Summer Jams I: Cold Forever

Well, I said I might be back at some point (like Jason Molina said before he checked out forever, for real, "I will be gone/but not forever"), so here's the first in a three-piece installment of tunes for getting drunk, getting high, fornicating, enjoying life, etc. True to my native perversity, this mix is mostly synth-pop and cold wave: not very summeresque, but don't worry. More summer-like mixes (each of which will become more and more unabashedly summer-esque until by August you're so fried on summertime sunshine that you could use some more of Ian Curtis' lyrics!) will follow in volumes one and two, for those of you who care. I'm including my always-brilliant, perpetually-effervescent commentary on the songs, 'cause whateverbigshitwhocaresletsgogetsunbuned!.

Get it here

Per usual, have fun (or not), kiddies. Blast some tunes, pop a beer, catch some sun, life ain't so bad:

1. T.V. Girl-I Don't Care (super nihilistic, super summer: "I smoke a pack of Reds and drink a six pack every day/I wanna stay sane and there ain't no other way!")
2. Keep Shelly in Athens-Cremona Memories (Syriza and the Greeks are in trouble now and have been for quite some time, but, as usual, they produce some great tunes anyway; requiescat in pace, Anestis Kostis!)
3. Blank Dogs-Another Language (I'm sure Blank Dogs ain't cool no more, but real drug punks disdain coolness and focus on whatever intoxicant is at hand. As some stupidhardcoreband said long ago, "charge ahead/charge ahead/we keep on fighting to the end!")
4. Naked on the Vague-Old Leader (Aussie synth savagery. Misery never sounded more relaxed.)
5. Dirty Beaches-Belgrade (unrelenting synth, an overpowering sense of anxiety, and Alex's haunted and haunting vocals, synth-driven, propulsive sadness hurtling towards the Danube)
6. Lust for Youth-Sickness (Scandinavian. Scandinavians, as far as I understand it, have a real health care system, so who the fuck knows what's going on with them.)
7. Thorir Georg-Skiptir Engu (Even more remote than the continental Scandi countries, Iceland not only has health care but ACTUALLY SENT BANKERS TO JAIL FOR THEIR CRIMES. Sounds like Mars? Yeah, 'cause it is, and their minimal synth is pretty rad, too!)
8. Rosenkopf-Troth (They're (are/were?) from New York or at least claim NYC status, so who knows what to make of them until they do something outrageous enough to have some dipshit from Village Voice do a feature on them [no, I didn't ask Google if there is an interview with the VV).
9. Carol-So Low (This very well might be the sound of austerity closing its warm, seductive, suffocating hand across your throat as the EU strangles the life outta ya-er, they're Belgian.)
10. Joy Division-Something Must Break (demo version)-(yeah JoyDiv bigdealsowhat. But how many of you fuckers would know about half of the music you pride yourselves on knowing about without having first discovered JD's Unknown Pleasures? That's right, none of you and me neither, so we could all use some more Joy Division!).
11. RZA-Ghost Dog Theme-(No comment, much respect. RZA matched or beat Jarmusch here. Brilliant soundtrack for a brilliant film.)
12. Fausto Amodei-Non 'e finita a Piazza Loreto (Because I have to include some sort of overtly commie propaganda here. It's also a pretty good minimal keyboard piece too, though....As a friend said a long, long time ago of The Majestic Arrows, "sit alone and cry to this raw shit".).
13. Makis Prekkas-Morocco (Minimal synth from before Greece was famous for debt instead of all the classical/philosophical/etc. stuff. Anxiety and dread seep through Prekkas' work, and those emotions are much more appropriate to the capitalist apocalypse that is Greece than pride, anyway)
14. Mushy-Kshetrajna (Italian-Ethiopian/Eritrean lady makes some dope minimal dronesynth. Dig it.)
15. Popol Vuh-Gemeinschaft (needs no introduction)

The attached picture was taken in Italy, "3 summers, .and a thousand years ago," as Peachy Carnahan says to Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would be King). Or, as Slim Charles says in The Wire (season 4), "Yeah, well, life's strange."

Blank Dogs-Phrases EP (2010)

So this cold wave biz  is what the kids are hyped on these days. Same kids seem to concur that Blank Dogs was at the top of their (his? Mike Sniper’s?) game with the lo-fi Joy Div/Front 242/et. al. worship of the earlier records. 

Fuck that. It’s easy to hide vapidity if you’re recording on a bedroom four-track and purposely cloaking your lyrics as much as Blank Dogs does. The slightly-more-polished sound of “Phrases” puts Sniper’s project on trial, and sincerity, a serious thought, is what emerges. It’s not any particular lyric, but the feeling of the album as a whole, that pushes it beyond simple Manchester ’78 dues-paying to resonate after the stylus lifts.

 This album is flotsam from the bottom of the sea-but it’s a warm sea, unlike the one that spawned Cold Cave, whose glacial beats and oh-so-tragically self-aware vocals issue from the Bering Straits. The overall mood of “Phrases” is desolation, but it’s the loneliness of someone reaching out to a multitude, instead of the noise that a solipsistic cave troll makes while reinforcing his icy ramparts. This distance owes as much to the beats as the vocals: they’re more audible than on previous Dogs releases, yet they don’t grab you by the throat and throttle you as most dance music does. The multitracking lets the vocals float up out of nowhere, quickly submerging again beneath the synth swirl.

The guitar chords that open “Racing Backwards” have a cheerful melancholy to them-covert revelry, a party that would be awesome if only there were other people around to enjoy it. This song's ambiance is that of falling in love in late August, as summer wanes into autumnal twilight. This bittersweet feeling sticks with me after spinning this record, every time.

Sit alone and cry.  Mirabile dictu, this Blank Dogs release is still available, so scoop it up here.