Mittwoch Mix - over 2021 & 2022 aural vision board

Just as I did last year, here are a pair of mixes... the first an audio farewell to the last year as we send it off to hell—the second an aural vision board with the musical energy I want to bring to the next year...

another year, another mix to send it off into the flames of hell.

#	Artist	Track
1	Daniel Hart	One Year Hence
2	Tweaker	Years From Now
3	Marissa Nadler	I Started a Joke
4	Lingua Ignota	PENNSYLVANIA FURNACE
5	Patrick Q.Wright & Edward Ka-Spel	Waiting For the Cloud 2021
6	Thor & Friends	The Other Last Straw
7	Alexander Hacke	Sugarpie
8	Foetus	Time Marches On (End Remix)
9	Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld	Nur Zur Erinnerung
10	The Boyd and BIG|BRAVE	Hard Times
11	The Joy Thieves	Flock To The Stop
12	Divide and Dissolve	Mental Gymnastics (Moor Mother Remix)
13	Scott Walker + Sunn O)))	Lullaby

13 songs with the musical energy I'm hoping to bring to 2022...

#	Artist	Track
1	SUNN O)))	ASCENSION (A)
2	Herzschlager	Lazarus Moment
3	Witchcryer	When Their Gods Come for You
4	PIG	Rock n Roll Refugee (Pig Remix)
5	Phararaoh Overlord	Tomorow’s Sun
6	Einstürzende Neubauten	La Guillotine de Magritte
7	Poppet	I Shall Persevere (Gloria Gaynor)
8	The Lion’s Daughter	Burning Inside
9	Faith No More	Motherfucker (JG Thirlwell Remix)
10	Violet Cold	Be Like Magic
11	The Lord	We Who Walk in Light (featuring William Duvall)
12	The Joy Thieves	Wonder War
13	Bretwalda	All Shall Be Well (Live)

Recommended Discoveries - Yule Tunes 2021

 

If you haven't been able to tell from the eleven Yule Tunes mixes I put together this year (easily found in one spot on the Yule Tunes Page), I picked up a fair bit of holiday music this year.

From that haul, here are some tracks and albums I recommend...

Mittwoch Mix - Yule Tunes 2021 - Part Four

 

Here we are, the final Yule Tunes mixes for 2021... As a reminder you can find all the previous Yule Tunes entry at the hwæt Yule Tunes Page.

A mix of drinking songs for Xmas, because what more do you need?

#	Artist	Track
1	Purple Dialect	mistletoe flow
2	the Rory McBrides	(We Like) Eggnog!
3	Tabernacle	Bring us In Good Ale
4	Hawkestrel	Twelve Daze of Drinxmas
5	Charlie and the Tropicales	Drink A Rum
6	Golau Glau	Foolstide
7	Angry Snowmans	Drink Some Rum & Eggnog
8	THE NEW BERLIN ANTIFASCIST BRASS ENSEMBLE	Wassail Song
9	Faith and the Muse	A Winter Wassail
10	Jethro Tull	Last Man At The Party
11	Shirley Collins & Dolly Collins	The Gower Wassail
12	WHY?	Auld Lang Syne

A mellow, quiet and slightly melancholy mix of Yule Tunes for a relaxing mood.

#	Artist	Track
1	Music for Isolation	On Christmas Day It Happened So
2	Laura Cannel & Kate Ellis	One Star Awake
3	Jill Tracy	God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
4	Fabio Orsi	Dead Leaves Christmas
5	Golau Glau	Night of the Star
6	Oneida	In the Court of the Christmas King
7	The Legendary Pink Dots	Hypothetical Angel
8	The Cavernous	White Christmas
9	Binaural Space	In the Bleak Midwinter
10	Midnight Syndicate	Coventry Carol
11	Eban Schletter	Silent Night
12	John Doan	Old Long Since (Auld Lang Syne)

A mix of some of my favorite Yule Tunes—a few have appeared on other mixes, but here they are in one hard to argue with mix of interesting originals and eclectic takes on Xmas classics.

