Summertime Mix - Part I

image taken from here


Sorry about the lack of posting lately, the Black Dog has been seriously on my ass and I have been under. I woke up the other day and realized it was summer, wtf... My whole life is passing me by and I sometimes wonder why I am even still alive.
There is no need though for you to miss out on some summer tunes. Just a word of advice, don't ever ever take the good things you have (a job, a significant other, money, a nice place to live) for granted. It is when you reach the lowest of lows as I have, that you realize how lucky you are to have had those things and you pray everyday that you can once again have them. Words of wisdom from a down and out, depressed loser..


mp3 Endless Summer

Follow The Train - Breath of Sigh


mp3 Feel Good Hit Of The Summer

Queens Of The Stone Age - Rated R


mp3 Gold In The Air Of Summer

Kings Of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street


mp3 It's Summertime

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots


mp3 Lone Summer Dream

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Origin, Vol. 1


mp3 Skills Of Summer

Wire Train - Last Perfect Thing: A Retrospective


mp3 Summer Gold

The Eaves - The Eaves


mp3 Summertime Blues

T. Rex - Electric Warrior Sessions

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Oblivion Mix

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Oblivion - the condition or state of being forgotten or unknown


But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. - Thomas Browne

Ignorance is not bliss - it is oblivion. - Philip Wylie

Since fame is an illusion and death is in our future all we have is the next moment before we are swallowed into oblivion. - Al Goldstein

The majority see the obstacles; the few see the objectives; history records the successes of the latter, while oblivion is the reward of the former. - Alfred A. Montapert

Apathy is a sort of living oblivion. - Horace Greeley

An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature. - Auguste Renoir

Oblivion is the rule and fame the exception, of humanity. - Antoine Rivarol

But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep? - James Thurber

Pleasure is a sort of oblivion, a forgetfulness. Pain is remembrance, you cannot forget pain. - Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh


mp3 Feeling Oblivion

Turin Brakes - The Optimist LP


mp3 Cmon Cmon Oblivion

Macha - Forget Tomorrow


mp3 Have You Forgotten

Red House Painters - Vanilla Sky


mp3 What's Forgotten

Vitesse - You Win Again Gravity


mp3 Forgotten Works

Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future


mp3 For People Unknown

Windsor For The Derby - We Fight Til Death


mp3 Unknown

Tortoise - It's All Around You

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Random Associations

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Do you feel any colder, locked as always in a strangely isolated place?

The Stars, they beckon you, dancing in the sky...

If only you could reach far enough to touch one, then it would be

The whole world shines in front of you but it is not yours to see

For the weariness of untold secrets, all you really need is an honest friend

But all you find there is a scattered soul and a kingdom of lies

And you grasp, you reach, you push, harder against the grain

Only to find yourself, more than ever, locked deep in that cold dark place


mp3 Colder

Travis - The Boy with No Name


mp3 A Strangely Isolated Place

Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place


mp3 The Stars

Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position


mp3 Dancing In The Sky

Moonbabies - Moonbabies at the Ballroom


mp3 The Whole World

The Dilettantes - 101 Tambourines


mp3 An Honest Friend

Summerbirds In The Cellar - With the Hands of the Hunter It All Becomes Dead


mp3 Kingdom Of Lies

Folk Implosion - One Part Lullaby


mp3 More Than Ever

Bedhead - Transaction de Novo

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Frozen Still & Numb

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Frozen Still & Numb

Frozen still

Solid as ice

Numb like a charcoal gray day

Eyes feasting on the remains of nothing

Things that once were, now forgotten dreams

Forward is reverse, light is dark

Trickles of emotion dry like the Sahara

Movement ceases to exist, stillness surrounds

Only the echoing, empty pain manages to survive

A constant reminder of something called life

-dwm


mp3 Numb (Gimme Some More Dignity Mix)

U2 - U2 - The Best of 1990-2000


mp3 Frozen Feet

Tacks, The Boy Disaster - Oh, Beatrice


mp3 Forget To Be Numb

Dora Flood - Welcome


mp3 Still Life

Suede - Dog Man Star


mp3 Going Numb

Tin Cup Prophette - Liar And The Thief


mp3 Empty Picture Frame

Jets To Brazil - Four Cornered Night


mp3 Desert Island

XTC - Mummer


mp3 Frozen Stiff

Freescha - Head Warlock Double Stare

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Random Bits & Bytes

Checking out the email inbox and new music submissions:

