Mittwoch Mix - 2025 Yearly Send Off Mixes

I started to look through the music that came out in 2025 and this pair of mixes came together quickly as another pair of annual Vision Board/Yearly Send Off mixes... Each mix features the same thirteen artists, all the songs from 2025 or December 2024 for the first mix, hwæt! Sing along with the dead and gone / Something's coming, something's wrong while the second mix, hwæt! I’m gonna laugh at my bones dips back into discographies for several songs.

Not necessarily my favorite tracks of 2025, but all songs that spoke to me in a way and that seemed to fit for these mixes.

After January 1st, 2026, you'll be able to check out my Last.fm Listening Report for the year if you're morbidly curious about my listening habits...

A mix of 13 tracks from 2025 that feel like an apt summation of the year, a kind of aural send-off as it joins the dustbin of history.

#	Artist	Track
1	Herzschlager	The Ruin
2	Panopticon	The Poppies Bloom for No King
3	Transgressive	The Way the World Ends
4	Agriculture	My Garden
5	Lung	Clown Car
6	Pig	Veni Vidi Vici (Tweaker Remix)
7	Blixa Bargeld & Nikko Weidemann	Where Are We Now?
8	Loot the Body	The Vinyl Flatlands
9	The Young Gods	Appear Disappear
10	Gloria	Harpocrate I
11	The Legendary Pink Dots	So Lonely in Heaven
12	Lankum	Ghost Town
13	Daniel Blumberg & John Tilbury	Intermission

A companion mix to hwæt! Sing along with the dead and gone / Something's coming, something's wrong, turning the page from eulogizing 2025 to looking forward to 2026...

#	Artist	Track
1	Herzschlager	Dead By Morning
2	Loot the Body	Tasty Jamz
3	Lung	Sunshine’s Over
4	The Young Gods	Shine that Drone
5	Agriculture	Bodhidharma
6	Daniel Blumberg	Steel
7	Blixa Bargeld & Nikko Weidemann	Helden
8	Lankum	Peat Bog Soldiers
9	Transgressive	Never Go Quiet
10	Panopticon	Broken Bars
11	Gloria	Harpocrate II
12	Pig	Glitz Krieg (Republica Remix)
13	The Legendary Pink Dots	A Velvet Resurrection (Version)

Mittwoch Mix - Yule Tunes 2025 - Part IV

It's time for the final set of Mittwoch Yule Tunes mixes for December 2025...

For those in Minnesota, Carlson's Llovable Llamas is a great place to take a holiday card photo...

Mittwoch Mix - Yule Tunes 2025 - Part III

 It's a Wednesday in December, so that means it's time for more Mittwoch Yule Tunes Mixes...

First page of John Taylor's pamphlet The Vindication of Christmas

Mittwoch Mix - Yule Tunes 2025 - Part II

Since I posted Part I last week, I've updated my Yule Tunes page with links to a series of youtube music playlists gathering up themed mixes.

As I add more 2025 mixes, I'll add to these "megamixes". They lack many of the tracks included in my yule tunes mixes as I am limited by the music publicly available on youtube, but for those who don't do mixcloud they are a taste of my holiday music collection. So, for the full experience listen on mixcloud.

But for those who find youtube music easier or who want to more easily see tracks, I figured I should put these mixes together. So browse, listen, discover new Yule Tunes & shuffle them up to see what catches your ears.

On to the new mixes!

Mittwoch Mix - Yule Tunes 2025 - Part I

It's that time of year again, when I compulsively compile mixes of holiday music... 

Adding to the over FORTY mixes from previous years, here are the first three Yuletunes mixes for 2025...

I get nearly all of my music thru Bandcamp these days, so if you're looking to pick up more songs from an album you like from one of these mixes, check out my collection there (and comment/message if you need help, since I have 3500+ items in my collection...)

Mittwoch Mixes - hwæt! Halloween 2025 Mixes

Another year, another set of Halloween mixes. Plus, I created a landing page for all of my Halloween Mixes - hwæt! Halloween Sounds to mirror my Yule Tunes page.

This year I compiled five mixes of Halloween sounds ranging for trick or treater friendly to eerie and terrifying.

