Mixtape 210 • Free For All
DJ Shadow, master of spin and finesse of fader, hits hard and in the nick of time.
DJ Shadow, master of spin and finesse of fader, hits hard and in the nick of time.
Let’s face it, we’re going to be hearing tracks from The Bug Club for a couple months, since I keep finding gems strewn loosely about their most recent album. Lots of listeners checked in for this show, my apologies to those that checked out during the elevator hellride at the beginning of the show. Technical issues, we’re working on them.
The Boo Radleys are eager to share their sweet shocking intensity and it will instantly lift your day.
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.
It’s a formula as old as time — take four Japanese ladies, dress them up in color-coordinated dresses and makeup, and have them play aggressive earworms featuring kawaii harmonies and the lethal precision of a veteran death metal band. And yet somehow Otoboke Beaver rise above the rest of the entrants in this crowded field. Who am I kidding, they are one of a kind, and if you’re not listening to their latest album on repeat, you are missing out on a lot of endorphins.
The world that deliberately-lowercased beabadoobee presents in her new album Beatopia is pastel neon colors, soothing howls, bright shadows, and all manner of psychedelic oxymorons. Tonight’s show features its introduction of sorts, and closes with the unexpected krautrock drone of my current favorite discovery, Japan’s deliberately-uppercased MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS, whose all-over-the-placeness manages to live up to its intriguing name.
Like pre-teens throwing every liquid into the kitchen blender and daring each other to drink the results, Woody and Jeremy fuse all manner of sounds legitimate and profane into some murky concoction that tastes surprisingly good.
If The Wedding Present were the traditional sort, they would be bringing coral to the festivities. This one is from earlier in their career, closer to the wood years, but the Velvet Underground never goes out of style. This is from another good VU tribute album, Heaven and Hell from 1991 or so.
Pom Pom Squad began as songwriter Mia Berrin's solo operation but now employs four full-time experts in musical munitions and lethal lyrical techniques
It's a celebration of Pat Fish, also known as The Jazz Butcher, who passed away unexpectedly last week, on October 5. We kick things off with another one of my favorites, the Asylum Street Spankers, taking on his "D.R.I.N.K." to glorious heights, followed by a couple of sets drawing from his 20th century material.