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.

Alien Pop Monday 00.6 - In situ

 Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the sixth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Isso Isso." Though it's only the sixth track, it reminds me that I've been doing this project now for 12 weeks, compiling 78 tracks and 58 different artists so far. 

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Isso Isso
2	Sister Machine Gun	Gonna Be Right
3	drcarlsonalbion	Hackney Iliad Marsh Remix
4	Noveller	Almost Alright
5	Bretwalda	Sacrifice (Live)
6	Thor Harris	Day 447 of Quarantine (with Craig Ross, Zola Jesus, Dorian Wood)
7	Richard Dawson & Circle	Ivy
8	Chris Connelly	Valley of the Kings
9	Hilary Woods	Burial Rites
10	Zohra	Murder in the Temple (feat. Lydia Lunch)
11	ÅRABROT	A Sacrifice
12	Xiu Xiu	Bog People
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Neun Arme / Die Nacht

I'm very aware that for this mix I honed in on a couple fragments of the lyrics of "Isso Isso" and built out from there, resulting in a pretty (pre-)historical and mythological mix.

6x6 - March 2025

Continuing my 6x6 series, publishing on the 6th of the month for the first time, here are six things I want to recommend for March 2025. Just as with the first installment in Feb 2025, these are things I think might be overlooked or under-appreciated or just things that I really enjoy that I want to share with others as I work to share more positive things.

This month, they're presented arbitrarily in alphabetical order...

Alien Pop Monday 00.5 - I put a cryptic message on the door

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the fifth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Before I Go." This mix came together surprisingly quickly. With this fifth mix, we're already a third of the way through both the Rampen album and the project.

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Before I Go
2	Akron/Family	Before And Again
3	Chris Connelly	The Son of Empty Sequel
4	Volcano The Bear	before we came to this religion
5	Die Warzau	Go Going Gone
6	Foetus	Industrial Go-Slow
7	Body/Head	Where Did You Go?
8	SPIRULINA	The Message
9	Mark Lanegan & Duke Garwood	L.A. Blue
10	Wire	I Feel Mysterious Today
11	Alexander Hacke	Sugarpie
12	Thor & Friends	Mystery Train
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Perpetuum Mobile

Slightly off the topic of the mix, but several of the songs are from albums that were in constant rotation my final year of college. I got Perpetuum Mobile the spring of my Junior year, Die Warzau's Convenience came out the fall of my Senior year and Alexander Hacke's Sanctuary was the soundtrack for my last few weeks of college, constantly in my old discman as I finished my final papers and exams.

Mittwoch Mixes - It's Been a Long Way to Carry On... / give me infinite skies

Two mixes for this Mittwoch Mix post...

My wife and I saw the Brutalist last month, which was excellent, and I knew that Brady Corbet had directed Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux, which had soundtracks by Scott Walker. But it wasn't until the credits rolled that I realized he'd also dedicated the film to Scott Walker. It's a gorgeous and unsettling film, and it put me back in the mind of Walker's music, which is also gorgeous and often unsettling, so I decided to finally finish the mix of remixes and covers I'd been assembling of his work.

I cheated a little by including the Scott Walker + SUNN O))) version of "Lullaby," that he originally wrote for Ute Lemper, but since it was the final track from his final non-soundtrack album, it also seemed fitting and was a cover in its own way.

#	Artist	Track
1	Jim Sharp	The Old Man’s Back (Jim Sharp Remix)
2	The Soundcarriers	The Seventh Seal
3	Dax Riggs	30 Century Man
4	Dot Allison	Montague Terrace (In Blue)
5	Simon Bonney	Duchess
6	Zen Mother	Joanna
7	ØXN	Farmer In the City
8	Chris Connelly	The Amorous Humphrey Plugg
9	Jarboe	A Lover Loves
10	Sondre Leche	The Plague
11	Marc & the Mambas	Big Louise
12	Jim Sharp	Epilogue (Jim Sharp Remix)
13	Scott Walker + Sunn O)))	Lullaby

The second mix is a collection of songs with a nice propulsive motorik groove—I’ve been working on a writing project this last week, and the driving beat is great for focusing.

#	Artist	Track
1	FaUSt, feat.  灰野敬二 Keiji Haino	啊吼！AHOUM!
2	Can	Cuxhaven 76 Drei
3	The Legendary Pink Dots	Nouveaux Modes Exotiques
4	Cyclopean	Knuckles
5	Schneider TM / NOHE NOSHE / Zappi Diermaier	Care B Indoor Caravan
6	Deradoorian	Saturnine Night
7	Irmler + Liebezeit	Washing over Me
8	Nurse With Wound And Stereolab	Trippin' With The Birds
9	Moon Duo	Square of the Sun
10	Seven That Spells	Noi Noi
11	The Young Gods	Astronomic
12	The Damage Manual	Expand (Remix by CAN)
13	Neu!	E-Musik

[a record of reading] PHALANX

 

Third book of 2025, PHALANX by Scott Sigler, collected in the Complete Aliens Collection: Living Nightmares. A new read, started after I got a third of the way through an unnamed book that I just couldn't get into.

A take on the Alien franchise by way of a fantasy style novel rather than the classic dark sci-fi. It was very enjoyable and well worth the time of any Alien fan, though I wish the ties to the Alien universe had been handled a little less explicitly at the end. 

Still, it was a great, fun read and an interesting take on xenomorphs outside of the usual cramped corridors of spaceships and colony stations.

Mittwoch Mix - The Swiftest Blade - hwæt! Nerd Mix Volume I

 Another long percolating mix that I've finally compiled, The Swiftest Blade features a collection of songs outright inspired by TTRPG, fantasy literature, RPG video games and other songs that are at least nerd adjacent. 

Going ahead and labeling this as Volume 1 as I'll certainly be able to assemble other mixes of nerdy songs in the future...

#	Artist	Track
1	Wizard Tattoo	Wizard Knife Fight (At a Bar)
1	Loot the Body	Against the Cult of the Reptile God
3	Castle Rat	Dagger Dragger
4	Big Lich	Superfluous Mana
5	Cara Neir	Shady Blades
6	Dungeon Crawler	I Still Have That Potion I Looted In The Last Dungeon. I'll Keep It For Later!
7	Magic Sword	A New Quest
8	Bog Wizard	The Rogue
9	Acid Mammoth	Berserker
10	Book of Wyrms	Meteoric Dagger
11	King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard	Polygondwanaland
12	Loot the Body	Caught in a Gelatinous Cube
13	Wizard Tattoo	My Second Knife Fight

A point of pride for this mix is that when Loot the Body was planning out Hex Volume 2 he asked for suggestions of classic D&D modules for inspiration and I was one of at least a few who suggested Against the Cult of the Reptile God, which is undoubtedly one of my top five D&D adventures.