First another 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	Bradley Thomas Turner	Spooky Season (in the Foyer)
2	8-Bit Arcade	Ghostbusters
3	Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers	Graveyard Shift
4	The Swingin’ Phillies	Frankenstein’s Party
5	Putney Dandridge	Skeleton In The Closet
6	Uncle Fido	They Find a Haunted House
7	Mr. Basemen & The Symbols	Do The Zombie
8	Hazy Sour Cherry	Zombilly Rave (till someone call police!)
9	Mark Malibu & the Wasagas	Ghost Hunter
10	New Mayfair Dance Orchestra	The Haunted House
11	Baron Daemon & The Vampires	Ghost Guitars
12	Earl Patterson With The Dars	Nightmare Hop
13	The Fabulous Five	Janie Made A Monster

Then, another 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	Black Market Dub & Wise Owl	No More Room In Hell
2	RATPAJAMA	Danse Macabre
3	Dark Chisme	Fangs
4	Peter Aldrich featuring Jon Harman & David Williams	Dawn of the Dead
5	Pitch Black Manor	The Halloween Scene
6	Magic Sword	“Candyman” Theme
7	Fini Tribe	Make It Internal (Integrity Mix) (2025 Remaster)
8	Hazy Sour Cherry	Monster’s Party
9	Witchboard	Supernaturals Fill The Floor w Grace Sings Sludge
10	Frayle	Bela Lugosi’s Dead
11	Suzi Sabotage	Love at First Bite
12	The Legendary Pink Dots	The Light In My Little Girl’s Eyes
13	Unwoman	Everyday Is Halloween

Followed by another Folky mix of murder ballads and other macabre songs in a more folk or traditional style. Probably just a little too intense at points to hand out candy while listening to. 

#	Artist	Track
1	Shirley Collins	Cruel Lincoln
2	Lankum	What Put the Blood
3	Unwoman	The Eldritch One, Jolene
4	Forest Mountain Hymnal	Pretty Polly
5	Myrkur	Den lille piges død (Live)
6	Jeremiah Sand	No You Are Mine
7	Ian Lynch	The Hunt
8	The Post-Timey String Band	Wherewolf
9	Marissa Nadler and Milky Burgess	The Bloody Gardener
10	Emel	Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
11	ØXN	Love Henry
12	The Rowan Amber Mill	The Ballad of the Witchfinder General
13	Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin & Ultan O'Brien	All Our Lonely Ghosts

And a mix of Halloween Adjacent Metal tracks, for those who want some seasonal head bangers. Definitely more on the adult end of things.

#	Artist	Track
1	Wolfmen of Mars	The Silent Panic
2	Froglord	Cryptids
3	Frayle	Boo
4	Castle Rat	Nightblood
5	GREEN LUNG	Templar Dawn
6	Christian Mistress	Haunted, Hunted
7	YRRE	Dustsceawung
8	Witchcryer	Witchfinder General
9	Molassess	Death Is
10	Possessor	Bloodsuckers
11	Faetooth	Death of Day
12	BORIS + ENDON	Painkiller (Judas Priest)
13	ÚZKOST	The Witch & the Tyrant (Featuring Whitney Moore)

Finally, a mix of haunting and unnerving songs for a more atmospheric and decidedly child unfriendly evening of horror.

#	Artist	Track
1	Dorit Chrysler	Murder Ballad
2	Sheet Ghosts	Nothing but the Night
3	Seven Blood-Stained Orchids	The Devil in Amber
4	FM Einheit	Hymne (Witch burn)
5	The Night Terrors	Kuceli Woke Up In The Graveyard
6	Young Fathers	Alpha
7	The Wades	Sídhe
8	Gazelle Twin	Fear Keeps Us Alive
9	Giants of Discovery	Terror In The South Tower
10	Rún	Such is the Kingdom
11	Grey Frequency	Elegy for Vinegar Tom
12	Lustmord & Zola Jesus	Prime
13	Bretwalda	A Dread Soaking (Oh Lord)

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

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...

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...

6x6 - February 2025

 

Going back through an old document from 2020 I found a cryptic reference to "6 by 6," and notes that reminded me that I had grand plans to publish recommendations. From my fragmented scrawlings I think had meant to have six stable categories that I would return to again and again, with six new recommendations but always the same types.

Since I've lately been wanting to force myself to focus on sharing positive things, I decided to revive this castaway blog feature, but I decided against locking myself into six fixed categories and instead just recommend six different kinds of things each month. 

Paradoxically, despite my often esoteric tastes, I tend to imagine the things I seek out and enjoy are widely known, but I suspect that is less the case than I assume, still hopefully even for readers with wide-ranging and capacious tastes there will be something new to discover.

I've also realized that in my delay in composing this first installment, I've missed the perfect chance to have these 6x6 recommendations to be published on the sixth of each month, which I'll try to rectify in the future.

With all of that ado laid out and addressed, here then are six things immaterial & material that I recommend heartily... For February 2025 I've decided that they will be listed arbitrarily in reverse alphabetical order...

[a record of reading] THE GRAND DARK

 

Second book of 2025, THE GRAND DARK by Richard Kadrey. Another slight cheat asI had started re-reading this before Xmas & then got side-tracked by the holidays & other things.

A fantasy noir set in a claustrophobic & beautifully described decaying city between wars. Dark without being overly gritty, one of my favorite depictions of an urban landscape. 

Though Kadrey is best known for his Sandman Slim series, a dark modern fantasy series that is a thrilling comfort read I binge read about once a year, the Grand Dark stands on its own as an incredibly enthralling and sumptuous in its economical world-building.

[a record of reading] KOLLAPS

 

Finished my 1st book of 2025. KOLLAPS by Melle Jan Kromhout & Jan Nieuwenhuis, part of the 33 1/3 Europe series. A little bit of a cheat, since it's a slender volume, but an excellent retelling and analysis of Einstürzende Neubauten's earliest works, but a very worthy read for any Neubauten fans. I picked it up near the end of 2024, but finally forced myself to read it this last week.

It will have a place of pride next to my well-worn copy of Blixa Bargeld's Headcleaner, the out of print collection of Einstürzende Neubauten lyrics and interview snippets with Harry Lachner that illuminate the song history and lyrical meaning.

As I try to turn away from staring into the endless, dispiriting void of social media, I'm trying to get myself to read more. It sometimes feels like I read a lot, but it's mostly online articles and portions of RPG books, so this [a record of reading] series will be an effort to motivate myself to read more books cover to cover. 

Mittwoch Mix - building somebody else’s sanctuary

Listening back to my last Mittwoch Mix - There's Nothing to Read, Nothing to See, which doubled as a kind of best of 2024, in a mostly adjacent way, I realized that aside from Pig and BIG|BRAVE I hadn't really put any of the heavier music I listened to last year on it, or at least heavier, electric guitar first music.

Hence this mix, very loosely themed, featuring mostly metal tracks from a bunch of the heavier albums that were released in 2024 that I listened to.

#	Artist	Track
1	Heavy Temple	Psychomanteum
2	Castle Rat	Red Sands
3	Acid Mammoth	Garden of Bones
4	UFOMAMMUT	Mausoleum
5	Black Mare	Iseult
6	Thou	House of Ideas
7	Poison Ruïn	Sanctuary
8	Wolven Daughter	Beset by Devils
9	Agriculture	In the House of Angel Flesh
10	Lowen	Waging War Against God
11	Zeal and Ardor	Clawing Out
12	Botanist	Strychnos Electri
13	The Body & Dis Fig	Back to the Water

Mittwoch Mix - There's nothing to read, nothing to see

This mix started as an attempt to return to my annual Vision Board/Yearly Send Off mixes and meandered into a mix that is a bit melancholy at turns and unexpectedly a bit nautically themed.

Though it's not a best of 2024, it features tracks from some of my favorite albums from 2024, the exception being "The Feast" off of ØXN's CYRM which was released in late 2023 and new to me in 2024 and Crime & the City Solution's acoustic version of "The Bride Ship," which is incredible alternate take on one of my absolutely favorite songs.

#	Artist	Track
1	Shellac	Girl From Outside
2	The Cure	Warsong
3	Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld	Libelle & Gigant
4	Elysian Fields	Before the Crashing Waves
5	Fat White Family	Religion for One
6	Shovel Dance Collective	The Merry Golden Tree
7	Crime & the City Solution	The Bride Ship (Acoustic)
8	Lankum	The Pride of Petravore (Live in Dublin)
9	Pig	Red Room
10	ØXN	The Feast
11	Chris Connelly	Port of St. Catharine
12	Einstürzende Neubauten	Trilobiten
13	BIG|BRAVE	i felt a funeral