The Signal: EP119 – Exactly 45 minutes of songs for medical use only, precisely calculated to improve spinal alignment in modern primates and most models of robots. In this installment, we’ve got danceable pop from Canada, an LA artist incorporating sounds from Ethiopia and East Africa, UK hip hop, southern California pop punk, cool sounds from France, Russian surf and a Spanish language a capella cover. Lots of variety for you.
The file will be available only for a limited time so if you’re curious at all, click the links above and download away. The track list of artists is in the file’s id3 tags and notes are below.
01. This artist is one I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while because I know a lot of people who went nuts for her early, but I never caught the bug… until her latest album, which had three tracks that were all jostling for inclusion in a Signal mix. We may hear more from her in future installments.
02. A find from Bandcamp. I had someone recently ask how I find such a wide variety of sounds for these mixes and this track came from one of my tips: If you find a music label that puts out interesting stuff, stick with ’em. Hadn’t heard of this artist, but trusted the label.
03. When it comes to the modern “club” sound, this label is pretty much my jam.
04. This is the 8th appearance in a Signal mix by this MC. Pretty obvious by now that he’s a favorite, isn’t it?
05. A hippo-pot-a-muss-ss-ss-ss-ss-ss-ss. That moment of weirdness was the hook that helped this song catch my ear. Wish more of the song was like that.
06. Back in 2007, in The Signal EP032, I included a track from a breakcore artist that– and I didn’t know it at the time– sampled this song. Just recently found out about the original and I think it works just as well without a storm of Amen breaks pushing it along.
07. Heard this song recommended during a bit of game streaming on Twitch.tv. Never know where the next band recommendation is going to come from. (This track makes for a deadly Audiosurf race track, FYI.)
08. More amazing MCs from the UK.
09. In order to make these mixes come out at exactly 45 minutes, there’s always a point where I have a gap a specific number of seconds long that I have to fill. This time around, this is it: a love song about a girl and her electric razor.
10. And once we’re on to love songs, we have to explore love gone awry, right?
11. The previous country track gets an R&B/hip hop follow-up before things get bitter …
12. … and talks turns to poison.
13. Dropped this one in to bring us back from Bad Love to Good Love. Plus, it’s a stand-out version of the doo-wop sound.
14. Russian surf band. Broken English. A circus freak show. How can you pass that up?
15. Speaking of freak shows… the film that this song appears on… it’s something else. It’s been a while since we’ve included an interesting cover version of a track, and those used to be a staple, so here we go. A little return of some old Signal razzle dazzle.
Anyway, hope you dug it. If you like the Signal mixes, why not tell your friends about them? Or keep it to yourself. I don’t have any tracking on any of this so I don’t know how many downloads there are or anything. Just floating a musical ship out to sea and listening to the weather report on a static-swamped portable radio, to stretch a metaphor.