Bonde Do Rolê is a Brazilian trio - "DJ Rodrigo Gorky gathered friends Pedro and Marina together, went to Role's, a snack bar that played heavy rock in their hometown of Curitiba and, many vodkas later, Bonde do Rolê was hatched". This is party music crafted from electro beats, metal riffs, and funky rhythms. This shit will drive you crazy to dance....

mp3 James Bonde

mp3 Bondallica

Bonde Do Rolê MySpace

With Lasers

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And speaking of Brazil, coming from Belo Horizonte, Brazil is Valv. My new friend Alexandre, who is in the band, sent me a message via MySpace the other day. Valv definitely have learned from the Shoegaze masters and play a heady mix of post-punk infused music with strong shoegaze leanings. Excellent sounds for sure!

mp3 The Sense Of Movement

Valv MySpace

Valv Website

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Multisofa are another Brazilian band that Alexandre introduced me to. Multisofa's roots are based in a folk acoustic guitar sound with at times an essence of shoegaze built into the song structure. Nice stuff!

mp3 Odd Chord

Multisofa

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Here is UK's The View performing Face For The Radio - Live In Dundee. This is a live version of the track from their Hats Off To Buskers LP.

mp3 Face For The Radio (Live In Dundee)

The View MySpace

Hats off to the Buskers

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New Ghosts are from Chicago and create epic, atmospheric music. "Evoking British bands like Echo and the Bunnymen, the Church, and Chameleons UK, New Ghosts blends jangly, echoing walls of guitar with haunting vocal melodies." These are orchestral tunes with shadows of shoegaze riding thru the post modern mist. Beautiful music!

mp3 Simplify

mp3 Blue Night

New Ghosts MySpace

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I really don't know what to think of this next one. Another Tortoise side project featuring John McEntire, John Herndon, and Dan Bitney are releasing a full album of instrumental percussion under the name Bumps. The promo track sent to me is titled Track 21 and is definitely a bizarre sounding piece of music, kind of cool though.

mp3 Track 21

Bumps

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Days Long Past

image from here


Days Long Past

Long dark branches reach to the ground

Branches like limbs shivering ever so fast

Tremble the warnings that haunt the mind

Tremble the memories of days long past


She said many words but only two mattered

'It cannot be seen or even understood'

'You must let go of it now, you must you know'

'There is no hope for you in there, it is no good'


There is a moment, a thing up ahead

It seems as unclear, as the thing left behind

There is nothing but this moment, here and now

To follow that over there will only break up your mind


She said 'you can't live there, you know it's true'

'You can't be seen there, you can't last'

Remember those words, whatever you do

There is no future, in the days long past

-DWM


mp3 The Warning

Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero


mp3 One Foot Stuck In The Past

Salim Nourallah - Polaroid


mp3 Never Understood

The Jesus & Mary Chain - Munki


mp3 The Wake Of All That's Past

Radar Brothers - And the Surrounding Mountains


mp3 Seen And Not Seen

Talking Heads - Remain in Light


mp3 The Past

The Fall - The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click)


mp3 My Own Haunted Life

Six. By Seven - Left Luggage at the Peveril Hotel


mp3 Left Behind

Bedhead - Beheaded

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My Life Is A Remixed Mixtape - Part II

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mp3 I Was A Landscape In Your Dream (Grizzly Bear Remix)

Of Montreal - Satanic Twins


mp3 Goodbye (Tahiti 80 Remix)

The Postmarks - Remixes EP


mp3 I'm Gonna Make You Fall In Love With Me (Electroluvs Remix)

Heaven 17 - I'm Gonna Make You Fall In Love With Me


mp3 Cherry Coloured Funk (Seefeel Remix)

Cocteau Twins - Lullabies to Violaine, Vol. 2


mp3 Sleepy California (Super Furry Animals Remix)

Her Space Holiday - Young Machines Remixed


mp3 Interiors (Broadcast Remix)

The Sea And Cake - Glass


mp3 Salome (Zooromancer Remix)

U2 - U2 - The Best of 1990-2000


mp3 Party Crashers (Headman Voc Remix)

Radio 4 - Stealing of a Nation


More Remix mp3's here

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The Silence Is Collapsing - There Is No Message

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"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King, Jr.


