2024 June 07

Electroclature Volume Twenty: XX

June 7, 2024

Part twenty of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!

It only took years and years and twenty CD mixes, but I finally latched onto a signature visual style!

This is one of my favorite design works, not just of the discs but in general. If I saw this in a music store — which sadly are few and far between nowadays (although we do have one located two blocks away from us but we live in a weird area) — I would immediately buy it. Hell, I’d pay import prices for it!

(I don’t think anyone apart from 90s goth/industrial folks routinely felt the pain of having to pay an extra ~$10-$15 for the pleasure of buying your favorite band’s CD shipped in from Europe.)

That said, the descriptions are more than a tad pretentious than I’d like, and I have no idea what is up with the suffixes. If you’re wondering about the listed seconds? Singular moments I wanted to call attention to. Again! Really fucking pretentious! I spent too much time thinking about these mixes!

I wish I had kept the green on the front just to the center, but I know I was trying to have some background accents. I think it’d be more effective without them, though.

I still can’t believe I designed the back cover. There are minor typography issues that some may find fault with, but this is one of the few designs where I wouldn’t change a fucking thing.

I honestly can’t believe I willed it into the world.

But enough navel-gazing! Hightlights! Goddamn this mix has so much good stuff. While KRADDY is blusterous, I love their pacing and it builds to what can only be described as an aural orgasm.

Motherfucking PUERTO MUERTO! Absolutely one of the most memorable live acts I’ve ever seen. It was an actual final live show — and promoted as such — because they were a husband/wife band for many years. Then he cheated on her and holy hell she was so fucking pissed off — rightfully so — and that anger was so loud and resonant and present in her performance. I’ve never seen or heard anything like it. It was like an live indie music version of WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?. I’m not exactly sure I want to see something like that again, but it has stuck with me for years, and good for her for burning the band to the fucking ground and moving forward.

(Also? ‘Drumming for Pistols’? So hooky, but builds to be so ferocious.)

A lot of underrated, unsung bands on here. THE SECRET MACHINES! LANTERNS! The wild mixture of cultures from ALINA SIMONE!

I find this CD mix to be a lot of fun, and maybe you will too. (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available):