Mixmania CD Song List...With A Little More Detail

Hi to everyone visiting from Patriside and all those who participated in Mixmania! I hope you'll stick around a while and check out what my blog has to offer. When it's updated normally, it's usually pretty interesting...;-)

EDIT: My Mixmania CD is now in the mail! And because other bloggers who are involved are giving some details about the songs they picked, I figured I shold do the same thing. I probably would have if I didn't post the song list in the 20 or so minutes I had to get ready for work.

Here's my song list:

1. Luke Vibert & BJ Cole-Fly Hawaii: Talk about a collaboration. You take a electronic artist who has recorded various types of music under various aliases (Wagon Christ, Plug) and a great steel guitarist and have them do a whole album together? Insane, right? Well, it worked. This is the first song I found from their album Stop The Panic and it impressed me greatly. This song is what 21st century surf music would sound like.

2. RJD2-Good Times Roll Part 2: This is one of my favorite songs from RJD2's album Deadringer which I recently purchased. I love the beat, especially the horns. It's stuck in my head right now.

3. Kanye West feat. Mos Def, Freeway, and The Harlem Boys Choir-Two Words: One of my favorite songs from The College Dropout. It has an epic feel without feeling too pretentious. Mos Def puts in one of his few good performances as of late and even Freeway isn't bad. Yes, Kanye can do more than just speed up soul songs.

4. Boards Of Canada-Dawn Chorus: Boards Of Canada is hard to describe. Their music combines hip-hop styled beats with (normally) droning synths, weird vocal samples, and a heavy dose of atmospherics that give you a nostalgic, and sometimes creepy and unsettling feeling. This song is my favorite from their album Geogaddi and its heavy bass, drums, synths, and bells combine in a way that is just...hard to describe.

5. Ichiko Hashimoto-Winning Sound Of Her (From The Anime Series RahXephon): I'm an anime fan (although I haven't been able to see many new shows for a while) and I enjoy a lot of the music I hear from various shows. RahXephon had some at times unusual music courtesy of Ichiko Hashimoto (who actually voices a character in the show) and this song is probably one of the best from the three soundtracks this show had. I was surprised how much I liked this simple instrumental beat.

6. Madvillain-All Caps: I've been gradually getting into this duo (rapper MF Doom and producer Madlib). I have heard about three or four songs but I haven't bought the album yet. The songs have a creative sound and I like this song for two reasons. First, it has by far one of the coolest videos I've seen (it's animated like a comic book). Also, I love the piano sample in this song. I'm a sucker for good piano or violin in a hip-hop song.

7. DJ Shadow-Organ Donor (Extended Overhaul): I love this song. I really want to know where DJ Shadow found that perfect organ sample. So simple, so wonderful.

8. Yoko Kanno-Velveteen (From The Anime Series Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex): Yoko Kanno is probably one of my favorite composers, anime or not. She has incredible range as she jumps from orchestral (Escaflowne, Turn A Gundam) to pop-inflected jazz (Cowboy Bebop) to something almost otherworldly (Earth Girl Arjuna). This song is a nice J-pop song from the first soundtrack to the new Ghost In The Shell TV series currently airing on Cartoon Network.

9. Luke Vibert-I Hear The Drummer: Another Luke Vibert song. This one kind of feels like something out of a 1950's alien movie. I was really surprised to hear this song in a Citibank commercial once.

10. Basement Jaxx feat. Siousxie Sioux-Cish Cash: I don't know why people hated on Kish Kash, Basement Jaxx's followup to Rooty. It had some very good songs (and it won a Grammy!) which include this bass-heavy trip back to the 80's. I feel artists should always try their best to not repeat themselves and to be both good and different at the same time (because different isn't always good).

11. The Chemical Brothers feat. The Magic Numbers-Close Your Eyes: For all their fast, big beat music, The Chemical Brothers also produce some more relaxed, mellow songs too. This song, from their recent album Push The Button, joins songs such as Star Guitar and Dream On for being more relaxing than heart-pumping...but never sacrificing the beat.

12. Daft Punk-Human After All: Yes, I feel that Human After All, Daft Punk's followup to their great album Discovery, was kind of a disappointment. However, that doesn't mean there aren't a few good songs on it. This title song is mindless fun, plain and simple.

13. Mouse On Mars-Send Me Shivers: As you can tell, I like a lot of unusual music. Mouse On Mars makes electronic music that at times sounds so organic and inorganic at the same time that it feels like an artificial intelligence came up with it. This song isn't nearly as strange as the stuff they've done before and it's just a nice dance track.

14. RJD2-1976: I ended with another RJD2 song, this one from the album I haven't bought yet, Since We Last Spoke. I love the horns. That and it has a neat video that celebrates Cuba for some reason.

I tried to make a mix CD with some interesting songs and a "beat." Whenever I make mix CD's, I try to put songs that would sound good one after the other as opposed to slapping 10-18 songs on a disc. I was really tempted to make a copy of a mix CD I made for myself, but this one is a completely new mix. I hope the person who gets it enjoys it.