Hip Hop Mix pt. 4

Lyrics Born - Do That There (Young Einstein hoo-hoo mix)
Immortal Technique - Peruvian Cocaine
Blackalicious - Release
Four Tet & Percee P - A Joy
Lyrics Born - Always Fine Tuning
Immortal Technique - The Cause of Death

Willy Mason

Apparently Willy Mason is really popular in the UK and his debut album sold almost 100k copies just over there. He's just signed to Astralwerks Records and they are going to be re-releasing his previously Team-Love released debut album Where The Humans Eat on March 7, 2006. The re-release is going to have some extra bonus content including a music video and a new track.

Read more at CMJ



Willy Mason - Gotta Keep Moving

....but I've chosen darkness

Austins I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness finally have completed their debut album and are set to release it on Secretly Canadian. It seems like it was years ago when I heard their debut EP...wait it has been.



Formed in 2001, Austin, TX's I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness have been flirting with "Next Big Thing" status since their critically acclaimed 2003 self-titled EP, produced by Britt Daniel. Secretly Canadian and Chosen Darkness will release this new album [Fear Is On Our Side] to be produced by Paul Barker (Ministry, Lard) and tentatively slated in early [03/07/06] 2006.

Read more about the new album here

From the new album, Fear Is On Our Side:

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - According to Plan

Thanks to Dreams of Horses for the heads up.

Shooting John

I haven't gotten my internet working yet and I'm probably going to give up since I'm moving out this week and the effort is not worth the outcome. I've been pretty much out of the loop in the blog world but the time without internet gave me a chance to listen to songs before they get over shadowed by others. Which happens a lot, I'm addicted to downloading music.

I got emailed a song by a band called Shooting John from Sweden. They are on Marilyn Records and the song is a b-side called Drunk and astray off the single Beggars. I like this song soley based on that the song fits perfect with the mild winter outside.

Shooting John - Drunk and Astray

Here they are on myspace

Bonus

American Analog Set - Green Green Grass (demo)
Dead Science - Drrrty Magneto
Jenny Lewis w/ The Watson Twins - Mlet Your Heart

Whats going on

Here's some random stuff thats happening...to me.

My ISP has messed up my internet connection again but its alright, they do this at least twice a year. What upsets me the most about my lack of internet is that this will be my last two weeks to run wild on the net till my one month vacation out of the country. I plan on finding internet cafes to keep up with the world but nothing is confirmed. Yea, I'll be roughing it.

In other news, I think I parked on top of a snake. I came out to my car 6 hours later and he was (mostly) headless and dead. It wasn't big, I thought it was an odd looking shoe lace when I first saw it. Now you know why I (try to) write about music, its more interesting than what goes on in my life. Also I met an American Idol 2nd rounder today...still not that interesting.

So thats whats going on with me.

Also check out the Animal Collective doing Nirvana covers at Molars.

The Stones Throw Holiday Mix

The Stones Throw Holiday Mix: Compiled by Peanut Butter Wolf. It's available to stream at the Stones Throw website here and available in mp3 form here.



The tracklist goes a little something like this:

1. Hello World – Rudy Ray Moore
2. Peace On Earth – Hopeton and Primo
3. Where Day At Yo – K. Nock feat 24K
4. Rappin Christmas – The Cold Crew
5. Jingle Bells – Dudley Perkins and Georgia Anne Muldrow
6. Seven Days of Kwanzaa – Georgia Anne Muldrow
7. In The Hot Sun Of A Christmas Day – Caetano Veloso
8. My Lovely Christmas – Baron Zen
9. Irie Christmas – Freddie McGregor
10. Christmas Will Really Be Christmas – Lou Rawls
11. Go Power at Christmas Time – James Brown
12. Seasons Greetings – Sound On Sound Productions
13. My Christmas Bells – Hard Call Christmas
14. Broke At Christmas – Jacob Miller & Ray I
15. Broke Christmas In Brooklyn – Baron Zen
16. Night Before Christmas – Rudy Ray Moore
17. Close Your Mouth (It's Christmas) – Free Design
18. Glory, Glory – Al Green
19. What You Want For Christmas – 69 Boys
20. Little Saint Nick – The Beach Boyz
21. Christmas – Beat Happening
22. Got The Beat For Christmas (Breakdance) – Monyaka
23. Sound The Trumpet – Bob Marley & The Wailers
24. Christmas in the City – Marvin Gaye
25. Silent Night – Peanut Butter Wolf
26. Tidings – Phil Spector, Peanut Butter Wolf, and Esquivel
(1:06:00)



In Football:
Cowboys just had a very bad lost to the Redskins today. It was almost a shut out but we erked our way to score in the 4th. Indy lost though, I didn't think I'd see that this year, or atleast until the playoffs. Indy still has a spot in the playoff but I think the Cowboys threw away our wildcard spot.