#	Artist	Track
1	Purple Dialect	Yule
2	Golau Glau	Yule Cat
3	The Knife	Reindeer
4	Midnight Syndicate	Little Helpers
5	Uncle Fido	The Little Drummer Boy
6	John Zorn	Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
7	Charlie and the Tropicales	O Christmas Tree
8	Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble	Carol of the Bells
9	Husbands	right christmas
10	Jethro Tull	God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
11	Pig	Blue Christmas
12	Golau Glau	The Owd Tup
13	Binaural Space	Continus Lofi Mixmas

I WANNA SCREAM OUT LOUD

 

There are days when I want music to scream along to for some kind of catharsis—this is a mix for those kinds of days…

#	Artist	Track
1	Alec Empire	XXV3
2	Allfather	Citadels
3	Underdark	With Ashen Hands Around Our Throats
4	Thou	Fucking Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean
5	Einstürzende Neubauten	Abfackeln!
6	Body Void	Laying Down In A Forest Fire
7	PIG	Find It Fuck It Forget It
8	Je$us Loves Amerika ft. Chris Connelly & Gord Young	The Great Pretender
9	Zeal and Ardor	Wake of a Nation
10	The Lion’s Daughter	All Hell is Mine
11	Panopticon	Flag Burner Torch Bearer 2020 (re recording)
12	GREEN LUNG	Born to a Dying World
13	LINGUA IGNOTA	THE SOLITARY BRETHREN OF EPHRATA

Mittwoch Mix - Yule Tunes 2021 - Part Three

 

The inevitable march of the holiday season continues, which means it's time for more Yule Tunes... As a reminder you can find all the previous Yule Tunes entry at the hwæt Yule Tunes Page.

A mix of unusual instrumentation and arrangements to add some spice to your holiday festivities—featuring bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, dulcimer, sitar, theremin and more...

#	Artist	Track
1	The Snake Charmer	Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Bagpipes
2	GurdyBird	God Rest Ye Merry, Wicker Men
3	Sean Thomson	Here We Come A-Wassailing
4	Butch Ross	Trepak (The Russian Dance)
5	Thor Harris	Carol of My Balls
6	Uncle Fido	Ding Dong! Merrily on High
7	Said Fantasy	Greensleeves
8	Secret Chiefs 3	I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
9	The Cavernous	We Wish You a Merry Christmas
10	Earl the Bard	Good King Wenceslas
11	Japan Theremin Old School	Ave Maria
12	Paddy Finnegan’s Green Machine	Auld Lang Syne

A lively mix of songs with instrumentation and arrangements that hearken back to centuries long ago.

#	Artist	Track
1	Daniel Hart feat. Katinka Vindelev	Be Merry, Swete Lorde
2	GreenMatthews	Bring Us In Good Ale
3	Rowan : Morrison	Corpus Christi Carol
4	Nativity Songs	Boar’s Head Carol
5	Earl the Bard	Щедрик (Shchedryk)
6	Paddy Finnegan’s Green Machine	O Tanenbaum
7	Onyx Brass	Wexford Carol
8	The Young Tradition with Shirley and Dolly Collins	Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day
9	Rowan : Morrison	Als I Lay on Yoolis Night
10	Earl the Bard	God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
11	Nativity Songs	O Come, O Come Emmanuel
12	GreenMatthews	The Coventry Carol

A mix of chiptune covers of Xmas classics for those nostalgic for when SNES cartridges were wrapped under the tree.

#	Artist	Track
1	LarryInc64	Sleigh Ride
2	Rush Coil	O Christmas Tree
3	8 Bit Weapon	Nutcracker
4	RushJet1	Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel
5	8-Bit Arcade	I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
6	ovenrake	Deck the Halls
7	EvilWezil	Carol of the Bells
8	Brett Moots	All I Want for Xmas is You
9	LarryInc64	Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
10	8 Bit Weapon	God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
11	RushJet1	Silent Night
12	Rush Coil	Auld Lang Syne

Mittwoch Mix - Yule Tunes 2021 - Part Two

via GIPHY

Yuletunes 2021 marches on with two more mixes... 

You can find all the previous Yuletunes here on this new Yule Tunes page.

The holiday season isn’t always bright lights and joy—here is a mix of heavy and dark Yule Tunes for your doomed celebrations.

#	Artist	Track
1	Santa Sabbath	Santa Sabbath
2	Christopher Lee	The Little Drummer Boy
3	Evil Blizzard	We Three Kings
4	Big Lich	Bargains Imprisoning Me (Holiday Single)
5	50 Helens	Santa Said This
6	I See Hawks In L.A.	God Rest Ye Merry War Pigs
7	Angry Snowmans	Ebeneezer Uber Alles
8	Krampusnacht	Krampusnacht
9	Two Minutes to Late Night	Stab Into Christmas
10	Al Jourgensen	It’s Always Christmas Time
11	Santa Sabbath	Frosty the Snowman
12	Earth	Hell’s Winter

A more traditional mix of songs both old and new featuring folk, acoustic goth and neo-folk Yule Tunes—suitable for all holiday family gatherings.

#	Artist	Track
1	Shirley Collins	The Christmas Song
2	the Pines	Chalet
3	Laura Cannell & Kate Ellis	Christmas Night
4	Thanatos	The First Noel
5	Forest Mountain Hymnal	The Snow Carol
6	Unto Ashes	King of Frost
7	All My Faith Lost…	In the Bleak Midwinter
8	Alison Cotton	Coventry Carol
9	John Doan	O Christmas Tree
10	Jethro Tull	A Christmas Song
11	Low	Silent Night
12	The Young Tradition with Shirley and Dolly Collins	The Holly Bears the Crown

Mittwoch Mix - Yule Tunes 2021 - Part One

The holidays are once again upon us, which means it’s time for some Yule Tunes. Here are my first three mixes for this year (2021), you can find last years mixes here: Xmas Sounds Part Five... 2020 Yule Tunes Mixcloud Mixes and Xmas Sounds Part Six... Low Key... 

First up is twelve tuba-tastic songs to celebrate the season...

#	Artist	Track
1	Onyx Brass	Canite Tuba
2	Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble	It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
3	Seattle Tuba Project	Feliz Navidad
4	Jim Self & Hollywood Tuba 12	Here Comes Santa Claus
5	Paul Loucas	You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch (feat. Big Papi and His Reunion Band)
6	50 Helens	Good King Wenceslas
7	Jim Self & Hollywood Tuba 12	Sleigh Ride
8	Seattle Tuba Project	Happy Christmas (War is Over)
9	Paul Loucas	Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (feat. Big Papi and His Reunion Band)
10	Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble	God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
11	50 Helens	Last Christmas
12	Onyx Brass	Ave Maria

For the former teenage goths, here's a Goth-Mas mix which goes from an XMAS themed take on Every Day is Halloween to a dystopian Santa Story to a downtempo, downright depressing take on "the Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)"

#	Artist	Track
1	1000 Ho-Ho Djs	(Every Day Is) Xmas
2	Golau Glau	Silver Tear
3	Osmiroid	Hexmas
4	Ethereal Delusion	All I Want For Christmas
5	The Legendary Pink Dots	Chrystopia
6	Polly Fae	Frosty the Snowman
7	Jill Tracy	We 3 Kings
8	Love Spiral Downwards	Welcome Christmas
9	Jherek Bischoff	The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)
10	Sue Hutton and Athan Maroulis	Carol of the Drum
11	Pye Corner Audio	Xmas Denied (Serf Complex)
12	Pig	Last Christmas

Finally, a more eclectic yet still irreverent mix that starts with samples from the classic bad movie Santa Claus Conquest the Martians, features a song about the XMAS film, Die Hard, has another track called "Christmas Bong", incorporates some S L O W  X M A S music, chiptune covers of 80s holiday songs and otherwise provides slightly askew takes on classic Yule Tunes.

#	Artist	Track
1	Purple Dialect	Santa Claus vs The Martians
2	Four Eyes	Everything Will Change This Christmas: The Ballad of Hans Grubar
3	The Paper Rifles	Santa’s Got the Vaccine
4	X Ray Pop	Christmas Bong
5	brend_zombley	L I T T L E  S L O W  S A I N T  N I C K
6	8-Bit Arcade	Last Christmas
7	Quintron & Miss Pussycat	Jingle Bell Rock
8	Ohmme	Wonderful Christmastime
9	Husbands	slayer ride
10	The Joyful Noise	Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)
11	50 Helens	Silver Bells
12	Sad13	Shit for Christmas

Mittwoch Mix - I was an Angry Teenage Weirdo

 

Long before I was an eccentric middle-aged hipster, I was an angry teenage weirdo—in honor of the Thanksgiving tradition of revisiting yr. hometown, here is a mix of the music I was listening to at 16-17 . An audio snapshot of the disaffected youth certain he’d never escape the tedium of school or the conformist hell of the ‘burbs… Soak in the awkward rage of a nerdy suburban boy of the late 90’s, at least his musical taste showed promise.

#	Artist	Track
1	Nine Inch Nails	Wish (Remixed by J.G. Thirlwell)
2	Skinny Puppy	Dig It – Mark Walk remix
3	Atari Teenage Riot	Delete Yourself (You Got No Chance to Win)
4	Gravity Kills	Drown
5	Pig	The Sick
6	Stabbing Westward	Ungod
7	Front Line Assembly	Millennium
8	MDFMK	Be Like Me
9	Snake River Conspiracy	Somebody Hates You
10	Hate Dept.	Little Let Down
11	Ministry	So What
12	Nitzer Ebb	in decline
13	The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets	Big Robot Dinosaur

Notes:

These weren't necessarily my favorite songs during high school, but looking back many of these songs were songs that I felt (or wanted to feel) deeply attached to. There was many a between period break where I'd blast "Little Let Down" or "Be Like Me" on my portable CD player before angrily slumping into another uncomfortable school desk. Maybe at another time I'll try to fit myself back into the headspace to figure out my favorite songs from high school and there's definitely a mix to be made about songs/albums/artists that shaped my musical taste, but these are songs that mostly strike to the core of how angry and out of place I felt.

Mittwoch Mix - Wintry Mix Volume 2

Another mix of music that is Wintry but not for the holidays. With switch of daylight savings, the dark chill of the night comes quickly at the end of the day, making this mix of everything from dungeon synth to doom jazz to metal to instrumental tuba perfect listening as the light fades and the cold sinks in. Find Wintry Mix Volume 1 here.

#	Artist	Track
1	Daniel Herskedal	Call for Winter
2	Myrkur	Rivers Blessed (Demo)
3	Nahadoth	Crowns in Ice
4	Höstblod	Winter (Tori Amos Cover)
5	Danny Paul Grody	Late November
6	Holy Sons	Pattern Gets Cold
7	The Legendary Pink Dots	Seasonal Chill
8	Tanya Tagaq	Snowblind
9	Michael Cashmore	The Snow Abides
10	Kikagaku Moyo	Old Snow, White Sun
11	Heroin & Your Veins	Snow Will Cover My Footsteps
12	Dylan Carlson and Lori Golston	The Snowy Owl in the Parking Lot
13	Panopticon	A Snowless Winter

 

Mittwoch Mix - Come Closer and See

 

As previously mentioned, I am an immense fan of cover songs and have lists of artists that I'm slowly accumulating well-done covers of their songs until I have enough for a mix. Here's the second in that series, COME CLOSER AND SEE, featuring covers of the Cure.

#	Artist	Track
1	Alvo Noto	A Forest
2	Diane Birch & The Phenomenal Handclap Band	Primary
3	CALLmeKAT	The Lovecats
4	Kate Rusby	Friday I’m in Love
5	Nouvelle Vague	All Cats Are Grey
6	Alex Reed	Just Like Heaven
7	8-Bit Arcade	Fascination Street
8	Stabbing Westward	Burn
9	Nadja	Faith
10	Snake River Conspiracy	Love Song
11	Xiu Xiu	One Hundred Years
12	Underdark	Plainsong
13	Adzes	A Forest

hwæt! Halloween 2021 Mixes

 

Halloween is one of my very favorite holidays, and while it’s not known for its seasonal music the way Xmas is, there are plenty of songs that fit the spooky season. To that end, I’ve compiled 117 songs, totaling 9 hours and 50 minutes of music into nine Halloween themed (or adjacent) mixes for the Spooky Season. Listed in order of intensity, from least intense to most intense.

