I knew it was over

Hi friends,

I think we can agree that this blog has pretty much given up the ghost. It happens. But if anyone is still subscribed to this RSS, here's a bag of 22 songs that one of our contributors (me) will remember 2011 by.

I still think Pop Molecule is a good name for a blog, zine, and if I ever pulled my shit together, a club night. Maybe some day, Helsinki!

Direct link to download here: http://bit.ly/sIHgxU

Happy new year!

Cover: A street in Copenhagen, on a visit last October.

West Coast Offense

25 songs about California. A couple of them may be tenuous, but they all work in my mind. The title is a nod to the great San Francisco 49ers teams of the 1980s. My buddy Dave had season tickets and I went along to a shitload of games with him. We even got to go to the Super Bowl against the Miami Dolphins. Pretty cool stuff.

You can listen here through the 8tracks media player, just click the giant play button down there. Click on to check the tracklist, or stay right here and let it come to you, one by one.

Trish's Mind Bending Motorway Mix

Shortly before she fell ill, the late Trish Keenan made a mix CD for friends last December. One of those friends has uploaded the mix to Soundcloud in tribute.

"Sorry I don't have a tracklist," the friend writes. "To be honest I like it that way. I think it's less about who you're listening to on this compilation and more about the fact you are listening to something that Trish took time to select and compile for me and in turn yourselves. Please just enjoy the music."

It definitely sounds like something Trish Keenan would put together--psychedelic, cinematic, bewitching, and ultimately very poppy. In other words, great.

Elsewhere on the web, Jess Harvell posts an appreciation of Keenan that I think rings true: "It's hard not to feel like the world lost a major fantasist, an unassuming creator of dreamy other worlds, one who just chose music over books or film."

Thinking of you fondly, Ms. Keenan, wherever you are.

Have a Heart

I made it back in one piece from my family reunion in Las Vegas. This is my musical mix ode to 2010. Not necessarily the best, just what I like. Click on for more.

25 for 2010

Your Pop Molecule mixtape service continues with New Pop 2010, comprised of 25 pop songs to remember the year by, whether you're a human relaxing on the couch, a bear lounging in the forest, or, erm, a sentient creature who likes good tunes. You'll be surprised, charmed, seduced. We promise. Download by clicking here (.zip).

Tracklisting:

1. Kemialliset Ystävät - Kajastusmuseo

2. Shugo Tokumaru - Drive-Thru

3. TV-Resistori - Voi ei, ei voi olla totta

4. El Guincho & Julieta Venegas - Mientes

5. The Go! Team - T.O.R.N.A.D.O.

6. Stereo Total - I Wanna Be A Mama

7. Katerine - Le Banane

8. The Chap - We'll See To Your Breakdown

9. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - The Stick

10. Sun Kil Moon - Tomorrow Is Already Here

11. Girls - The Oh So Protective One

12. Eux Autres - Jamais

13. Northern Portrait - What Happens Next?

14. Sambassadeur - I Can Try

15. Hauschka - Sunny Mission

16. Gil Scott-Heron - Parents (Interlude)

17. Museum Of Bellas Artes - Days Ahead

18. High Places - On A Hill In A Bed On A Road In A House

19. Liars - The Overachievers

20. Yona - Syyssävelmä

21. Boris Kovač - Adagio

22. Islaja - Dadahuulet

23. Owen Pallett - Keep The Dog Quiet (Simon Bookish Remix)

24. Serena Maneesh - I Just Want To See Your Face

25. Minamo & Lawrence English - Fireworks

OCTOMIX

A little mix for the waning days of summer. For some reason, it's a little heavy on covers (8 outta the 27), but there's no real rhyme or reason for the tracks. They just sounded good at the time. So stick this in your iPod, turn it up and go. Feel free to praise or clown me in the comments section. Click on for the tracklist and link. Enjoy!

Ave Lúcifer

Pop Molecule mixtape service continues with Le Sacre, 25 songs, 71 minutes. Get it here. Freaky pagan sex rituals optional, but encouraged.

1. Os Mutantes - Ave Lúcifer
2. Jeanette - Porque te vas
3. Chiyo Okumura - Koi no dorei
4. Kishore Kumar - Koi haseena
5. Kronos Quartet - Ya habibi ta'ala
6. Jane Birkin & Mickey 3D - Je m'appelle Jane
7. Brigitte Fontaine - Déclaration de sinistre
8. Fausto Cigliano - Cantata basilisca (The lizard song)
9. Piero Piccioni - Eros
10. Serge Gainsbourg - Flash forward
11. Charles Wilp - Bunny
12. 101 Strings - Karma sitar
13. Dara Puspita - Musafir cinta
14. The Ramrods - Bright lit blue skies
15. Scott Walker - The church of the apostles
16. Georg Ots - Muuttuvat laulut
17. Annikki Tähti - Mustalainen
18. Teruko Akatsuki - Koi no gypsy
19. Pauli Granfelt - Itämaista rakkautta
20. Boris Kovač - Lonely on the rock
21. Filipinki - Dlaczego płaczesz mały
22. Francis Lai - Les deux nudités
23. The Focus Group - Pan calling
24. Broadcast - Valerie
25. Luboš Fišer - Sacrifice

(Cover image taken from Jaromil Jires' 1970 film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders)

Jukebox il topo

It's mixtape time again, kids!

