Well, I don’t think that’s ever going to be true.  But every once in a while, technology accidentally gets everything right, and you experience a mystical moment of human-robotic synergy that makes you think that maybe – just maybe – the Jetsons weren’t sent back in time to portend the future.  This morning was one of those; my iPod sensed my utter lack of wakefulness and kept me on the road with a boisterous mix.  But it was clever – the little black box with the scroll wheel input knew that I could end up speeding with the rhythm, and would toss up a couple countervailing tempos from time to time to slow down the tapping of my lead foot (see:Peasant, Belle & Sebastian).  So here’s the list it came up with.  Great combination, no?

So yesterday I promised a second round of music from last week’s crazy grab bag, and I make good on my promises. Track listing:

1. Marching Band – Travel in Time
2. The Clientele – George Says He Has Lost His Way
3. Marissa Nadler – My Little Lark
4. The Silents – Eat Your Face
5. Viva Voice – From the Devil Himself
6. Tricky – Bacative
7. Starlight Mints – Pearls (Submarine #2)
8. The New Year – My Neighborhood

So far this week, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to look around for new stuff, but I’m not super impressed with anything. It happens, I guess.

Picture taken at Great Falls, VA

Whew, so 2 weeks ago, I said to myself, “dammit, must update blog!” and Self snickered but said sure. Who knew Self was going to rely on external exigencies to get its nefarious non-updating way?

Yes, the past week has been too busy for me to do any writing, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been listening.

There are some weeks where 1 or 2 interesting albums drop, and I pick up an album or two from a year ago from some band I’ve just stumbled across. But not last week! Last week alone the following great albums came out:

1. Bound Stems – The Family Afloat
2. The Broken West – Now Or Heaven
3. Damien Jurado – Caught in the Trees
4. Fujiya and Miyagi – Lightbulbs
5. The Lovely Sparrows – Bury the Cynics
6. Marching Band – Spark Large
7. The New Year – s/t
8. Okkervil River – the Stand-Ins
9. Parenthetical Girls – Entanglements
10. Tricky – Knowle West Boy

I also picked up:

1. Birdmonster – From the Mountain to the Sea
2. The Clientele – That Night, a Forest Grew
3. Jessica Fletchers – Less Sophistication (yay!)
4. The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement (finally on eMusic – glad I waited)
5. Marissa Nadler – The Saga of Mayflower
6. The Uglysuit – s/t
7. Viva Voice – Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
8. The Silents – Sleepwalker

I’m weary just from typing all of them up. So far, all of the new albums are standouts; not a bad album in there. I’ve never encountered Damien Jurado before, but I find his Elliott Smith suddenly got happy approach to music relaxing. The new Tricky, though at times a bit too reggae for me, reminds me how much I’ve always liked his work – and resurrects the giddy laughter that always bubbles up whenever I hear his music thanks to his minor role in Fifth Element. Some of the new stuff, like Marching Band or The Lovely Sparrows, is just beautiful orchestral indie pop. How can you go wrong with that? Finally, the new Okkervil River and the new Broken West kick ass. Haven’t gotten to The New Year’s latest yet.

So I threw together a quick mix; Part 2 will be up (probably) tomorrow and then it’s off to the races for another week’s new releases!

1. The Lovely Sparrows – Year of the Dog
2. Parenthetical Girls – Young Eucharists
3. Damien Jurado – Coats of Ice
4. Bound Stems – Happens to Us All Otherwise
5. Fujiya and Miyagi – Knickerbocker
6. The Broken West – Auctioneer
7. Okkervil River – Lost Coastlines
8. The Uglysuit – Chicago

There are two types of summer song – the bouncy, fun, driving through rolling hills with the top down kind, and the dusty, stick to the couch as the day whiles away kind. Lots of blogs have been posting mixes built using the former construction.

This mix is an homage to the latter. Unlike those, it’s not about the trip to the beach, but to the world that doesn’t have the wherewithal for such leisurely escapades. It’s for all the times when you feel stuck in limbo, head hanging off the couch as you mindlessly stare at black and white daytime TV during summer vacation. It’s for the dusty Southern California towns at the furthest outskirts of LA, where it wouldn’t take much to imagine us 100 years ago, with a herd of cattle instead of a television, or sitting on a rocking chair on a hand built porch watching the sun, reddened with dust, slip over the horizon.

1. Neko Case – A Widow’s Toast

Neko is a siren, singing laments to the passing cowboys.

2. The Mountain Goats – Wild Sage

In the loneliness of the summer, with the rolling heat waves as your only companion, the cloak of sanity can easily slip off. You keep wanting to escape the worldview you’ve settled upon, but no matter how hard you try, the dust of your failure dulls the sheen of your future.

3. Iron & Wine / Calexico – Prison on Route 41

Ambling along the side of the road, kicking some cans, the clouds from passing cars soliciting coughs, you think of the family you’ve lost. Life is hard when you’re poor, and the summer sun makes you think of all kinds of crazy things – like breaking into the prison, and tearing the walls down yourself.

4. Mojave 3 – Trying to Reach You

Nothing emphasizes the slow movement and devastation of a summer of lament like the soft chorus of a banjo and dulcimer. They just have to stay in the background or else they become distracting.

