Goth

Electroclature Volume Thirty-Two: XXXII

April 4, 2025

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

If you’ve been a tourist in Chicago, you’ve almost certainly visited Navy Pier, featured in the above cover photo (albeit from afar). I’d call it the ‘Coney Island’ of Chicago, but that’d be an insult to Coney Island. It’s basically a lakeside strip mall with a very large Ferris Wheel. (Not pictured.)

Granted, Navy Pier’s Ferris Wheel — technically called the ‘Centennial Wheel’ — is a nod to the original Ferris Wheel, which was born and built for the 1893 Worlds Fair, which was a seminal and extremely influential and inspiration technological showcase that took place in Chicago. So it has that going for it.

History aside, I think it’s a rather striking photo. Again, not much in the way of sweetening here apart from some tinting. I was lucky enough to catch the right golden hour lighting, especially since I believe I was on a booze cruise architectural tour when I snapped it.

Consequently? Pretty proud of this cover. As with the future covers, I’m not exactly sure how I shoehorned a ‘widescreen’ cover into a CD case, but that’s something past-me figured out and something that present-me doesn’t have to worry about.

Enough about temporal selfs! Onto the highlights!

EMIKA! She’s essentially on here twice — she also provides vocals on the harrowing THE BRANDT BRAUER FRICK ENSEMBLE work ‘Pretend’, as well as being the creator of ‘3 Hours’.

Emika is an amazingly astute electronic musician who has also branched out into general production and publishing work with her own label. ‘3 Hours’ is one hell of a melancholy throbber about domestic violence that, while it is difficult to listen to, the beats make it go down a lot smoother.

BLACK BOX RECORDER! Breathy, sultry indie rock that is not afraid to coast on the rails.

GRAVEYARD TRAIN! At first blush, you might mistake this for mid-era Nick Cave, but they have a bit more of a pirate-y jaunt. ‘The Ferryman’ is a great song to either wave or sink into your cup to.

Let’s get to the tracklist, shall we? (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available.)

  1. :GOLGATHA: / The Horns of Joy / Rising
  2. ASH BLACK BUFFLO / Andasol / Go ‘way Old Ghosts
  3. GRAVEYARD TRAIN / The Drink, The Devil and the Dance / The Ferryman (Audio Only)
  4. PUSCIFER / The Human Condition / The Humbling River
  5. ORDO ROSARIUS EQUILIBRIO / Survive The Spring / Can you see the Forest for the Trees
  6. OWL SERVICE / The Burn Comes Down / When a Man’s in Love
  7. THE BRANDT BRAUER FRICK ENSEMBLE / Mr. Machine / Pretend
  8. EMIKA / 3 Hours / 3 Hours
  9. TOM HAGERMAN / The Breakfast Playground / The Comedy
  10. THOSE DARLINS / Wild One / Drivin’ Nails in My Coffin
  11. CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG / Stage Whisper / Memoir
  12. BLACK BOX RECORDER / The Worst Of / Brutality
  13. BJÖRK / Bastards / Crystalline [Omar Souleyman]
  14. KIMMO POHJONEN / Uniko / Uniko: II. Plasma
  15. VIVIAN GIRLS / Everything Goes Wrong / Tension
  16. TOM WAITS / Bad As Me / Bad As Me

Electroclature Thirty-One: XXXILED

March 14, 2025

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.

  1. TOM HAGERMAN / Idle Creatures / A Death In the Harbor
  2. ASH BLACK BUFFLO / Andasol / Misery Is The Pilgrim’s Pasture
  3. ARIANE MOFFATT / MA / Mon corps
  4. SUBSTANCE B / / Dora Au Collège Fou Fou Fou (Audio only)
  5. NOISEX / Endzeit Bunkertracks [Act III] / Das Ist Elektro
  6. MIKE PATTON / Crank: High Voltage OST / Social Club
  7. GANGSTAGRASS / After the Apocalypse There is No Grid / Mean
  8. 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
  9. FEVER FEVER / Pins / Pins
  10. FIGHT LIKE APES / The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner / Waking Up With Robocop
  11. THE JOY FORMIDABLE / The Big Roar / The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade
  12. THE GLITCH MOB / We Can Make The World Stop / Warrior Concerto
  13. TEETH / Whatever / Care Bear
  14. GRIDLOCK / E³ / Pallid
  15. MR. GNOME / Madness in Miniature / Bit of Tongue
  16. SLOW CLUB / Yeah, So / Because We’re Dead
  17. ANNA CALVI / Wolf Like Me / Wolf Like Me
  18. NATHALIE DELCROIX / Urbanus – Vobiscum [SE] / Bakske Vol Met Stro

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Nine: XXIX

November 8, 2024

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

Not to be prideful, but this is when I settled into a new house CD mix design style that I am quite proud of it. When I remarked earlier about wishing I’d gone more of a letterbox way with one design, well, this is when I adopted it. I also settled on the serif font that fit my intent.

