Part thirty-one of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!
I really miss grunge design. It was messy but deliberate and singular. I wish someone would bring it back, and this aging cover extolls that wish. I love the interwoven textures, the spatter pattern leaning into the lighting, the color punctuation popping exactly where it should (especially the central blue). Yeah, I’m pretty proud of this one. I even like the typography! It’s gloriously thin and, for once, you can fucking read the song list.
If I were someone else viewing this, I’d probably grouse that the title is almost incomprehensible, but that’s certainly by design — no pun intended — and I appreciate my utilization of negative space.
I feel so dumb for penning this title, given that it can read in many unintentional ways, but what’s done is done. If I could revise it? I’d reverse the ‘L’ and perhaps divide the I to split between black and white, as the fact that it’s supposed to represent 31 kinda gets lost. *shrug*
If I remember correctly, the photo was taken while driving down the dregs of Chicago’s Wacker Drive, which you may recognize from John McNaughton’s HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. I saw HENRY before I moved to Chicago and the moment I rode through it? I immediately recognized it. When I met McNaughton in 2023, I couldn’t help to impart how much that one scene was burned into my brain, despite the fact that nothing really happens during those moments. It’s pure visual verve that I often have to walk through whenever attending the Chicago International Film Festival.
Anyway. I have two versions of the cover: the featured cover above with a sans-serif font and more like an overlay. The one below has a blocked-off serif font and is far more mannered. I wish I’d married the two, as the latter obscures the huge light bloom, but I feel the font of the former is too tall, so to speak.
I didn’t sweeten it much — mostly just tweaked the contrast and laid the text around it the brighter elements. Again, I am proud of the legit blue pop that peeks through the E. Also, yes, natural lighting — that wasn’t an insert. Work around your elements, y’all! It’s more fun for all that way!
I am not sure which I picked for the final cover. I hope it was first featured above as I really do love the light bloom that is obscured by the second.
If you don’t mind me saying? Goddamn this is a good mix! Revisiting it was such a delight. I’d forgotten about so many of these raucous bands. Hard to pick the highlights, but here we go: the verve of LE TETSUO! The thrust of FEVER FEVER! (Yes, I forgot to previously mention that they were very much a Christian band but goddamn they fucking rocked.)
SUBSTANCE B’s beats are so infectious! TEETH provides some much-needed brazen electropunk kinetics! NOISEX brings down the house! Fun fact: saw him live in New York and I fucking went wild, especially during the :WUMPSCUT: covers.
If you have good taste in TV, you’ve heard GANGSTAGRASS’s ‘Mean’ as it’s the title song for the FX show JUSTIFIED. Saw ’em at SPACE in Evanston, Chicago and goddamn did they kill. It’s not on any of these mixes, but please make sure to check out their rendition of the folk song ‘Banks of the Ohio’!
Let’s take a step back and become reacquainted with the tracklist format: Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available.
- TOM HAGERMAN / Idle Creatures / A Death In the Harbor
- ASH BLACK BUFFLO / Andasol / Misery Is The Pilgrim’s Pasture
- ARIANE MOFFATT / MA / Mon corps
- SUBSTANCE B / / Dora Au Collège Fou Fou Fou (Audio only)
- NOISEX / Endzeit Bunkertracks [Act III] / Das Ist Elektro
- MIKE PATTON / Crank: High Voltage OST / Social Club
- GANGSTAGRASS / After the Apocalypse There is No Grid / Mean
- LE TETSUO / Sometimes I’m Walking Around I Feel Like I’m Going to Open Up an Crack / Sometimes I’m Walking Around I Feel Like I’m Going to Open Up an Crack
- FEVER FEVER / Pins / Pins
- FIGHT LIKE APES / The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner / Waking Up With Robocop
- THE JOY FORMIDABLE / The Big Roar / The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade
- THE GLITCH MOB / We Can Make The World Stop / Warrior Concerto
- TEETH / Whatever / Care Bear
- GRIDLOCK / E³ / Pallid
- MR. GNOME / Madness in Miniature / Bit of Tongue
- SLOW CLUB / Yeah, So / Because We’re Dead
- ANNA CALVI / Wolf Like Me / Wolf Like Me
- NATHALIE DELCROIX / Urbanus – Vobiscum [SE] / Bakske Vol Met Stro