Something of a linguistically confused blind mole's grapple in the dazzling spring sun for cultural sure footing, calling to mind this fucked up Jodorowsky film, but without the Wild West and more sex and art-damaged Italian shoes instead? A still from Antonioni's La Notte provides the cover image, and a few shots of cachaça, euro politico-financial anxiety, and a helping of Kubrickian ultraviolence spike the punch bowl of my melted mental topography map, pop-musically speaking, circa May 2010.

Download here; tracklisting after the jump.

Funeral for Churchill

In honour of Britain's freshly hung parliament, I pass along a fine mixtape made by my brother a couple weeks ago: "An admittedly tenuous blend of old British imperialism and full-on freakout psychadelia," he writes. "Preferably listened to while wearing a Victorian military jacket of some sort (and, uh, lined with acid.) Good times."

It is worth noting that Churchill himself was never once elected prime minister with a popular vote greater than 50 percent. David Cameron, carrying on the peculiar tradition of British politics, thinks he should now be PM with 36 percent. Proportional representation in parliament, with all the messy coalition-building that entails, is the core demand being made by the monkeywrench in this election, the Liberal Democrats. Seems to be an idea whose time has definitively come...

Long is the way...

 

I made a mix for myself for fun, so I thought I'd post it here in case anybody else might be interested. It's mostly new-ish stuff, with a few older tunes. It's long, so beware. You might want to digest it in little chunks, or maybe just put it on at work and let it roll. Tracklist and link after the jump!

Songs of < 3 & < /3

 

Valentine's Day is coming. Some people love it, some people hate it. I don't really care for it myself, it's kinda of a prefab cash-grab "holiday", but that's just the way it goes. Just for fun, I wanted to see if I could put together a mix of love songs, but it didn't feel right without the darkness of heartbreak. I added even more songs and came out with these 32 tracks (yeah, I know it's long, it just happened that way). It's not definitive by any means, just stuff I happen to like. The songs are not evenly split, at least I don't think so because I didn't count. The subject matter was pretty easy, so I just tried to go for flow, and there might be some success in that respect. I'd say that most of these, I've been listening to forever. There are some newer tracks that I've taken to rather quickly, but it seems to be a decent mix of old and new.  

Some of these tracks really kill me. Badly Drawn Boy's Magic In The Air is so sweet and hopeful, like when you meet someone new and everything just clicks. Lamb's Gorecki is absolutely devastating, probably the best love song I've ever heard. This is the sound of falling in love. XTC's Your Dictionary has got to be the bitterest and most venomous breakup song ever written. Garbage's #1 Crush is pure stalker obsession. I love when Shirley Manson whispers menacingly, "I'd do time for you." Now THAT, my friends, is love. Joe Jackson's Happy Loving Couples never fails to crack me up. You can almost see him rolling his eyes, a knowing look on his face as he says, "You know what I mean... happy loving couples in matching lamb turtleneck sweaters, reading Ideal Homes magazine... yeah." Those assholes. Yeah, indeed, Mr. Jackson.

Check the tracklist while you're waiting for the download magic to happen (link at the bottom) and then drop this mix onto your mp3 player of choice.

Minutos musicales

Eolrin over at Minutos Musicales has posted a 2CD compilation of his favourite indie pop of 2009. It's a good, diverse and pretty international mix that will help catch you up with some stuff you might have missed the past 12 months. His introductory text is in Spanish, but the mediafire download links work no matter what languages you happen to read or speak. :)

On to the next decade now!

Decadeology (Robot Hero Edition)

I tried my hand at Madmadcat's decade mixtape challenge: 20 songs, 2 songs from each year, with no band duplicates. I tried to go for a mix with a decent flow and I think I succeeded somewhat. Naturally, it was difficult to pick just 20 songs to represent the past 10 years, but that is part of the fun. And really, it's in no way representative of the entire decade. Get the download link after the jump. You can peruse the tracklist while you wait for the file and clown (or praise) me in the comments.

Decadeology (Madmadcat edition)

Or, twenty songs I’d rather remember the noughties by

This is the decade mixtape challenge: 20 songs, 2 songs from each year, with no band duplicates. Download my exercise in decadeology here (zip file, 123 MB). While you’re waiting for that to come down the pipe, a bit more about my rationale after the jump...