I have absolutely no idea where or when I took this photo. I imagine it’s another out-of-the-car-window shot. It’s slightly doctored to give it a bit more pop and an ephemeral look, but the sunburst is real as I don’t bother trying to fake that shit. You either capture it or you don’t.

As usual, it looks better in print as this is a low-res output. The tracklist text is far cleaner. If I had to change anything, I’d find a way to incorporate the XXIX title in a more visible way because — even though I designed this cover — I stumbled while trying to find it upon re-opening it years later.

Let’s move on from metal structures! This mix is all over the place, so let’s skip to the highlights:

ESBEN & THE WITCH! Granted, it’s the remix I love here as the electro staggering and static interplay so well with the ethereal vocals. If I heard this while on a club floor? One moment I’d be swaying like a tree, then I’d be twitching around like an out-of-control puppet.

HYSTOIC VEIN! New wave garage punk, all loud and brash and unapologetic!

THE GOOD THE BAD! Sexy instrumental surfer spaghetti western rock! Not to be crass, but this is my kind of bedroom music.

LITERGY! Saw these folks at — of all places — an outdoor Chicago street fest in the blinding sunlight, which is rather antithetical to their mission statement, but I take what I can get. ‘Generation’ is seven minutes of variations on a hard-hitting theme and I am absolutely here for it.

Can you feel the sunset telling you the tracklist format? (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available):

  1. KIMMO POHJONEN / Uniko / Uniko: IV. Kalma – Kimmo Pohjonen
  2. PARENTHETICAL GIRLS / Privilege, Pt. III: Mend & Make Do / The Pornographer
  3. EZRA FURMAN & THE HARPOONS / Mysterious Time / Hard Time in a Terrible Land
  4. FEVER FEVER / Keys in the Bowl/Stage Shoes / Stage Shoes
  5. HYSTOIC VEIN / FAKE / DECA-DENCE
  6. BORN GOLD (née GOBBLE GOBBLE) / Bodysongs / Lawn Knives
  7. BEATS ANTIQUE / Contraption Vol. 1 / Extra Extra
  8. AUSTRA / Feel It Break / Beat And The Pulse
  9. ESBEN & THE WITCH / Chorea / Chorea [Christian AIDS] (This video is for the original, not the remix.)
  10. HAM SANDWICH / White Fox / The Naturist
  11. THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT / All At Once / All At Once
  12. ALINA SIMONE / Make Your Own Danger / My Love Is A Mountain
  13. THE GOOD THE BAD / From 001 to 017 / 006 (This particular track isn’t available to stream, so this video goes to a01 from the same album.)
  14. ART BRUT / Brilliant! Tragic! / I Am the Psychic (Audio only as it’s unavailable to stream)
  15. TURISAS / Battle Metal / Sahti Waari
  16. LITERGY / Aesthethica / Generation
  17. JOHNNY LOVE / The Switch / Sonora [Udachi]
  18. LE TIGRE / Le Tigre / Hot Topic (The video here is a live version. Frustratingly, every live version I’ve found excises their shout-outs towards their inspirational creatives for some reason.)
  19. THE KILLS / Blood Pressures / Future Starts Slow
  20. X-RAY SPECS / Oh Bondage Up Yours! / Oh Bondage Up Yours!

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Eight: XXVIII

September 4, 2024

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):

  1. RÖYKSOPP / Forsaken Cowboy / Keyboard Milk (Unofficial but gorgeous video)
  2. CURRENT 93 / Black Ships Heat the Dancefloor / Black Ships Ate the Sky II [JG Thirwell]
  3. TURISAS / The Varangian Way / A Portage To The Unknown
  4. ENSIFERUM / From Afar / Stone Cold Metal (Their video for ‘From Afar’ is well-worth a watch!)
  5. FINNTROLL / Ur Jordens Djup / En Mäktig Här
  6. DROPKICK MURPHYS / Going Out In Style / The Irish Rover
  7. THE WORLD/INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY / Addicted To Bad Ideas / Peter Lorre Overture
  8. LE BUTCHERETTES / Sin Sin Sin / Mr. Tolstoi
  9. JOHNNY LOVE / The Switch / Sonora [Udachi]
  10. CHICKS ON SPEED / Cutting The Edge / Sex In Der Stadt (Audio only)
  11. ALINA SIMONE / Make Your Own Danger / Glitterati
  12. GOBBLE GOBBLE / Lawn Knives & End Of Days / End of Days
  13. ANURADHA PAUDWAL & SURESH WADKAR / College Girl/Amiri Garibi / Aankhon Mein Basalo
  14. ASHA BHOSLE, RAHUL DEV BURMAN / / Duniya Mein Logon Ko
  15. JOSE GONZALEZ / Red Dead Redemption OST / Far Away
  16. UNTHANKS / Here’s The Tender Coming / The Testimony Of Patience Kershaw
  17. FEVER FEVER / Monster / Monster