Autumnal Mix 2021

A little gloomy, a little heavy, a little psychedelic and a little moody to evoke that autumnal feeling.

#	Artist	Track
1	Book of Wyrms	Hollergoblin
2	Jeffrey Alexander and the Heavy Lidders	Audubon Trooper
3	Mark Lanegan	Autumn Leaves
4	Heavy Temple	The Wolf
5	Earth	Cats on the Briar
6	Lingua Ignota	Wicked Game
7	Chris Connelly	Soul Boys/Hard Legends
8	Einstürzende Neubauten	November / Sie laechelt
9	Thor & Friends	Standing Rock
10	Coil	Things We Never Had
11	Divide and Dissolve	Far From Ideal (Chelsea Wolfe Remix)
12	Zola Jesus	Exhumed
13	Current 93	I Could Not Shift the Shadow

The Green Knight - Review

What to say of the Green Knight? It feels both medieval and modern, real and hallucinatory, rendering it entirely unheimlich or uncanny. Dazzling to behold, it renders the chivalric tale in cinematic splendor while twisting it subtly, and usually to great effect. It takes full advantage of its medium to present the cramped castle before sending its hero out into a vast and mythic wilderness. Dev Patel is stunning as the often unwilling and put-upon Gawain, but retains a vulnerability and a hidden core of iron that is only revealed in small flashes. The film manages to evoke both the post-Roman Britain of the supposed “Age of Arthur” as well as the late medieval time when the chivalric Arthurian romances were popularized and recorded.

An entirely haunting film, which I am sure to revisit again and again. I have only one minor quibble, which I shall hide below as it could be a spoiler to those not familiar with the poem.

5/5 Beheadings

  

 

Shipwreck Radio - July 28

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

 

JULY 28 - SHIPWRECK RADIO VOLUME TWO

Here we are, the final chronological track of Shipwreck Radio—it starts with the opening chimes and welcomings stretched and compressed like taffy. After the opening, we get the low rumble, slowly building in the background, and then a shrieking whistling, that will dominate the track, comes piercing in. Around a minute, a ghostly wavering tone, like a moaning wind joins as well. Sometimes the whistling takes on a more ringing quality, but sometimes it's just piercing and biting as it floats above the ghostly moans and low background rumble.
These sonic structures swirl and dance slowly as the track glides along, both soothing and sharp. At six and a half minutes the moaning wind is turned into a soft, stuttering beat, before it fades away, replaced by a new wind that floats quietly behind the now grinding high pitch. At ten minutes the high tones double, into a buzzing and a ringing as the wind sweeps behind them. The whistling begins to peak at higher and higher tones, piercing into your skull as it dares you to turn off the track, the gentle wind blowing in to provide a comforting layer to retreat to when the shrill tone fades for a second, right up until the 15th minute when the whistle fades quickly ushering in the end of the track.

Shipwreck Radio - July 24

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

JULY 24 - SHIPWRECK RADIO VOLUME ONE

Another eerily meditative track, July 24 starts with the opening chimes sped up and the opening welcomes given a warbling effect. Then we get the low rumbling, dragging sample, that sounds like a stick being dragged along corrugated metal at the bottom of an abyss. Building on top of that comes another mechanical rumbling, creating an intertwining rhythm that is joined by an more electronic jutter around two minutes. The stuttering fades in and out, and by three minutes, it’s clear that the origin of the stutter is a bit of unrecognizable vocal sample.
As the track continues its ruminative rumbling, higher tinny metallic rings enter, some sounding almost like cymbal crashes as the base rumble chugs along, the juttering carried along with it. The track continues to seethe, daring you to dive into it and stay afloat on its churning sonic surface; the patterns may repeat, but they are just off-sync enough to the aural ocean choppy and unsteady as the various sonic structures fade in and out, some becoming clearer for a moment, almost recognizable before being pulled under into the jostling of the track.
Near the fourteen minute mark, the last ingredient is added, a sound like a metallic cord, being twanged that evokes a kind of noisy , almost rubbery, chewing sound as it echoes, repeats and is processed and put into play with the swirl of the other sounds. Then finally, a metallic crash and the sound of a dropped metal bar closes out this track, the unsettled groove that had carried it along abruptly gone, a bracing finish for a track that dares you to attempt to follow it.

