Mixtape 179 • Waiting
Orange Drink can be sweet, it can be tart, and sometimes it will even remind you of citrus.
Orange Drink can be sweet, it can be tart, and sometimes it will even remind you of citrus.
No pan flute, no washes of synthesizer textures, just Olivia Jean doing her best impression of a land-bound siren and kicking up the octane in the Enya original to unsafe levels. It’s a hot summer so far, with lots of great releases crowding the older stuff out of the playlist, and it shows no sign of letting up. There’s a new album from the Boo Radleys (it’s been a while!), and I am obsessing over motorik sounds from Orange Drink and Motor!k. It’s far more than will fit on a single cassette, unless you get one of those ultra-long ones that your car deck will eventually eat up.
In this sterile brushed steel and gleaming plastic environment, underneath the tangles of tubing and wires and chirping electronic devices operating at their own rhythms, below the readouts and blinking lights, beats a mighty analog heart.
For a quarter century, Deerhoof have been a benchmark for the contrasting dynamics of sweet and sour, spiked and pillowy, and all manner of sounds that should not get along but quite obviously do.
As individuals, Jay Som and Palehound each have their musical quirks and unique style. Together as Bachelor they plot a strange new course through the realm of dream pop.
I will let you in on a secret weakness: a band like The Rare Occasions can seize control of my playlist just by showing up with a surplus of pop hooks and grade AAA harmonies.
A heady brew of oscillations, arpeggios, and other pulsing throbbing sounds set against layered vocal harmonies that bring to mind multiple participants in a spacewalk aggregating to form a conga line.
Here is something different — a brief collection of music I consider "dub", though some may want to argue that point. Nonetheless, the intent is clear: tune in and zone out.
Lush synthetic bitscapes, layered with drones, sweeps, short loops, and the ecstasy of robots make for a propulsive immersion into a world of flow.
You will hear their thunderous approach before you see them, and you will be surprised, for despite their name and the glorious stadium-sized riffing, Naked Giants are the size of mere mortals and usually appear dressed in public.