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Seven: XXVII

August 23, 2024

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

Obviously a grunge-inspired cover. I’m not completely sure whether it works, but I don’t hate it. The photo is from — because *sarcasm* I am a very affluent person — a Megabus window in the early winter, I believe when I thought taking an eight hour bus ride to Minneapolis was a good idea.

To be fair, it was to see the Guillermo del Toro museum exhibit and I actually do not mind long bus rides but also? To travel to a city I’d never been to.

Anyway. I enjoy the reframing with messy borders. I miss that sort of thing. Also? Apart from the tinge? The actual photo isn’t too doctored — the land looked just as much as a slather of black paint streaks against pure white — so I enjoy that. At least I learned to reduce the tracklist font size. So it goes.

Let’s reframe the conversation to the music! Here are the snowy highlights:

AUSTRA! This was a project that classically trained opera singer Katie Stelmanis enacted after a short number of solo works. I really miss her solo work, but I quite enjoy the electronic nuance married with her vocals.

I know I over-pepper these posts with stories about my live experiences and, yes, this is another one but it’s far more interesting:

I caught them on their initial tour for ‘Feel It Break’, and it took place in one of the odder venues in Chicago. The front of the house? It is not a bar. It’s not a bleak number of concrete slabs. It’s a fucking salon. It’s called Beauty Bar. It’s a surreal experience and, as you walk towards the back it slowly morphs into a tiny club spot with a very low stage. It is extremely intimate, almost unnervingly so, which is exacerbated by being thrust back into the 60s glow of the front’s salon fixtures upon the end of the performance. Good show, still have a fair amount of merch from it hiding somewhere.

PORTLAND CELLO PROJECT! Why yes, yes, another cello-centric band! (I haven’t featured Zoe Keating yet because I assume y’all are aware of her, but I’ll get around to featuring ’em.) I don’t really have much to say about them, actually. They’re trying to create awareness of cellos and what they’re capable of and pushing the cello sound further, and I believe they succeed.

THE WORLD / INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY! I love the slow build here that turns into abandon! Also, they have an entire song about Peter Lorre! And it rocks!

A whiteout tracklist! (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available):

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Six: XXVI

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

I love the colors on this cover. I did not doctor or sweeten it apart from some merged blur to heighten a few facets. This photo was taken on the same London trip as XXV but, unlike XXV’s cover, it’s vibrant and is full of natural textures and energy. I guarantee you that my energy level the time I took the photo does not match the results as I snapped it very late at night riding a London bus back to our hotel.

That said? Why’d I double down on the same font as XXV and think that bolding it would improve matters? It does not.

Onto the music. Here are the late-night highlights:

ANNA CALVI! Calvi has it all. She has amazing guitar chops, a stunningly resonant voice, and an extremely vibrant look that perfectly accompanies her dramatic sound.

I saw her via yet another Schubas experience, lucky enough to get in on the ground floor for her US tour for her initial album. The small, narrow venue could hardly contain her talent. It was one thing to hear her virtuoso guitar work. It was another thing to see her do so up-close. Absolutely electrifying.

FIGHT LIKE APES, once again! I love me some filth, and FIGHT LIKE APES always delivers — especially when you have a song named ‘Ice Cream Apple Fuck’. The song goes out with a bang.

(Also? I love the title of the album it’s on: ‘The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner’.)

GATEKEEPER brilliantly crashes everything down in slow motion! Makes you want to sway while debris falls around you.

MELODIUM! Jaunty electro with its perky beats and sweeps and swoops!