"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." - Mark Twain


"Silence is the mother of truth." - Benjamin Disraeli


"Sometimes the silence can be like thunder." - Bob Dylan


"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth." - Mahatma Gandhi


"Silence is Wisdom where Speaking is Folly." - William Penn


"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature-trees, flowers, grass-grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls." - Mother Teresa



mp3 Collapse (w/silence)

C'est la Mort - Strength In Numbers


mp3 Paint The Silence

South - From Here On In


mp3 Lost Message

Air - Pocket Symphony


mp3 Collapse

Sparta - Wiretap Scars


mp3 Suffer In Silence

The Frames - Burn the Maps


mp3 The Silent Me

Your Black Star - Sound from the Ground


mp3 Try Nothing

The Sea And Cake - One Bedroom

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New Music From The Inbox

pic Lost In The Trees

Lost In The Trees are from Boston, Mass. and on their latest EP Time Taunts Me (Trekky Records) they deliver wonderful orchestral music. These are cinematic songs built on strings and beautiful arrangements. Time Taunts Me is a very lush piece of music that will easily sweep you off your feet.

Lost In The Trees

Lost In The Trees MySpace

Time Taunts Me

mp3 Tall Trees

mp3 I've Always Loved The Fall

More Lost In The Trees mp3's here

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The Narrator are from Chicago and their album titled All That To The Wall will be released on May 15th via Flameshovel Records. This is true "slacker" indie rock, frantic guitars and quirky vocals. This is the type of music that Modest Mouse used to make....

The Narrator

The Narrator MySpace

All That To The Wall

mp3 Papal Airways

mp3 Breaking The Turtle

More The Narrator mp3's here

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Aria C Jalali! is a twenty year old, multi-instrumentalist musician from San Francisco. Aria C Jalali plays and records all instruments himself but he plays live with a massive 8-piece band. His Postmodernism! EP will be released through Filthy Little Angels Records on May 21st. The EP is a preview to his upcoming full length titled Assorted Submarines. This is beautiful bedroom pop that sparkles and twinkles on every note.


Aria C Jalali! MySpace

Postmodernism! EP

mp3 Postmodernism!

mp3 Bohemia (With A Sea)

More Aria C Jalali! mp3's here

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Jesper Lundager is from Denmark and was formerly with the shoegaze band Støjskolen. He has now gone solo and is producing some beautiful electronica tinged shoegaze music. Macuti is a meandering piece of fuzzed out music - an intriguing sound indeed.

Jesper Lundager MySpace

mp3 Macuti

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More New and A Touch Of Old

Image-Walker Kong

Still going thru new stuff and have not thoroughly listened to it all. I just used up my month's allocation at eMusic on mainly Six. By Seven but also some other new stuff.
Here are a few new ones that I picked up, plus a couple old ones thrown in for good measure.

Walker Kong are probably one of the most criminally underrated indie rock bands out there today. Their new one Deliver Us From People is excellent and one of the best indie rock/pop records you will hear this year.

Walker Kong

mp3 Change Your Mind

Deliver Us from People


Glasgow's The Twilight Sad are buzzing all over the music blogosphere and for good reason. Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters is a stunner, with shimmering guitars and wonderful melodies. It's a wonderful debut full of wide cinematic rock 'n roll.

The Twilight Sad

mp3 Mapped By What Surrounded Them

Fourteen Autumns Fifteen Winters


The Comas are from Chapel Hill, NC and are another underrated indie rock band. I really enjoyed their 2004's Conductor with it's fuzzy gloomy indie rock sound. Their new one, Spells, is not as "dark" as the previous and has a more "poppy" side to it but rest assured the fuzzy guitar melodies are still intact.

The Comas

Sarah T.

Spells

mp3 Hologram

Conductor


Brooklyn's all girl band Au Revoir Simone have put together a dreamy, sparkling synth pop album The Bird Of Music. It's nothing too serious but is just good clean pop music.

