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.

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.