The Big Mix DIS CD swap v5 - Apocalypse Pow!

My favourite thing about this whole endeavour is that over time (since the early days of mixtape club), a lot of people have been upping their game in terms of choice of track, sequencing, narrative (pretentious, sorry) and even some of the technical stuff like proper mixing. Being introduced to great new music by others and trying to do the same with your own mixes is exactly what DiS is brilliant for…feeling great about DiS today!

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Thanks @paulo13 - not much on here that I’d normally listen to but enjoyed it all the same.

My favourites are probably Jim O’Rourke and Anais Mitchell, although I liked Wilco and Shearwater and Dear Reader too.

I’ll send mine this week.

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thanks for the feedback, and glad that you liked it! I almost had three Jens Lekman songs on my mix (another song called I Saw Her In The Anti-War Demonstration), but I figured that two should be enough! He’s just released a new album, so definitely check it out if you like what you’ve heard of him. I’m a big fan of his, and really pleased with his latest album.

I was quite pleased with the two Liima songs working well after one another, especially as I am used to them being separated by another song on their album.

& I can understand the uncertainty of the Victory song. It’s not one of my favourite songs of theirs (Dear Reader - who will have a new album out shortly, which I’m quite looking forward to), but I wanted to include it / follow it on from the Chris T-T song before it which was a bit critical of religion. Something along those lines anyhow.

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@paulo13, yours was a good mix of stuff I already know and love (Wilco; Lambchop), stuff I haven’t heard in ages (Fanfarlo; Broken Records), stuff I’ve wanted to hear for ages (Shearwater; Jim O’Rourke) and stuff I’ve never heard of (Liima; Ske).

On the whole I really liked it. It had a very good flow - frontloaded with more electronic songs and getting more folksier (and optimistic!) as it progressed. And to close with that Lambchop song, which despite its lyrics is one of the most wonderful songs of all time, means that I “left” the experience feeling very good indeed.

The thing is - and this is just me, don’t worry - I have a weird set of rules when making mixes, one of which is “no two songs by the same artist!” You did this three times! But it didn’t bother me too much: The two Liima songs sort of worked together as two parts of a whole. I haven’t heard Jens Lekman before and as has been pointed out elsewhere on this site today, a lot of people here seem to really like him. So it was good to hear two! Of the two, I preferred The End of the World…

The two Stephen Jones tracks get a pass too, I guess, because they’re from two different recording projects. Sorry to say though I didn’t particularly care for either. Thematically great, but not very engaging to listen to.

Like I say, I’ve been wanting to hear Shearwater and Jim O’Rourke for some time. Everything that’s been said about the vocals in Shearwater is true - powerhouse! And Jim O’Rourke was gorgeous. Not at all what I was expecting (ambience, for some reason), but utterly engrossing and I need to hear more ASAP.

But the biggest revelation was Alcoholic Faith Mission. I really miss the days when all “indie rock” sounded that shambolic, hopeful, desperate and euphoric. The post Arcade Fire days, when Pitchfork reigned supreme. Bad days in many respects, but I guess we got a lot of music that was, at the time, taken for granted. I will be exploring deeper.

Thanks very much!

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Thanks! I agree with all you’ve said. I pretty much avoid having songs the same artist twice on mix cds, but as you mentioned I failed spectacularly there! As I mentioned above, I was even thinking of having three Jens songs, but reigned myself in, but kept those two as I liked the theme of them.
The Liima songs seemed to work really well next to each other for me, especially with their titles, and so I didn’t mind the blatant’ness of sticking them together. Incidentally, Liima are a side-project band of Efterklang (in case you know them), and I think might have a follow-up album this year to their debut from last year.
& yes, the Stephen Jones ones were probably a bit more sneaky, seeing as they are just him under two names. The Black Reindeer song was definitely chosen for the theme, and his other track was maybe a vague attempt to make it not so completely folky at the end.

Jim O’Rourke - I only have two albums and an ep from him, but his Insignificance album is one I listen to frequently. Great songs with the bonus of excellent/unsettling lyrics at times.

As for Alcoholic Faith Mission, they definitely have that shambolic Arcade Fire style to them. They’re from Denmark and I would wholeheartedly recommend their Let This Be The Last Night We Care album from 2010. (Might have another listen to it today actually, after discussing it) The Dancing Fools song is from an ep shortly after that album. They’re one of the few bands who I’ve liked for a while now but haven’t seen live but would love to, so hopefully they’ll make their way over to the UK again sometime.