Here’s the format for this rollercoaster ride! (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available):

  1. THE DOUGH ROLLERS / The Dough Rollers / Where Shall I Be
  2. SLEATER-KINNEY / One Beat / Sympathy
  3. PULP / This is Hardcore / Like a Friend
  4. SHRAG / Life! Death! Prizes! / The Habit Creep
  5. CULTS / Cults 7″ / The Curse
  6. CIRCUIT DES YEUX / Ode to Fidelity / Barrel Down
  7. ANNA CALVI / Jezebel / Jezebel
  8. MELODIUM / Hum hum & bla bla / Hellomusic [Ochre]
  9. THE KNIFE + MT. SIMS + PLANNINGTOROCK / Tomorrow, in a Year / Colouring of Pigeons
  10. HAUSCHKA / Foreign Landscapes / Kamogawa
  11. BLOOD WARRIOR / Blood Warrior / Blood Letting
  12. GATEKEEPER / Giza / Storm Column
  13. THE BLACK ANGELS / Passover / Empire
  14. NATHAN OLIVER / Cloud Animals / Icicles for Fingers
  15. FIGHT LIKE APES / The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner / Ice Cream Apple Fuck
  16. BIG EYES / Why Can’t I / Why Can’t I

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Five: XXV

August 16, 2024

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

Sigh. This is a complete failure as a cover. The tracklist font doesn’t work at this size. The font should be far smaller. Works for the XXV title though, in my opinion.

Additionally, it’s extraordinary dreary. To be fair, I did take this photo while in London so it’s appropriate. However, that does not justify the number of filters I applied to it.

Moving along. This album features some straight-up metal for once. Hey, it’s called Electroclature and not Metalclature. (Although that would be a better title.) Otherwise, it features a lot of previously featured bands so I’ll stick to the new-to-Electroclature musicians.

Here are some non-dreary highlights!

FOETUS! Technically I’ve featured the work of J.G. Thirwell in the past via his Venture Bros. soundtrack work, but not the long-lived act he’s best known for: FOETUS! ‘The Ballad of Sisyphus T. Jones’ is one hell of a rollicking, dense and epic song that builds and builds, then teases a bit, then lurches into a spaghetti western mode, then rockets forward back again. Absolutely one of my favorites of his, although his eleven minute big band song is also one of my favorites of his so your mileage may vary.

I was lucky enough to see him play at Chicago’s EMPTY BOTTLE way back in 2001 and he rarely comes to Chicago and it was a fucking blast, one of those bands you just kinda resign yourself to only hear instead of see and hear. A bucket list performer, for sure.

ROB DUNCAN! His theme song for TERRIERS? One of the greatest, if not the greatest TV theme songs of the past 20 years. It’s so hooky and concise, not just with the duration but also the lyrical subject matter. It is everything you want out of a TV theme song and is just as effective out-of-context.

SWANS! Another extremely formative band for me, although I didn’t discover them until ‘Soundtracks for the Blind’, which is very dark, tense, loud at times, silently intense at others. The core members were Michael Gira and Jarboe, the former known for never smiling and the latter known for her striking voice. I missed their breakup tour because I was too young, but I did see Gira’s follow-up band ANGELS OF LIGHT live, which I believe was at Double Door. I still have my well-weathered long sleeve shirt from that show.

SWANS regrouped in 2010 sans Jarboe and toured with BABY DEE (who will be missed). The venue I saw them at? Maybe it was the relocated Double Door before they completely shut down. The song featured here — ‘Jim’ — is from the album they were touring for: ‘My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky’.

Tonally it’s not much of a departure from their prior album, ‘Soundtracks for the Blind’. They’re still extremely dark, very sludgy and very languid. And live? VERY LOUD. They’re touring around this time; They’re hitting Chicago in May. If you like what you hear? Check ’em out, but bring earplugs.

An overcast tracklist! (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available):

  • ELUVIUM / An Accidental Memory In the Case of Death / Perfect Neglect In A Field Of Statues
  • LAURA MARLING / I Speak Because I Can / Alpha Shallows
  • PEGGY SUE / Fossils and Other Phantoms / February Snow
  • NINA NASTASIA / Outlaster / This Familiar Way
  • FOETUS / Hide / The Ballad of Sisyphus T. Jones
  • THE DEAD WEATHER / Sea Of Cowards / I’m Mad
  • CROCODILES / Sleep Forever / Hollow Hollow Eyes (The video? Probably best viewed while high, otherwise it’s rather dull.)
  • THE BLACK ANGELS / Passover / Young Men Dead
  • SWANS / My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky / Jim
  • MUNLY / Petr And The Wulf / Munly
  • ROB DUNCAN / Gunfight Epiphany / Gunfight Epiphany (Theme from Terriers) (The video link is the actual title sequence for the show, but the song itself is far longer.)
  • FINNTROLLl / Jaktens Tid / Jaktens Tid (Not the official video — one doesn’t exist — but an absolutely delightful fan video comprised solely of clips from a scene from THE ARISTOCATS.)
  • DIMMU BORGIR / ABRAHADABRA / Gateways
  • THOSE DARLINS / Nightjogger/Funstix Party / Nightjogger
  • BOOM PAM / Puerto Rican Nights / Ay Carmela (Instrumental)

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Four: An Unwound String

August 9, 2024

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

With this cover, I like the striking simplicity of the brushes behind the title, and the fact that for once I opted for lighter tones. However, the tracklist text is far too large and cumbersome. If I could do it again, I’d reduce the font size and kind of ‘letterbox’ the cover. Lessons learned.

