Not sure if you remember, but a while back I did a mixtrade organized by HHSA and it turned out pretty interesting. I organized a new one this year and the mixes have already started rolling in. This one is a little late going up (as it’s February) but we’ll start adding these each as they come in and you can see what people have been working on. Needless to say, Karen killed it for January.

Unpiano Mix Trade 2012 – January

Download audio file (mixtrade_jan.mp3)

Peaking Lights – Synthy
Shit Robot – Tuff Enuff
Grimes – Feyd Rautha Dark Heart
Feel Alright – Winter Goth
Craft Spells – Cake Party
Cloud Nothings – Our Plans
Telepathe – Can’t Stand It
Moon Duo – Scars
The War On Drugs – Your Love Is Calling My Name
Leonard Cohen – Famous Blue Raincoat
Dive – Sometime
W-H-I-T-E – Go On With The Gong
Widowspeak – Harsh Realm
Alec Bathgate – Run

New Beach Fossils 7″ from Captured Tracks off their upcoming second LP. I didn’t post up both songs with that seemed a bit overboard, but if you search a bit you can find ‘Lessons’ around as well (Hype Machine *cough cough*). This is just what I need to get my heart beating back at it’s normal rate after last weekend. Beach Fossils is like my security blanket after I take it too far. Mark told me that his daughter goes to sleep every night to Wild Nothing. How awesome is that? Anyways, it’s like that for me with Beach Fossils. Goodnight.

Beach Fossils – Shallow

Download audio file (shallow.mp3)

Remember this? Well I am about to do it again. This time with a slew of new bands, Neil Hamburger, Anna Seregina, Jello Biafra, Kyp Malone and a bunch of others. Here is to hoping that I don’t fall in the ocean and to many many Cuban cigars. See you in a bit.

Download audio file (turn_the_season.mp3)
Download audio file (outta_harms_way.mp3)
Download audio file (the_dream.mp3)
Download audio file (answer_to_yourself.mp3)
Download audio file (do_you_see_me_love.mp3)
Download audio file (waterfall.mp3)
Download audio file (gone.mp3)
Download audio file (beweave_it.mp3)

Fucked Up – Turn The Season
King Khan & The Shrines – Outta Harms Way
Thee Oh Sees – The Dream
The Soft Pack – Answer To Yourself
The Dirtbombs – Do You See My Love
Quintron and Miss Pussycat – Waterfall
Mikal Cronin – Gone
Vockah Redu – I Beweave It

I have been waiting so long for a Carletta Sue Kay LP that I can’t even stand it anymore. After releasing the occasional gem and opening for GIRLS during their appearance at GAMH, we all know San Francisco’s own Randy Walker is sitting on something big. We even just heard that he sings on one of the songs for the new Magnetic Fields release. I think the rumor about the album was that there were some label disagreements and what was supposed to be released is now up in the air. But either way, can someone please put this record out? I promise to buy you a drink and maybe we can talk about other stuff too. All kidding aside, the song above is phenomenal and if someone doesn’t put it out, then I guess I have to do it. (Kitten Charmer, we are talking to you *cough cough*.)

Carletta Sue Kay – Get Along (rip from video)

Also, we posted something last week which I think is worth sharing again HERE IS A LIST OF EVERY SINGLE DIGITAL MUSIC SERVICE IN THE WORLD!!

All hail the new era of my posts, where I don’t even research the bands I talk about and instead make you do the leg work while I continue to give you awesome jams. Here we go.. Trailer Trash Tracys are not anything new and sound like a million other bands, but none the less this record rules and has been on repeat while I work on a thousand other projects. Dark, moody and wet just like I like it. Plus it’s all Twin Peaks up in this motherfucker so.. what? What else do you want? Go get these jams, get real low and walk around the city at night.

Trailer Trash Tracys – Candy Girl
Trailer Trash Tracys – You Wish You Were Red
Trailer Trash Tracys – Los Angered

Download audio file (candy_girl.mp3)

During the brutal dark winters in Scandanavia all you can do to keep from losing your mind is to focus on how sweet it is to be hanging out on a beach in the sun. This particularly harsh winter in Finland, French Films wrote the soundtrack to an 80′s summer movie that I wish existed, where Robert Smith goes on a road trip to LA to try and sign his band, but his car gets stolen on the way and he has to hitch hike with a stray dog that he befriended in Idaho. Each time there’s a driving montage, which is like every 10 minutes, a French Films song plays. Then they have a big volleyball tournament and David Byrne is the referee and when Robert Smith spikes the winning point they freeze frame on a high five while “Great Wave Of Light” plays over the credits.

French Films – Great Wave Of Light
French Films – Up The Hill
French Films – Golden Sea

Download audio file (french_films_great_wave_of_light.mp3)

These days everyone with a computer is “working on an album.”  Most of them never actuallyhappen, and the ones that do are pretty much always terrible.  Every now and then some idiot-savant finishes up his bedroom disaster, and it somehow ends up sounding super raw and bizarre and it’s completely fucking perfect.  I don’t know anything about Local Wizards except that it seems like their changed their name from “Pizza Pizzazz,” and that’s pretty great too, so they really got the whole package here.

Local Wizards – Burn It Down
Local Wizards – I Have Nothing At Stake
Local Wizards – Cold

Download audio file (burn_it_down.mp3)

A week ago, after spending an afternoon looking like an idiot in an old wood-floor rollerskating rink in Glendale, I Netflix’d (that’s a verb now) this awesomely bad roller disco movie, set in Venice during the supposed late 70′s rollerskating craze and featuring a tarted up Linda Blair with some castaway cast of soon-to-be-in-porn actors and actresses that can’t act or act-ress. Its a typical teenage fad movie, like Breakin’ or Thrashin’, with some good-hearted rich girl trying to be down and a struggling out-of-her-league underdog trying to get famous for something you can’t make money at, and his cheeky friends and her shitty parents who don’t understand and all the usual shit. Needless to say, it was awesome, and I sat through the whole thing with my jaw in my lap. My wife said I shook my head through the whole movie, probably at the completely improbable situations, characters and dialogue that danced before me (on skates, and in slutty 70s/80s fashion, of course). It was like an American Apparel boner-fest with badly delivered laugh-out-loud lines and a disco soundtrack. Well, except with this track, which opens the film and totally rips the rest of the original soundtrack double-LP a new asshole. Powerpop by numbers about some supposed “Good Girls” who are clearly sluts, sung by this one-hit L.A. wonder with a rapper’s name.

I’m not much of a Folkie, so a lot of the subtleties of the genre are lost on me.  But every now and then, a Folk project just sounds “right,” like the songs really did need to be written in an abandoned church in the woods.  Microphones – The Glow Pt 2 grabbed me this way, and it sounds like Phil Elvrum is a major influence for Mesita, at least for A Million Shades of Sky.  The long-form song structure, guitar vamp, subtle arrangements all nod to Elvrum, but Mesita isn’t afraid to layer in a synth or drum break half-way through the track!  Where Elvrum stays grumpy and depressed, Mesita bring a warm, up-beat optimism to their seasonal depression soundtrack.

Mesita – A Million Shades Of Sky
Mesita – Time Away From The World
Mesita – Somewhere Else

Download audio file (a_million_shades_of_sky.mp3)