Mittwoch Mix - Not A Place of Honor

After listening back to ANOHNI's 2016 album, Hopeless, I was inspired to make this mix. Current events seem calculated to induce rage and hopefully this mix will be a cathartic indulgence for others as well.

It joins some similar mixes I've put together in the past, including I WANNA SCREAM OUT LOUD, Armageddon is by our side and The Mountain's Ash, the River is Steam...

Thinking of the damage being done day by day and what will be required to repair it, I decided to draw on the long-term nuclear waste warning messages for inspiration...

This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

#	Artist	Track
1	Cocksure	Teezer Hell
2	Gazelle Twin	The Suburbs
3	Big Black	Kerosene
4	ANOHNI	4 Degrees
5	Sow	My House
6	Test Dept.	Debris
7	The Legendary Pink Dots	An Arm And A Leg
8	Ashenspire	Béton Brut
9	PIG	Riot, Religion & Righteousness
10	Die Warzau	Crusaders
11	Hate Dept.	Seedling
12	Nomadic War Machine	A Gaze as Blank and Pitiless as the Sun
13	The Damage Manual	No Act of Grace

Alien Pop Monday 00.15 - erkannt das Sehnen die Knoten hält

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Fifteenth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Gesundbrunnen."  Here it is, after 15 mixes, the end—complete with 195 tracks and 131 artists featured, a corpus of what feels, to me at least, to be Alien Pop Music.

There is a passage in KOLLAPS by Melle Jan Kromhout & Jan Nieuwenhuis that speaks to the concept of Alien Pop Music that I re-read just before finalizing this mix, as I made the decision to have "Sehnsucht" (desire) off of Kollaps, their fisrt EN album, serve as the final song that I think serves as a nice conclusion to this series...

Desire is the breath that fuels life and connects the inside of the living body to the world outside. Air spreads around in the depths of the lungs, where it branches out. Oxygen flows through blood and brains until it is used up and residual gas is exhaled to make room. Just like this Einstürzende Neubauten feeds itself with sound. The band is an organism that mutates with each consecutive song. It inhales sound. It lives on sound. Just as every breath is an extension of life, sound is Einstürzende Neubauten's sustenance.

This way, the band absorbs other kinds of music and makes certain elements their own [...] With each song, Einstürzende Neubauten wanders further into unknown territory and encounters different sounds and music to reorganize themselves. 

Kromhout, Melle Jan, and Jan Nieuwenhuis. Einstürzende Neubauten’s Kollaps, pp. 83–84.  

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Gesundbrunnen
2	Cinder Well	The Doorway
3	The Damage Manual	Limited Edition
4	Laura Cannell & Nik Colk Void	Closer to Heaven (Nik Colk Void remix)
5	Cold Specks	Void
6	Nihiloxica	Black Kaveera
7	One Leg One Eye	I’d Rather Be Tending My Sheep
8	Nine Inch Nails	God Break Down the Door
9	Ulver	The Hour of the Wolf
10	Jochen Arbeit	Darkness
11	Chemlab	Pink
12	Ryuichi Sakamoto	fullmoon
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Sehnsucht

Wo vorher keine Tür war / Da machen ich dir jetzt auf

Mittwoch Mix - hwæt! Wait until you know the time is right on time / The end is near

 The (probably not) long awaited return of my annual Birthday Mix tradition...

Back in 2021, I was turning 38 and compiled the Better In My Day Mix, a selection of songs that is equal parts tongue in cheek memento mori, peculiar birthday allusions & references with a few aspirational touches to complete the mix.

Then in 2022, with my 39th birthday, I compiled a baker's dozen of songs all released the year of my birth, 1983, vertrocknet im Sonnenlicht.

For my 40 birthday in 2023, I went all out, first I gathered 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, gathered together as hwæt! Before My Time.

Then I compiled the hwæt! Top Forty... a mix of 41 songs one a year for each year I’d been around, plus one for that 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.

Last summer, this blog was on a hiatus, but now, with my 42nd birthday approaching, I've assembled a mix to revive this tradition, hwæt! Wait until you know the time is right on time / The end is near. Mostly but not all, released since my last birthday. A little less of a memento mori mix, but those melancholy motifs remain.

#	Artist	Track
1	Blixa Bargeld & Nikko Weidemann	Lazarus
2	Allie Goertz	The Great Destroyer
3	Gloria	Artemis
4	Zombie Zombie	Double Z
5	Sumac & Moor Mother	Camera
6	Young Fathers	Lowly
7	Xordox	Unreality
8	The Young Gods	Systemized
9	Dark Chisme	Lucretia My Reflection
10	The Cure	Drone:Nodrone
11	The Legendary Pink Dots	Blood Money : Transitional
12	PIG	The Ratchet Effect
13	Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld	Durch Mich

Not gonna lie, since I saw 28 Years Later, I've been pondering how I can make sure that on that distant day my skull is added to the bone temple...

Alien Pop Monday 00.14 - Fossiliien, die wir beide sind

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Fourteenth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Trilobiten." After seven months of this project, we've reached the penultimate mix. 

Off the top of my head, "Trilobiten" is one of the most 'folk' songs Neubauten has ever released, up there with "Ein Stuhl in der Hölle" and this mix definitely leans a little in that direction.

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Trilobiten
2	Kikagaku Moyo	Trilobites
3	Angeline Morrison	Ophelia
4	Chris Connelly	Ophelia Moment
5	The Body and BIG|BRAVE	Once I had a Sweetheart
6	Panopticon	The Devil Walked the Woods
7	Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, Kim Myhr, Jenny Hval	Me, you, me, you
8	Rudolph Moser	CAUSE YOU
9	Your Ancestors Knew Death	A Fossil Record
10	How To Destroy Angels	Ice Age
11	Gloria	Styx
12	Hacia Dos Veranos	I’ll Be Your Mirror
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Youme & Meyou (Live)

Was ist noch uebrig?

Alien Pop Monday 00.13 - Allet hat sich uffjelöst

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Thirteenth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Ick wees nich (Noch nich)."

I'm particularly pleased with this mix, I think it is strangely cohesive in both musical language and lyrics. Perhaps I will be the only one who feels that way, but these thirteen songs really do seem to me to be of a set.

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Ick wees nich (Noch nich)
2	Wire	Time Lock Fog
3	Chrome	Nova Feedback
4	Zola Jesus	Wiseblood
5	The Love Interest	Blue Velvet Mix
6	Gazelle Twin	Obelisk
7	The Soft Pink Truth	You Don’t Know (The Full Rose of Dawn)
8	The Bug	Void
9	Fragile Self	Need for Sanctuary
10	The Answer Lies in the Black Void	Become Undone
11	Strange Attractor	Undone
12	The The	Lonely Planet
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Die Befindlichkeit Des Landes (Klaviermusik Version)

Alles nur künftige Ruinen

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.