Shipwreck Radio - July 21

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

 

JULY 21 - SHIPWRECK RADIO VOLUME TWO

In many ways this is a prototypical Shipwreck Radio track, it starts with the greeting and welcoming charms sped up slightly and then repeats them slowed down moves seamlessly into the track as a main. It’s got all the elements we’ve come to expect from Shipwreck Radio songs, the ringing metallic sample, rushing roars and waves that could be vocal samples. The rushing roars, like rough choppy waves, make up the base of the track, sometimes rumbling in the background and sometimes surging to the foreground. The metallic ringing is joined by a low metallic scraping and both those periodically crest above the roar of the background.
Around the five minute mark a tinny metallic reverberation joins which is followed by the more familiar ringing, the track remaining resonant and reminiscent of previous Shipwreck Radio songs, while also remaining distinct, faster in tempo than many of the other tracks that mine the same vein of Sturm und Drang sonic structure of the low rumbling waves and ringing metal. At nine minutes it becomes a cacophony, more insistent and urgent in feel than the earlier tracks, which featured a menace that built slowly, where this track hits you at times like a torrent of water. The pace and insistency are maintained until the 14th minute when, abruptly, the track begins to slowly fade away, the roar waning and deteriorating until it breaks apart into silence.
Here again is another Shipwreck Radio track that successfully walks that uncanny line of familiar samples and complex and interesting structure.

Better In My Day Mix

 

in honor of the upcoming anniversary of my birth, 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.

 Ich gehe jetzt

Das Biest ist noch nicht richtig wach
aber auch noch lange nicht hinueber
Grad hat es sich hin und her gewaelzt
und im Schlaf mit den Zähnen geknirscht

Ich gehe jetzt

Nach mir die Flut
nach mir Tornados
nach mir Tsunamis & Säuberungen
nach mir die Härte
die Kälte die Dürre die Glut
mehr als je zuvor seitdem der Mensch denkt
Es wird Zeit
das die Erde sich endlich verspinnt
sich verwandelt aus der Hülle sprengt
Ich gehe jetzt

#	Artist	Track
1	Gazelle Twin	Better In My Day
2	Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld	Still Smiling
3	The Fall	50 Year Old Man
4	The Damage Manual	Top Ten Severed
5	The Birthday Party	Happy Birthday
6	The The	I’ve Been Waitin’ For Tomorrow (All Of My Life)
7	Nurse With Wound	July 21
8	Shallow Gravy	Jacket (Live At Timmy’s Birthday)
9	Chris Connelly & William Tucker	July
10	Foetus	Time Marches On
11	The Young Gods, Dälek	About Time
12	Current 93	Black Ships Ate The Sky
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Ich gehe jetzt

Shipwreck Radio - July 18

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

JULY 18 - SHIPWRECK RADIO VOLUME TWO

The opening welcoming and chimes flow in like waves, then the track launches into a melancholic and haunting melody that sounds like ghostly voices. The undulate and shift slightly, several choruses folding in on top of each other, forming a constantly changing pattern of haunting moans. Behind the chorus float brassy samples, echoing the voices as they dance around each other. There’s a pause near the halfway point, with a few seconds of silence, before the chorus begins again, the peaks and valleys of the flowing melody growing more pronounced. While the track never grows complex, it also avoids the issue that July 13 had, of being too simplistic and expected; instead the swirling and pensive choruses of moans and brassy samples remain dynamic, never settling into a tedium.

Mittwoch Mix - Covered Platter - Tasting Menu Mix

Continuing my Tasting Menu Mixes, the Covered Platter mix, like the previous mixes, features twenty of my favorite bands & musical artists, either covering another artist or traditional song or being covered, combining this Tasting Menu project and my perverse love of cover songs.