My mind's eye

My brother e-mails to say that "my big music obsession for the past couple months has been a major resurgence of mod stuff from the 60s... I can't get enough of fuzzed out guitars, harmonizing, flutes, paisley and headache-inducing album covers." And you know what, I can't either. So I asked for a mixtape, and he happily obliged. Peppering just the right amount of familiar names (Dusty Springfield, The Kinks, baroque-era Bee Gees) in amongst more forgotten gems (including a surprising track by a very young Bob Seger, before he grew a mullet and burst his lungs for Chevrolet), this mix spreads the mod/sunshine/psychedelic love. Download the lot here and be happy.

Tracklist after the jump:

Pinoy pop holiday

Many thanks to Filipino Indiepop Scene for posting a very lovely holiday mix, Holly, Ivy and Mistletunes; a menu of free download options is here. The mix is the fifth installment of their free compilation series of indie pop from the Philippines and the wider Filipino diaspora, all of which are posted at their very nice blog. Salamat!

Tracklist:

1. The Wentletraps - Just Like Christmas
2. Sugarspun - December
3. Apple Orchard - One Christmas Catalogue
4. The Jealous Sea - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
5. Archaster - Away In A Manger
6. Scattered Pearls - Christmas Is All Around
7. That Lingering Feeling - Blue December
8. Soft Pillow Kisses - Undercover Angel
9. Love In Athens - Parang Awa Mo Na, Bayaran Mo Na Utang Mo
10. Some Gorgeous Accident - Snowfall
11. Self Portrait - Snowglobe
12. Mary Anna Logue - Winter Wonderland

Timing is Everything

I've been working diligently on my 2009 mix. It's a little bit longer than I initially thought it might be, but oh well, this is the stuff I liked. 2009 has been a pretty good year, even if I was attending less gigs. One of the more memorable events of 2009 is illustrated in the images below.

It was also a pretty good year for music. I tried to keep my tracklist low, but it slid up to 30 and I couldn't figure out what to cut. Therefore, I'm just gonna post the whole thing in its entire glory. Some of the songs are kinda long (5 tracks at 7 mins or more) and the entire mix clocks in around 2 hours and 15 minutes. But as I mentioned, this is the stuff I liked, for better or for worse. Check it out, maybe you'll like it. Burn an mp3 disc or stick it on your media player of choice. Scope the tracklist below, and download it here if it suits your fancy. Props to my buddy, @MiriamIsntFunny, from twitter (who also should be posting here as Semaphore Bronte) who inspired the mix title when I couldn't come up with a thing.

Timing is Everything

1. The Twilight Sad - I Became a Prostitute
2. Fleeting Joys - You Are The Darkness
3. The Raveonettes - Bang!
4. Afternoon Naps - Seasons May Change
5. Camera Obscura - French Navy
6. The Postmarks - Go Jetsetter
7. Phoenix - Love Like a Sunset
8. Perfume - edge (triangle mix)
9. Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart
10. Riceboy Sleeps - Daniell In The Sea
11. Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard - One Fast Move Or I'm Gone
12. Neko Case - I'm An Animal
13. Mayer Hawthorne - Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'
14. Kleerup - Until We Bleed (With Lykke Li)
15. Asobi Seksu - Sunshower
16. Bat For Lashes - Pearl's Dream
17. El Perro Del Mar - Gotta Get Smart
18. The xx - Shelter
19. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Little Shadow
20. Sparklehorse & Fennesz - Goodnight Sweetheart
21. Bon Iver & St. Vincent - Roslyn
22. Summer Camp - Ghost Train
23. Sparklehorse & Danger Mouse - The Man Who Played God (feat. Suzanne Vega)
24. Fuck Buttons - The Lisbon Maru
25. Sweet Trip - Your World is Eternally Complete
26. I Was A King - Step Aside
27. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - This Love Is Fucking Right
28. St. Vincent - Marrow
29. Them Crooked Vultures - New Fang
30. ISIS - Stone To Wake A Serpent

MMIX Tape

As much as I'd like to start my 2009 mix all over with all Spanish music (thanks to this) I've got to move on with life, so here goes. Download the MMIX Tape here, and while it's coming down the pipe (at 132 MB it may take a short while) grab a cup of tea. A self-dissociating imaginary interview and tracklist after the jump:

Invitame a bailar

Big, big thanks to Alfie on the Anorak forum and Caravana Pop for compiling Don't Stop Spanish Pop, an ace mix of jangly goodness en español you can download here. It will make you dance in the kitchen and help you brush up on a language you probably should be speaking more of. Muchas gracias, Alfie!

Tracklist after the jump: