Electroclature

Electroclature Volume Two

March 20, 2024

Part two of a series of music mixes! Learn more here!

Apart from the pink, I do not love this very, very old cover, designed around the end of the modern grunge design movement. The kerning sucks and there’s no enumeration for the tracks. I have no idea what I was thinking apart from probably trying to kill some 3AM insomnia boredom.

Also, I was probably altered, as is pretty much bog-standard for 3AM insomniacs.

However, I will note that — like almost all of these cover designs — the photo is from my library (albeit heavily tweaked) so it has that going for it.

Also, it does have my favorite SLEATER-KINNEY song — ‘Hollywood Ending’ which, admittedly is probably no one else’s fav SLEATER-KINNEY song. (Seriously, one of these days I’ll figure out how to emblazon the lyrics “WHEN THE LIGHTS ARE SHOUTING?! YOU SEE MY SKIN!!” on me.)

It also features a track from one of the best named bands ever: CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE.

Anyway, here’s the proper track listing! (Artist / album / song title):

  • JUN FUKUDA / KILLER7 OST / Techs Mecks
  • VITALIC / OK Cowboy / U & I
  • PAAVOHARJU / Summer and Smiles of Finland / Valo Tihkuu Kaiken Läpi
  • AKIRA YAMAOKA / SILENT HILL 2 OST / True
  • YEAH YEAH YEAHS / Show Your Bones / Gold Lion
  • MORNING MUSUME / OSU! TATAKAE! OUENDAN! OST / Koi no Dance Site
  • SLIM CESSNA’S AUTO CLUB / Jesus Let Me Down / Hold My Head [Live]
  • SLEATER-KINNEY / One Beat / Hollywood Ending
  • FREEZEPOP / Hi​-​Five My Remix / Stakeout [Donnerschlag]
  • BIT SHIFTER / Information Choice / Hexadecimal Genome
  • SASKROTCH / Nintendo Breakz Volume One / In The Next Room Lies Our Destiny
  • CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE. / Etiquette / Scattered Pearls
  • J.U.F. / Gogol Bordello Vs. Tamir Muskat / Onto Transmigration
  • SONS & DAUGHTERS / The Repulsion Box / Rama Lama
  • MASAFUMI TAKADA / KILLER7 OST / Visionary Community
  • B. FLEISCHMANN / The Humbucking Coil / Broken Monitors

Electroclature Volume One

March 19, 2024

Part one of a series of music mixes! Learn more here!

No proper cover for this exists but the tracklist remains, although it is just a handful of artists.

Highlights? It kicks right out of the gate with DeVotchKa’s ‘The Enemy Guns’, of whom we were introduced to by a friend when they were touring with DITA VON TEESE and yes, she did the martini strip to close the act. (See above. That is an actual thing.)

An aside! Revisiting these mixes has reminded me that I have lived quite the life. Not as much as some, but probably more than others. Do as much as you can with the time you have and throw fingers at fear, y’all!

GOGOL BORDELLO is …complicated. We saw them at the now-kinda-musty Chicago venue The Vic that? Ironically? Smelled a lot better when they allowed smoking. Amazing show. At the end of the night my hands were swollen by my own applause.

MARTIAL? Yeah, my Vermont is showing. Since the hometown I grew up in was so close to Montreal, we were taught French at an early age — literally part of the curriculum — so I have a predilection for this sort of thing and between this and the string work? It lights me the fuck up.

Bookending matters, yes, DeVotchKa’s ‘How it Ends’, and it did find its way into our wedding playlist, this playlist that vastly predates our wedding. So, while there’s a lot of repetition here, this mix? All of it is quite foundational.

As with all of these posts, I’ll attempt to include a Spotify playlist but some of the tracks are simply not available via ’em, so I’ll try to find other ways to include them one way or another sooner or later but? If one isn’t available? Please excuse their absence and try to hunt ’em down yourself!

(Artist / Album / Song):

  • DeVotchKa / How it Ends / The Enemy Guns
  • DJ EARWORM / null / Just Let Go in L.A.
  • DeVotchKa / How it Ends / Charlotte Mittnacht (The Fabulous Destiny Of…)
  • DeVotchKa / How it Ends / How it Ends
  • m83 / before the dawn heals us / a guitar and a heart
  • TOM WAITS / Real Gone / Hoist that Rag
  • GOGOL BORDELLO ~ J.U.F / GOGOL BORDELLO ~ J.U.F / Last Wish of the Bride
  • JUNO REACTOR / Labyrinthj / Conquistador II
  • LO-BAT vs BENETBENE / null / document1
  • MARTIAL / Premier pas / Pour une vie bien différente

Electroclature: An Array of CD Mixes

March 18, 2024

Gonna try something a bit different, especially since I’m feeling burned out at the moment.

If you are of a certain age, you may fondly remember mix tapes or mix CDs.

You know? Actual physical items that you had to spend a lot of time and effort to pass off to someone in hopes they’d like your musical taste? And once you did so, it was nothing you could reclaim? It wasn’t just a fucking Spotify click?

I made my wife a lot of mix CDs.

A LOT. Can’t even enumerate them via all of my digits.

I’ll note? We both were pretty hardcore about our goth/industrial music scene and we both booked acts and DJed and all of that, so … not unwanted. I wasn’t that dude. (I’ll briefly note? It’s sad that these spaces are few and far between now. I have no idea how other misfits find each other in this day and age. Apparently they …just don’t?)

It was just something I did because it was fun! Can’t we all have some fun without expectations?

(This is actually why I created this blog.)

I’d also design covers for said mixes before pressing it into her hands. The image above? Me.

I’ve been rediscovering a lot of the albums and cover art as of late and, not to toot my own horn but I’m really enjoying this trip down memory lane!

So if I have to have my fun, you do too!

A brief aside: I do not have all of the covers for each and every mix. (Cut me some slack! It’s been over a decade!)

Also, this will be an intermittent feature, simply because prepping all of the artwork, hunting down the necessary tracks, writing remembrances, etc. will be exhausting. I hope ya enjoy it, though!

Lastly: I’ll note that, despite the label for this being ‘Electroclature’? Not all of the tracks are electro! Please do not be upset or pedantic about that. My blog, my rules!