Let’s shine a spotlight on the highlights!

TOM HAGERMAN! Tom Hagerman is part of the band DeVotchKa (see Electroclature Volume Six) and he’s an amazing multi-instrumentalist who is specializes in the melancholy. He’s also a swell guy who went drunksaling (a.k.a. tipsy garagesaling) with us once. Good times.

MICHAEL NYMAN! While he’s best known for his soundtrack work, especially THE PIANO, but he also does things like put his own spin on Mozart and the like. ‘Profit & Loss’ is essentially a reading of a wedding ledger. When my wife and I were planning our wedding, I suggested that we include it in our dinner dance mix and she shot that down immediately, so I snuck it into the cocktail mix. I hope someone noticed the wink.

BRITISH SEA POWER! If you aren’t aware of ‘Come Wander With Me’, originally it was performed by BONNIE BEACHER. It has been covered by many bands, but I prefer the original while watching it in the TWILIGHT ZONE episode of the same name. Fun fact: that episode is as melancholy as the song, as it was the final episode of the series.

Aren’t aware of the format? You’re in luck! Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available:

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Three: XXIII

June 28, 2024

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

I feel like I rather phoned-in this cover. The photo is another pic I took of a textured porch or windowsill or… something. I have no arguments about the text. I’m just disappointed that it isn’t …striking. I don’t think it’s bad but …it’s kinda boring, but at least it’s readable.

Anyway! Highlights!

OF MONTREAL – Coquet Coquette [Yip Deceiver]! I’d been a fan of the band for a while, and this remix moves me in crazy ways. Fun fact? I designed and deployed the website for their print designer back in the day. That version of the site is no longer publicly available, but I am glad I was able to slightly contribute to their life and be tangentially involved with the band. Also, the designer gave me a shit ton of free merch, while also paying me! Freelancers treating freelancers well!

GOBBLE GOBBLE – Becoming Legion! I saw them at Chicago’s Schubas Tavern, which is an extremely narrow bar with a club space in the back and a sidecar diner.

The show was so fucking electric and queer and interactive and ended with everyone — including the band and myself — under unfurled nylon and it was the thick of Chicago summer and Schubas isn’t well-ventilated so everyone was so hot and sweaty and throwing arms in the air and moving with their amazing synths and samples and beats and it was all absolute exuberance and abandon.

I left Schubas feeling so elated and glowing with a natural high. It was one of the most incredible live shows I’ve ever been to in my life. Absolutely fucking amazing. My face lights up just thinking of it.

A friend castigated me about extolling it too much. That is how intensely I feel about it.

I’m not sure I’ll ever attend a show quite like that again. As I’ve harped on before? Fucking attend live events! Communal experiences like these are few and far between! Life is too short!

PEGGY SUE – Watchman! Also saw ’em at Schubas and there was so much vocal belting and hard drum hits and it was pure joy.

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Two: XXII

June 21, 2024

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

This cover is …fine. Playing with negative space. Stuck with the same font as XX and XXI. Severe black and red and white all over.

Fun fact? That wasn’t quite my personal clothing/adornment color scheme back then, but it certainly is now, down to my bracelets and marbled nail polish.

Let’s move onto the musical highlights!

TITUS ANDRONICUS’ Arms Against Atrophy! I know both TITUS ANDRONICUS and LOS CAMPESINOS! have been featured in prior mixes. The primary reason for that? It was right around the time that they were at the height of their powers. Both bands first two albums are pure overwrought shrieking noisy perfection.

Luckily, they hit up Chicago’s Logan Square Auditorium at this time, and it blew the sold out crowd’s minds. LOS CAMPESINOS! was even more energetic and raw live than on album, and even shitfaced drunk, TITUS ANDRONICUS absolutely killed. Great fucking show.

HOLLY & THE ITALIANS! “Some people achieve greatness. Others have it thrust upon then. And then there are those who are born Italian.” Amazing pop punk that I can’t stop listening to, and even have designs on incorporating ‘I Wanna Go Home’ into one of my works.

PEGGY SUE! Peppy melancholy! As you can see by the video, they have a natural verve that resonates. Saw ’em at yet another Schubas outing and am glad I made it out.

…and with that? (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available):