5. Low – Violent Past

Sometimes the weather is simply crushing, the heat a bubble of air you push into when you leave the shade. It leads to hot tempers – but are they the result of the past or the present circumstances? Mired in poverty, are you to blame? Or is that the path you’re just destined to be on?

6. I Love Math – Josephine Street

We had to move away from the deliberate descent into despair, and this is the perfect counter-argument. The subdued excitement of this song was actually the inspiration for this mix.

7. Gomez – Tijuana Lady

A lazy voice narrating a lazy day. But oh, the excitement you can find in a pile of white powder..

8. Midlake – Van Occupanther

You have to try, you have to push, you have to make it out alive. You may not be successful, you may push on past your limits, but somewhere, somehow, you’ll move on. You’ll rise above your station, you’ll find happiness.

But they’ll be jealous. They’ll mock your intensity, your success. The escape you sought becomes a banishment.

9. Shearwater – Nobody

A domestic disturbance, in the slow motion of memory, seems just a little less painful, a little more rationalized. And you proceed on, with the hopefulness of a child, as the crows line your walk of shame home.

And one time the sun sets the last time.

10. The Decemberists – Shankill Butchers

Searching for firewood in the tumbling twilight, the trees menace with tales of the murderers that haunt these woods. From behind each tree trunk you expect a killer to spring, knife in hand, violent lust in the eyes. Each whisper is a plea to the judge for clemency, a cackle at the lack of remorse.

And you come back to the camp, and in hushed tones tell the tale of the red eyes watching you from the underbrush, of the prison break up the road. You shiver in horror, chills running like marathon ants up and down your spine, but you’ve stared the terror of the wilderness in the eye, so these little horrors are comforting in their absurdity.

11. M. Ward – Eyes on the Prize

Nothing is sweeter than the moment of first love, eyes blinded, mind numbed to all but the beauty serendipity has brought you. But you have to take this gift or it will walk away, out the doors of the bar, where the night air will hide her away for eternity.

12. The Veils – Under the Folding Branches

Sometimes you notice the man on stage, crooning over his piano about love’s lament. Sometimes his song, his heartbroken voice, is so beautiful that you remember that you love who you are, what the world offers you. This place, this life, these endless summer afternoons where you vacillate between the desperation of your position and the fear that you can’t become anything, are just little trials for your future. This patch of earth is who you are, and even if you leave, it forged you. It’s worth remembering for that alone.

Today, for example. I woke up, but just barely; my eyes were still fogged with sleep as I headed out the door. Caffeine, even in unhealthy doses, was completely ineffective. I ran the risk of running my car off the road if something was not done fast.

But then, in a startling signal of its sentience, my iPod provided me with the perfect crack in the coffee mix. It’s shared on muxtape for the next few days:

1. Spoon – Everything Hits at Once
2. Ra Ra Riot – Dying is Fine
3. Frightened Rabbit – The Twist
4. Alone at 3AM – Takes the Pain Away
5. R.E.M. – Supernatural Superserious
6. Jawbreaker – I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both
7. Eels – I Want to Protect You
8. Ryan Adams – So Alive

Nothing better on a Monday morning than turning into the parking lot at work to the sound of Ryan Adams crooning about being alive.

My goal of the Weekly Mixes is to give a good sense of what I’m listening to and why. In general, they’ll be in two parts; one on Sunday/Monday and one later in the week. This one, by virtue of the infancy of the blog, is coming in at the tail end of the Sunday/Monday time frame. In addition, I’m still learning WordPress 2.5, so bear with me. Oh, and all tracks will be deleted in a week, and if someone wants something taken down, email me and I’ll do it right away.

The Magic Numbers – This is a Song

It’s fitting that the very first track on my very first mix on here is entitled “This is a Song.” Well – yeah. The Magic Brakes make sweetly harmonious jangle pop that’s like a cool ocean breeze on an early summer day, sunroof and windows gaping open to let the salty air in. It’s throwback 60s, but in a good way.

Portishead – The Rip

Portishead’s third full-length, unimaginatively titled Third, has been lingering in the rumor mill for years. Led by the soulful quavering of Beth Gibbons, the band’s beats defined a subset of trip-hop throughout the late 90s, even if they did not release a good many albums. All this is to say that Third is far more dynamic than the previous studio albums. While still haunting, it is not as beat driven; guitars are often mixed forward as in this song, and melodies are developed around other aspects of the band besides Gibbons’ voice.

Of course, Gibbons is still a driving force, and in this song, her wail is like that of a lover ripped away; a mother watching a son dragged to war; an addict in forced rehab. It speaks to the failure of the status quo, to an unnatural tear in the fabric of the universe. As the person in the song deteriorates over the loss, the quiet guitar that begins the song is replaced by the distant hum of the beat, the drumbeat of white horses carrying her away from the tragedy.

M83 – Graveyard Girl

M83′s newest disc, Saturdays = Youth, evokes a simpler time – one of The Last Starfighter, Pretty in Pink, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Transformers that didn’t suck. Their throwback 80s sound is sweetly pretentious in the same way that the 80s were – soaring keyboard strings, laughably melodramatic spoken interludes, and edges softened with the hope that the future would sound as sweet as the music they were making. But it doesn’t suck – well, some of it does, but not this song – instead, it recalls the most charming elements of the decades overwrought culture and updates them slightly for the 00 palette.