My favorite albums of 2005

Lists are a great way to summarize without being too wordy. The best are easy to interpret and an entertaining read, hopefully I can at least meet one of those criteria. I'm going for simple this year, short and to the point. I really hate ranking albums because they move up and down over short periods of time but I'm going to try to not over think this.

The top 5 are interchangable on any given day

1]Spoon - gimme fiction
[They Never Got You]
2]Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
[Black]
3]Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary
[You are a runner]
4]Low - Great Destroyer
[California (acoustic)]
5]Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
[Helicopter]

6]John Vanderslice - Pixel Revolt
[Trance Manual]
7]The Deathray Davies - The Kick & Snare
[Plan to Stay Awake]
8]Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
[Chicago]
9]Minus Story - No Rest For Ghosts
[Knocking On Your Head]
10]Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth
[Baby C'mon]
11]Animal collective - Feels
12]Of Montreal - The Sundalic Twins
[Alabee]
13]Caribou - Milk Of Human Kindness
[Hello Hammerheads]
14]Nada Surf - The Weight Is a Gift
[Do It Again]
15]My Morning Jacket - Z
[Anytime]
16]Lucero - Nobodys Darlings
[Bikeriders]
17]Beck - Guero
[Scarecrow]
18]American Analog Set - Set Free
[Immaculate Heart I]
19]Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
[Dilaudid (live)]
20]Iron and Wine & Calexico - In the reins
[A History Of Lovers]

Favorite Hip Hop Releases for 2005
1. Common - Be
2. DangerDoom - The Mouse & The Mask
3. Madvillains - Four Tet Remixes EP
4. Blackalicious - The Craft

Top musicians whose hype/fame I didn't understand in 2005 (and probably won't in 2006)

1. Kaiser Cheifs
2. Nickle Back
3. The Bravery
4. Velvet Revolver
5. Ashley Simpson

But seriously, whats the deal with the Kaiser Cheifs?

Low acoustic set (audio and video)

I wanted to post my year end list on Monday but finals and what not got in the way and the same for today. I completed it but there is one thing I'm waiting for. So till then, acoustic Low (audio and video)

Sessions for Planet Claire [November 2004]

1. Just Stand Back
2. Monkey
3. Silver Rider
4. Pissing
5. California

Find the entire set, audio & video here.

favorite albums of 2006

I already have a list of my favorite albums of 2006, most from the month of Janurary. After hearing the new Island album, they've got the top spot. I was disappointed at first not to see Bucky Little Wing on the track list but then when I heard the bonus song, I was satisfied. Tomorrow I plan on putting up my years favorite music list that I've been putting off for a while. Till then:

Top 6 Albums of 2006

1. Islands - Return to the Sea (Janurary 2006)
2. Two Gallants - Who The Toll Tells (February 21, 2006)
3. Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins - Rabbit Furcoat (January 24, 2006)
4. Destroyer - Rubies (February 21, 2006)
5. The Strokes - First Impressions Of Earth (January 3, 2006)
6. Belle And Sebastian - The Life Pursuit (February 6, 2006)

"I think what we're trying to do is aim at the blog people," Tambeur adds. "It's all about blogs.

"Records don't matter. I don't even know what blogs are, really, but we're trying to get them talking about us. A record's kind of a thing of the past. That wasn't my idea. I read it somewhere and I was just trying to apply it."

Islands via Chartattack

flash mouse

Heres another one of those flash, mouse games. I can see myself playing this for a while but right now is all about the Mavericks beating the Celtics.

Mouse 1.0: Escape To Windows

Hip Hop Mix

Aesop Rock - 1000 Deaths
De La Soul - All Good
Edan - Fumbling over words
Blueprint - Lofi Funk
Mr. Lif feat. Aesop Rock - Success
Prince Paul - What U Got
Immortal Technique - Leaving the Past

Wincing the Night Away

All is well at the think tank homestead, I was working on couple of whole new design ideas for the ole blog, with new colors, shapes and general layout tweaks. What else is there to do when the weather doesn't reach above freezing for a week and the roads are covered with ice? In other me news I have a week left of college, actually two exams and graduation. Not quite ready to leave the life but I have to grow up sometime, right?

Around the net:

John Vanderslice has posted another live show on his website, I saw him less than a week before this was recorded (Nov. 5, 2005) and they played a great show, one of my favorites this year. I think it might of been the exact set-list too, hooray for me.

