celestial Blues
12	SPECIAL INTEREST	LA Blues
13	Goatsnake	A Killing Blues

Alien Pop Monday 00.7 - Enn’ ich deinen Lügen hinterher

 Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the seventh track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Besser Isses." We're now officially over halfway through. The lyrics apparently began as a potential duet and morphed into what Blixa describes as a song "breaking up with God and the universe."

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Besser Isses
2	The Soft Moon	Become the Lies
3	Fat White Family	I Believe In Something Better
4	Wire	I Should Have Known Better
5	Sister Machine Gun	Denial
6	Salem	Better Off Alone
7	EROS	Your Truth is a Lie
8	Zeal & Ardor	Golden Liar
9	NONE OF YOUR CONCERN	LIED
10	We Owe	Another Small Truth
11	Faust Vs. Dälek	Dead Lies
12	Thor Harris & Rob Halverson	I refuse to believe it
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Haus der Lüge (Live at Palast Der Republik)

Here is another mix that draws heavily from the lyrics, though I think I managed to also weave in a few aural threads as well.