Quite a strong Scandinavian feel throughout!

Speaking of Scandinavian bands with the shambolic Arcade Fire sound, do you like Slaraffenland?

Yeah, I completely agree. I love the thought that’s gone into some of these mixes, and conversely it’s a lot of fun planning the mixes you send - trying to make them interesting, flow well and including choices that might represent cool discoveries for the recipients.

I think this theme’s probably my favourite to date as it’s been a real challenge to try and make something cohesive. Winter and drugs often lend themselves to a certain style of song whereas politics and the apocalypse seem a little more diverse. Also lends itself to more of a narrative flow.

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I was totally stumped on this topic for ages and then hit inspiration and ended up with too many songs! I really like having the limit of the 80 minutes forcing you to be selective.

yep - thanks. I’m a big fan of Slaraffenland, and have seen them live a few times. Their song Polaroids was one of my favourite songs for a while - still love going back to it. Gosh, it’s ten years old now!

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I got to around 80 minutes pretty quickly, then listened back and thought ugh, that sounds pretty uninspiring. So I had a rethink and like you, ended up with way too much…and then the difficult cuts began.

I had to reassess mine as it was too grim!

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This is the balance I’m struggling to get, I want something with a bit more range than constant dark doom!

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My Apocalypse mix is now up on Mixcloud here; Mixcloud

Tracklisting is;

Man or Astro-man? - DEFCON 1
The Soft Moon - Breathe The Fire
Consolidated - Our Leader/Friendly Fascism
Jello Biafra & DOA - We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
Blaggers I.T.A. - Abandon Ship
New Model Army - Lights Go Out
Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Follow You Into The Dark
Disappears - Fear of Darkness
Russian Circles - Death Rides A Horse
MAKE - Scorched Sky
Grails - Doomsdayer’s Holiday
Teeth Of The Sea - Reaper
Nine Inch Nails - The Great Destroyer
Tom Waits - Earth Died Screaming
Black Box Recorder - It’s Only The End Of The World
Lustmord - Ash
Mew - Comforting Sounds

Yours arrived this week LA, thanks very much for sending. I only actually know the Death Cab For Cutie song already and a few names completely unfamiliar. Looking forward to giving it a listen - hopefully yours and my other swaps will be ready for sending by the end of next week.

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Thanks @Scagden your disc has arrived. A bit like the one I got from @paulo13 I looked at the track listing and thought ‘oh yeah, wish I’d thought of that’. Top marks for including a god machine track too, one of my favourite ever bands, and i always try and squeeze them into any comp i do (but never thought of including that track in mine, and obviously now I can’t).

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Excellent! I’m always slightly apprehensive about putting “metal” on compilations for people I don’t know as for some people it can be an instant turn off but I reckoned I was safe with The God Machine as RPS has clean vocals. Such a brilliant underrated band RIP

Sorry meant to say @Prob500 @bornin69x @si_2001 your cds should have arrived by now hopefully. Apologies for the total lack of cover art or presentation… I was going to get my kids to do a picture on the front but they’re both in a production and have been rehearsing so no child labour was available

Mine’s arrived - I haven’t had a chance to listen yet but it’s cued up for the drive tomorrow morning

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Hello @paulo13 many thanks for my apocalypse CD. As I mentioned up thread I was really happy to see that Jim O’Rourke track on it, donkeys since I’ve heard it (in fact I’ve got Eureka on a cassette in my loft which shows just how long ago it is). Great song (and sentiment for the theme). I’ve a 2 year old daughter who I make occasional compilation CDs for (so we don’t have to listen to Mr-bleeding-Tumble in the car) and I’ll be putting that one on the next one for sure. (Although iTunes doesn’t want to let me read in your CD so I will have to part with money for it as well).

Always nice to see a bit of Lekman, and I will also happily forgive two tracks by the same artist (always found those strings at the start of ‘The End of the World …’ a bit grating though).

I’ve seen the name Anais Mitchell around a bit but never listened, it’s a great song, and not what I expected her to sound like (mainly because of the deep voice, which I google tells me is a guest singer). Will be exploring more. I also enjoyed the Broken Records track, despite it being a banjo away from being a bit Mumford-y. The Obama inauguration speech was interesting, seems like long time ago from where the world was then compared to now!

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Sounds like @paolo13 's mix and my own might have some similar themes and overlap…art done, all mixed, have to post out on Wednesday though…