Friday morning dance mix at Shake Your Fists has a classic De La Soul track, Slow Hands by Interpol remixed by Britt Daniels, & Heaven 17!

Yeti Don't Dance has a very nice Voxtrot track, Whiskey to download... for a limited time!

Funtime Ok has Rare Xiu Xiu/XITSJ/IBOPA with some great tracks including a Pixies cover and a Smith cover. "...here are some rare tracks/radio sessions from all of Jamie Stewart's projects along with four Ten In The Swear Jar Songs that are NOT available on Accordion solo"

Hot Chipin

Hot Chips album Coming on Strong finally got a stateside release so now their mix of R&B, New-Wave, Indie, Dance can invade your headphones. I posted about them few months ago. The album has a number of great tracks, I'm surprised it took more than a year for a US release but at least there is one so I can't complain.

Hot Chip - Baby Said
Hot Chip - Keep Fallin'

Talib Kweli samples Ben Kweller

I wish more hip hop artist sampled indie rock, it brings in a whole new audience. The new Talib Kweli "mixtape" Right About Now, which was released on Kweli's label Black Smith Music, has finally made it into my music rotation and along with being the The Official Sucka Free CD(?) its also pretty good. One of my favorite tracks on the album is Ms. Hill, a track about Lauryn Hill that features a sped up sample of In other words from Ben Kwellers debut album Sha Sha. Another hightlight from the album is Fly that knot paring up Talib Kweli with MF Doom for the second time since Dangerdoom. Marathonpacks has that mp3 to download.

Talib Kweli - Ms. Hill

Alvin wants a hula hoop

Christmas is coming and I am reminded of one of my favorite christmas songs. I like the song by itself alright but I have this funny memory of listening to it at the end of summer with some friends after we had more than a few drinks. I tend not to really enjoy christmas songs but this is a classic.

Alvin & The Chipmunks - Christmas song

Alvin & The Chipmunks - Christmas song [nightmare edition] Its just slowed down to hear the normal voice.



Couple other things:

Amazon.com has had their top 100 albums list, one for editors picks and the other for customer favorites. In my opinion, the editor picks is the only relevant one, ps. Sufjan takes the top spot.

Aversion : Calendar Celebrates Erotic Religious Moments

Nobody Told Me

Today everyone should leave the 7-7:30p (cst) time slot open because of the return of Arrested Development on Fox, as they were hidden while November sweeps came and went. This episode should be where Micheal Bluth marries Rita (Charlize Theron) in the episode and reveals that she is mentally impared maybe?

Also:

• Conan has a rerun of the show with the Common performance.
• Letterman has a rerun of the show with the Ryan Adams performance

Around the net-o-sphere

Music Cherry has a cover of John Lennon's Nobody Told Me by the Flaming Lips.

Molars has a new Ted Leo song from a kexp performance. Also worth checking out is the Ris Paul Ric track on the same post.

Dreams of Horses has a Petra Haden and Bill Frissell cover of Coldplays Yellow. Get this track!

ECEU has a live Radiohead cover by Pedro the Lion of Let Down along with couple other covers.

John Dufilho

John Dufilho of Dallas' Deathray Davies has his first solo album out on Glurp titled John Dufilho. From what I hear its pretty good so I think I'll have to order it.

This is John Dufilho's first solo cd. Every instrument was played, recorded, mixed, and produced by The Deathray Davies singer/ songwriter. It is a remarkable collection of romantic pop songs, lush soundscapes, and good old fashioned Power Pop..."I wanted to make a more personal record," Dufilho explains. "Something intimate like a bedroom 4 track demo but with the fidelity that comes with working in a real studio. --Glurp

John Dufilho - What Are You Waiting For



The Catbirdseat has another track from the album to download titled My Circuits Are Blown.

BBC: Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog'

How could I not post this.

"Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report...They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh."

Watch out.

read the full story

Furtips

I am currently listening to Furtips from The Netherlands, I like the description of the band on their website, "Furtips, the band that plays songs which contain guitars, singing, drums and keyboards and some more...maybe." They do have that Pavement thing going for them and among their influences they listed Television Personalities, Wire and Syd Barret.

Furtips - I would rather be catholic now
Furtips - Cigarettes saved my life

More mp3s of theirs can be found here and here

Destroyer

Download European Oils from Destroyers newest album Rubies coming out in Feburary on Merge Records at Goldkixx. My anticipation is at all time high for this release after hearing this song.

Nada Surf downloads

A whole lot of Nada Surf downloads including live sets, acoustic sets etc.. props to donewaiting.com for link.