#	Artist	Track	Original Artist
1	Gazelle Twin	Heartbeat	Wire
2	Sunn O)))	Che	Suicide
3	Chris Connelly, Wiliam Tucker	Search and Destroy	The Stooges
4	Cold Specks	We No Who U R	Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
5	The Soundcarriers	The Seventh Seal	Scott Walker
6	Boris	Fundamental Error	Gudon
7	Justin Broadrick	Harvey	Earth
8	Pig Orchestra	Are ‘Friends’ Electric?	Tubeway Army
9	The Young Gods	Speak Low	Kurt Weill
10	Nurse with Wound	Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair	Traditional
11	Foetus	Shrunken Man	The The
12	Einstürzende Neubauten	On Patrol In No Man’s Land	James Reese Europe
13	Los Bitchos	Trapdoor	King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
14	The Legendary Pink Dots	Super	Neu!
15	Crime and the City Solution	Motherless Child	Traditional
16	Elysian Fields	The Indifference of Heaven	Warren Zevon
17	Blixa Bargeld	Soul Desert	Can
18	Andrew Liles	Unnatural Thing	UFO
19	Coil	Going Up	Ronnie Hazlehurst
20	Current 93	Idumæa (feat. Shirley Collins)	Charles Wesley

Shipwreck Radio - July 13

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

JULY 13 - SHIPWRECK RADIO: FINAL BROADCASTS

The opening chimes and welcome are nearly uncanny in their clarity, then the track goes right to a heavily processed vocal sample and already unrecognizable phrase where the only intelligible words are “Shipwreck radio“. The sample repeats, each time more processed than the last, the sounds drawn out into long buzzing drones. Between each iteration, is a silence, which, like the quickly inhuman sounding vocal sample, is drawn out longer and longer each time. This, unfortunately, is my least favorite of the Shipwreck Radio tracks, unlike many of the other tracks which seem deceptively simple, this one is just… simple, with the repeating (if longer each time) pattern of processed buzzing vocal sample and then silence. Most other tracks would establish a pattern and then subvert or break it, but regrettably, this is not the case with July 13. There is no surprise awaiting you down in the depths of July 13 as it drags on for 30 minutes, the pattern is establish early and drags on, with the only predictable change of each iteration being longer than the last…But one lackluster track out of the twenty that comprise the Shipwreck Radio sessions? That’s not bad at all.

Shipwreck Radio - July 10

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

JULY 10 - LOFOTEN DEADHEAD

The track begins with the opening chimes and welcome distorted to nearly the point of unrecognizability, and then instead of leaving that behind, as many of the other tracks do, it seems to use that initial distortion as the base of the track. That is joined by barely audible gull caws, manipulated to sound more like chirps creep into the background; the initial distortion still churning, until a metallic and electronic scraping tone is added near the two and a half minute mark. The distortion surges at the three minute mark, boiling over, the electronic scrape caught in the maelstrom and chop, the chirp of the gulls circling above like ill omens. 

The scraping becomes a buzzing near the five minute mark, cutting through the eddies of the distortion but this break doesn't last long and the distortion swells and crashes by the six minute mark—waves of it breaking upon the shore of the soundscape, the gulls still calling out ominously against the storm. The scraping is gone and we're left with the surges and roils of the distortion until after the nine minute mark when the scrapes make their resurgence, clearer and crisper now as the distortion seethes around it. After the eleven minute mark the distortion splits, and a lighter distortion bubbles on top of the deeper rumbling, like foam on storm waves, the gulls returning to chime their warnings as the track remains tempestuous, refusing to ever give in to quiet or calm until the very last seconds.

Shipwreck Radio - July 8

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

JULY 8 - LOFOTEN DEADHEAD

The opening track off the Lofoten Deadhead companion album, it begins with the opening chimes and welcomes slowed down—sounding as though they were descending slowly into a bottomless abyss. Then the track begins in earnest, with what sounds like a mournful low brass melody, a gentle ringing metallic rhythm above it. At the two and a half mark, a slowed and stretched gull caw joins this melancholy pondering, with less processed gull calls following it a minute later. The bird calls increase in frequency and variety as the mournful brass and chiming metal continue, giving the impression of a somber and clouded afternoon on the seashore. 

