Part twenty-eight of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!
Ugh. I like the photo. Unlikely that I had to tweak it much, as that’s pretty much quintessential Chicago in February/March. No idea where I took it. Probably was just walking around and noted that the above power lines looked like a clothesline from an apocalypse.
The text does nothing to heighten the cover. In fact, it would have been improved if I just stripped all of the text from it and just scribbled down the tracklist on a scrap of lined paper and slipped it into the CD-R case.
Oh well. There are far better covers ahead.
There’s a lot of great stuff here. More metal! Old-school Indian songs! The escalating throb of Keyboard Milk! One of the few CURRENT 93 tracks I actually like! (Nothing against ’em — they just aren’t my thing.) That Peter Lorre song I mentioned in XXII! More GOBBLE GOBBLE!
Wait, what’s that sound? It’s the sound of highlights!
ENSIFERUM! When I first saw this band it was when they had been around for more than a handful of years. A friend suggested that we catch ’em at Reggies Rock Club. (Reggie’s is a club I’d like to attend more often, but it is a very long trek for me.) They were playing with TURISAS and I realized “Oh, huh, I really like Finnish metal!”
‘Stone Cold Metal’ is supremely epic, very mannered for metal and is so very well-structured and — oh, you poor neighbors — you can’t help but want to shout along. The accompanying video is 14 years old and while the CGI nowadays would be easy to render, back then this must have been quite the expensive effort. It was worth it though.
LE BUTCHERETTES! ‘Mr. Tolstoi’ is a whirling blast, and her vocal trill is delightful. The break and subsequent escalation will have you pumping your fist in the air and leave you breathless.
I somehow caught wind of this now-defunct Mexican garage/punk band in time to see them tour for their first album ‘Sin, Sin, Sin’. As if that album title wasn’t enough to capture my attention, the name of the band leader ‘Teri Gender Bender’ certainly did. They played at Subterranean — the same venue I saw BLOOD RED SHOES — and it was all sweat and raised fists and hair whipping around and glorious.
FEVER FEVER! Goddamn this post-punk band is absolutely unrelenting. Monster is a blur of guitars and snare bursts at full volume and you can’t help but be dragged along with ’em until the song immediately runs out of steam and you’re left panting.
Here’s the tracklist, if you are feeling too exhausted to do anything else but read an enumerated list. (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available):
- RÖYKSOPP / Forsaken Cowboy / Keyboard Milk (Unofficial but gorgeous video)
- CURRENT 93 / Black Ships Heat the Dancefloor / Black Ships Ate the Sky II [JG Thirwell]
- TURISAS / The Varangian Way / A Portage To The Unknown
- ENSIFERUM / From Afar / Stone Cold Metal (Their video for ‘From Afar’ is well-worth a watch!)
- FINNTROLL / Ur Jordens Djup / En Mäktig Här
- DROPKICK MURPHYS / Going Out In Style / The Irish Rover
- THE WORLD/INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY / Addicted To Bad Ideas / Peter Lorre Overture
- LE BUTCHERETTES / Sin Sin Sin / Mr. Tolstoi
- JOHNNY LOVE / The Switch / Sonora [Udachi]
- CHICKS ON SPEED / Cutting The Edge / Sex In Der Stadt (Audio only)
- ALINA SIMONE / Make Your Own Danger / Glitterati
- GOBBLE GOBBLE / Lawn Knives & End Of Days / End of Days
- ANURADHA PAUDWAL & SURESH WADKAR / College Girl/Amiri Garibi / Aankhon Mein Basalo
- ASHA BHOSLE, RAHUL DEV BURMAN / / Duniya Mein Logon Ko
- JOSE GONZALEZ / Red Dead Redemption OST / Far Away
- UNTHANKS / Here’s The Tender Coming / The Testimony Of Patience Kershaw
- FEVER FEVER / Monster / Monster