Au Revoir Simone

mp3 Lark

The Bird of Music


And for some old stuff. Here are two tracks from The (English) Beat Live Rockpalast, Germany, July 23rd, 1980. If anyone is interested in getting the whole show please leave me a note in the comments section and I will post it up.

The (English) Beat

mp3 Mirror In The Bathroom

mp3 Tears Of A Clown

Live Rockpalast, Germany, July 23rd, 1980

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The Brothers Martin

I am a total fan of everything that Starflyer 59 has done so when I ran into The Brothers Martin I definitely was intrigued. The Brothers Martin are a collaboration between brothers Ronnie Martin (Joy Electric) and Jason Martin (Starflyer 59). Prior to their separate projects the brothers were together in the band Dance House Children back in 1990, releasing two albums. Now, a good 16 plus years later, DHC has been revived as The Brothers Martin with their s/t debut released in January on the Tooth And Nail label. It's a nice combination of guitar rock and synth pop resulting in a 80's new wave feel to the music. Check it out!

mp3 The Harsh Effects Of Time

mp3 Communication

The Brothers Martin

The Brothers Martin MySpace


Ronnie Martin as Joy Electric has a new release that came out in March titled The Otherly Opus/Memory Of Alpha. Unfortunately, I have not picked up this new one yet but here is a track from 2005's Montgolfier And The Romantic Balloons.

mp3 The Romantic Balloons

Montgolfier And The Romantic Balloons


And a highly overlooked album of last year is Starflyer 59's (Jason Martin's) release - My Island. If you are not familiar with any of SF 59's earlier works you should be, especially if you like Shoegaze. This track from the latest album is more straight forward rocking rather than shoegaze (more prevalent on earlier albums).

mp3 I Win

My Island

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I Don't Know How To Tell You

mp3 Nightmare

Slowdive - I Am The Elephant U Are The Mouse Soundtrack


mp3 The Talk

Pablo - Half the Time


mp3 Call An Ambulance

Albert Hammond Jr. - Yours to Keep


mp3 Turn On Me

The Shins - Wincing the Night Away


mp3 Stray Talk

Maximo Park - Missing Songs


mp3 If One Of Us Should Fall

The Slip - Eisenhower

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Warp Speed To Mars

mp3 Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)

Grinderman - Grinderman


mp3 Rappaport's Testament (I Never Gave Up)

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Mo' Living EP


mp3 Thunderclaps

The Horrors - Strange House


mp3 Drunk On Another Planet

Great Glass Elevator - EP


mp3 We Got Games At High Speeds

Pilot To Gunner - Games at High Speeds


mp3 Must Be The Moon

!!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Myth Takes


mp3 Death Ship

Hoodoo Gurus - Stoneage Romeos

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My Life Is A Remixed Mixtape

mp3 Death By Mixtape

The Lashes - The Stupid Stupid


mp3 The Comeback (Big Slippa Mix by Ratatat)

Shout Out Louds - Combines


mp3 Tattva (Lucky 13 Mix)

Kula Shaker - Mantra Mix


mp3 Nine Acre Dust (Chemical Brothers Mix)

The Charlatans U.K. - Songs from the Other Side


mp3 A Better Future (Remix By Air)

David Bowie - Heathen


mp3 Bright Eyes - Constrast And Compare (Making Words Work Mix)

Her Space Holiday - Home Is Where You Hang Yourself 2.0


mp3 Teenage Lust - Desdemoana Mix

The Jesus & Mary Chain - Hate Rock 'N' Roll


mp3 Elevation (Influx Remix)

U2 - 7


Please go visit one of my favorite blogs - The Roaring Machine for all that is good in music, specializing in that wonderful Twee stuff. Liz and her beau Simon (Spoilt Victorian Child) also have the best message board going right now - The David Gedge Fanciers Club where you can interact with other folks and download some cool live music.
Check it out now!

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Dream Sweet Dreams

mp3 Whisper To Me Sweetly

Utah Carol - Rodeo Queen


mp3 Dreams (Feat. Mystic Chords Of Memory)

Dntel - Dumb Luck


mp3 Lady Of Dreams

VAST - Music for People

Note: For some reason I cannot leave comments on the blog posts. I use HaloScan and never had this problem before. Let me know via email (merzmars@gmail.com) if you try to leave a comment and have a problem. Thanks!

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