June ‘08 Mix

June 30, 2008

1) One Of Us - Object 47 - Wire

Wire’s one of the few reunited bands that seem to actually make good NEW music too. “One of Us” favors the more melodic side of Wire’s later output, and has a touch of Stone Roses as well.

2) Get Better - Re-Arrange Us - Mates of State

One of the Mates prettiest songs, where the melodies layer and build and build to this overwhelming joy. Whoooo.

3) One Big Holiday - It Still Moves - My Morning Jacket

Listening to the Bonnaroo performance of this song (featuring Kirk Hammett, oddly enough), made me revisit It Still Moves quite a few times this month. I love the bizarro structure of this song, which basically starts with a solo before falling back to a dreamy verse only to end with even more guitar heroics.

4) Stay Positive - Stay Positive - Hold Steady

The simultaneously self-effacing and self-congratulatory lyrics are enough to put me off this song forever, but I ended up coming back over and over again for the simple rah-rah chorus. I am such a sucker.

5) My Old Jacknife - Ladyhawk - Ladyhawk

Surprise! Ladyhawk’s first record has some kickers too. This one’s got handclaps and a light country touch. If you ever see them live try and figure out how the bass player got into the band. It’s like they transplanted some nerd hesher into a bunch of weirdbeards.

6) Slow Show - The Virginia EP - The National

This is a live version of “Slow Show” that haunted me for most of the month. “Bring me the head of a love song…”

7) Treatment Bound - Hootenanny! - The Replacements

This alternate version is a bit of an anti-demo… where the album version sounds like it was recorded on a microcassette, this one’s polished and full. It doesn’t have quite the same desperate charm of the original, but it’s a fun curiosity.

8) Furr - Furr - Blitzen Trapper

Blitzen Trapper’s stripped single sounds like a lost Bob Dylan tune, and honestly one of the best songs they’ve written. My expectations for their upcoming album are unreasonably high now.

9) Drum And Bone - Momofuku - Elvis Costello

This seems like a companion track to “Monkey to Man,” featuring the same country blues feel and evolutionary imagery. If you listen carefully you might pick up Jenny Lewis on the backing vox. I do adore the phrase “limited primitive.”

10) I Was Made For You - Volume One - She & Him

Zooey Deschanel’s a pretty good singer for an actor. This sounds like M. Ward’s late contribution to the Grace of My Heart soundtrack, all girl group and Brill Building. For a little side project, I’ve becoming quite enamored with She & Him.

11) Cupid - Sings Sam Cooke - Colin Meloy

Colin Meloy’s no Sam Cooke, but along with the lovely Laura Gibson, he’s able to extract a plaintively pretty folk take on Cooke’s original.

12) Here’s To You - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - Lisbeth Scott

Yoinked from a videogame soundtrack! Lisbeth Scott and composer Henry Gregson-Williams give us an operatic version of the Joan Baez/Ennio Morricone track from “Sacco and Vanzetti.” What does a musical eulogy to a pair of misunderstood anarchists have to do with Metal Gear? Dude, it’s a long, long fucking story.

Posted in Mixtape