Mixtape 278 • Are You Mine?
It's another go around for Kim Deal, who remains as rawly melodic as ever.
It's another go around for Kim Deal, who remains as rawly melodic as ever.
A very special New Year’s Eve edition, distinguished by the fact it makes absolutely no attempt to be any different from most other alternate Tuesday nights! Other than wrapping up the show with The Dismemberment Plan and “The Ice Of Boston” as the clock nears midnight. Pop open that third bottle of bubbly, indeed.
A special collection of songs about humans and their interactions with water.
On this, Hurray for The Riff Raff and I agree: don’t mess with bison.
A very quiet night, perhaps everyone is hunkering down for the leap day. Featured is IDLES, who all look like they could recommend a good IPA, and also would be willing to kick my ass for thinking so. Tonight featured more than our usual ration of covers, starting with a not-unlikely take on Beck’s “Loser” and following up with takes on tracks originally made famous by Muppets and Devo.
When I hear the sounds of Islands, I am reminded of sparkling diamonds and shattered glass.
I meant to write the notes for this show sooner than a month after the fact, but travel plans got in the way and here I am struggling for an intro. I can tell you that hearing Sparklehorse take on Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians’ “Listening to the Higsons” for the first time, mere weeks ago, felt like someone became obsessed with the same cassette as I did thirty years ago, but actually got around to letting the hen out.
Exploding out of upstate New York, The Bobby Lees have returned with a their third outing, titled Bellevue, and it delivers more of that biting, can’t-you-see-I’m-in-the-middle-of-an-episode post-rock blues energy. Tonight’s Mixtape closes out with Escape Mechanism’s “Being,” sampling William S. Burrough’s unmistakable reedy voice into an existential mantra.
Coming straight outta Dublin, Fontaines DC have an insistent and incisive sound that carves anthems out of marble using only guitar strings and a chiseling voice. No particular theme seems to emerge tonight, although we will be closing with Angel Olsen’s “Go Home.” Go home, it’s midnight.
Nothing to do with Peggy Lee’s sultry standard, this particular “Fever” comes from Aldous Harding, whose unique marshmallows-and-razor-blades sensibility makes for songs that leave you bleeding but which you crave again and again. Also tonight and also from New Zealand, a track from Garageland, one of my favorite underrated Kiwi bands of the ‘90s, which isn’t saying much because they were all underrated and they are all my favorites.