After the six minute mark, we get a brief bit of waves and then the low brass and chiming fade out, giving way to bird calls and more sounds of waves, a hint of footsteps on a rock shore. The melancholy is gone; giving way to a slightly sinister set of stretched electronic tones below the bird calls by the eight minute mark and then after the nine and half minute mark strange echoing and highly processed bird calls join the more naturalistic ones, giving one the impression of going to an uncanny shore as the processed bird calls drown out the unprocessed ones. The calls are largely alien in sound after the eleven minute mark—strange high chirps and stretched out warbling caws, whistlings and noises that echo as though you’ve left the shore for a strange dark cave; a long way from the gloomy shore the song began at. In the final moments of the song the bird calls are entirely electronic sounding, more like the chirping of robots than any organic life. 

While I must admit a preference for the slow and mournful beginning of the song, the slow transition of the bird calls from natural to artificial sounding provides an excellent example of how the natural sounds gathered by Nurse With Wound in Lofoten can be transformed; the calls echoing at the end reverberate not just in the soundscape but also with the weight of their original nature.

Mittwoch Mix - Cold Star Mix

Einstürzende Neubauten's "Kalte Sterne" might be a perfect song—it is, at the very least, always somewhere in my top ten list of songs. Here then, is a mix anchored by that slice of near-perfect noise pop with other songs that straddle noise, ambience, dread, dance and joyful hopelessness.

wir sind alle Monde dieser Welt

alle Sonnen dieser Welt

aber nach uns kommt nichts mehr

kalte Sterne

(Sieh zu wie wir funkeln)

#	Artist	Track
1	Noveller	The Thing
2	Einstürzende Neubauten	Kalte Sterne
3	Tiny Star	Galaxies
4	KMFDM	Moon
5	Seeming	Name Those Stars
6	How to Destroy Angels	And the Sky Began to Scream
7	John Carpenter	Night (Zola Jesus and Dean Hurley Remix)
8	Xordox	Dark Matter
9	Pye Corner Audio	Stars Shine Like Eyes
10	Zonal	Black Hole Orbit
11	Temple Ov Saturn	The Stars Will Fall When Death Approaches
12	Sister Machine Gun	Cold Star
13	Chemlab	The Moon (Deadliner – Suture Remix)

Shipwreck Radio - July 6

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

JULY 6 - SHIPWRECK RADIO VOLUME ONE

Here is another track where the opening chimes are drawn out into a stutter and the welcome is processed into a pulse that barely hints at the original source. Once that sputtering opening has passed, we move into a low sonorous tone with a gentle gonging rhythm riding upon it. Alongside the metallic, gonglike ringing, there’s an almost cymbalic, dragging metal tone that builds and repeats. As the song approaches the four minute mark, all these sounds build and intensify, then a pair of hissing whistles joins, slicing through the sonic structure of the track, setting the stage for the heart of the track; the low and gentle thrum of the base tones, the meditative rhythm of the two metallic elements, like gongs in a peaceful temple, and then the disquieting whistles, complicating and breaking the otherwise pensive soundscape. 

The hissing divides and dances with itself, nearly drowning out the underlying sounds as we approach the seven and a half minute mark, the meditative opening of the song seeming to fade away, a mere reminder as the whistling dominates the track, lurking in the background as the warbling shrieks pierce deep into your skull. The whistle never quite manages to drown out the meditative drone and ringing though, leaving the listener to find it beneath the sharp edges. Then after the eleven minute mark the hissing is chopped up, stuttered out like the opening chimes, and what should be stabbing is somehow softened as though the shorter whistle doesn’t have the piercing power that it did when it was long continues shrieks.  This lets the contemplative base of the song, the low rolling tones and the reflective metallic rhythm re-emerge, until the thirteenth minute mark when the spiking whistling begins to lengthen ever so subtly, becoming uneven, until it speeds into pulsing dings at the fourteen minute mark, the base having faded away, leaving these pin sharp hisses until they too fade away as the song ends. 

Here is another well-wrought transmission from Shipwreck Radio, building a simple, mesmerizing, contemplative base and then complicating it… Showing how one can hold onto the meditative even in the face of blaring distraction… and then, when one focuses, showing how you can even find the ruminative quality in something seemingly unpleasant as a  keening whistle.