The Signal Music Weblog

The Signal: EP085 - It's another one! Hey hey hey! Let's all gape with our mouths! (If you gape with anything else, I'm warning you...) Yes, indeed, another mix. This one came pretty easy. It is custom suited to aid with the completion of tax forms.

Legal disclaimer: No it isn't.

The link is available for a limited time. Artist info is in the id3 tags. Notes are below. Lots of interesting parallels in the construction of this one! What else do you need to know... probably nothing. This post is like an encyclopedia set, but it's free and you can't look anything up. But it has all you need. No WAIT... this post is like VITAMINS. Or MATH.

Follow up:

1. "This is excellent!" "IS IT?!?" Oh, the drama! We start things off with some borderline hysterics, then get into a song that has been featured in my Twitter stream as a "jam". Remember that? NOSTALGIA. Don't sigh too hard thinking about it, because chiropractors charge double if you wrench your back from too much sighing and slouching.

2. Big tune. I actually don't have anything to say about this one.

3. I've been on this multi-week project for no good reason where I'm encoding every last CD in the house that isn't already encoded. So I found the music that goes behind this crazy anti-drug ad while looking through some of the recently encoded stuff. Not necessarily a track I'd look for on its own... I clicked on it at random and thought "Yeah... that fits a track with a cartoon pig talking about smack."

4. So we continue our drug theme with another rediscovered CD. It sounds of-an-era now, but I listened to the album this came from a lot when it first came out. Remember when we thought, as a culture, that maybe this music could sell cars? I swear I saw a car ad back in the 90s with a rock band pretending to make music from this artist.

5. The swelling strings on this track strike a borderline freak-out vibe that I thought suited our ongoing drug theme.

6. This is just part of a much longer song, but I had to trim it down so as not to test the patience of those with a lower tolerance for lo-fi. Also of interest: there's a guitar section in here that echoes a guitar section in...

7. ... this song! Do you hear it? For a minute, I thought I might also use a Bristol band's single that also samples from this track, but it didn't sound right coming next. Not a good transition. Instead I went with...

8. ... a recent French band I found out about via This is My Jam and a friend-of-a-friend connection made via Twitter/Google+/thepulsingbloodnetconnectingusaswesleep. Bongos! Saxophone! I watched a YouTube video of the band performing this song four times in a row at one point. And could have kept going.

9. This joke might only hit for the couple of you who are Anglophiles, or who have listened to garage DJs keep poking their noses in while something electronic bubbles away in the background.

10. Another tune I've been listening to a lot. That "The Future" break is such a clever moment, to spend a little resting time in a utopian floating musical rest stop before throwing you back into the dystopian highway that the song is tearing down like Carradine in Deathrace.

11. The big love theme / joke anthem of a recent cult-by-design film I saw in the theatre. Reminds me a bit of the over-the-top anthem from Neverending Story. Or the never-ending anthem from Over the Top.

12. Found on a comp from a label I've historically liked, so I thought I'd go see what they're up to these days. Turns out: they're up to some interesting stuff.

13. From Denmark! That's all I know.

14. You know that mental satisfaction you get when a puzzle piece clicks into place? I get that when I get these mixes to hit 45 minutes exactly. Not a second over or under. So I'm finding odd songs that just happen to fit the exact second count I need to wrap things up. I wouldn't have gone looking for them, but I'm always happy to find them.

But enough about me, how are you?

Oh wait, I disabled comments.

I guess you're just going to have to go to the window and shout loud enough that I can hear you. Or if you're hoarse, whisper it into my ears as I sleep so I dream about how you're doing.