LUCKY DRAGONS

"I Keep Waiting For Earthquakes" is an awesome name for a song.

I've been writing less directly about music because writing more directly about music doesn't feel like a unique contribution. When writing about music feels unique is usually when I'm emailing something fresh to my close friends. Below is an email I sent to my buddy Mike Sparks, Jr. I see him rarely. About six months ago, when his band was in town from Seattle, we bonded over a shared love of weird, outside-the-box electronic music. I promised him a mix, which I just finished and sent. I've edited out some of the more "personal" elements, but the liner notes included in the email (not to mention the 27 song mix) can be found below.

Mike:

As promised long ago when our hair was long and young and Obama was still an elusive terrorist/mispronunciation, we discussed a sharing of a certain sort of instrumental electronic music. Well, finally, I did it. Below you'll find one of those fancy URL links to a SendSpace page, and on that page you will find a folder with 27 songs from about 23 people or groups. Download it. Unzip it. Plunk it into a playlist in iTunes so you can listen in the preordained context I have created.

Many are along the lines of Oval [the particular group we bonded over]. Many are not really like Oval, but seem relevant enough.

Love,
Aaron

1. Akira Kosemura & Haruka Nakamura - "Afterglow"
This was the first track I put on this list. This sounds like Mariah Carey could sing on it. Pretty conventional/uneventful, but the louder/closer you listen the more you hear, like people are telling secrets in the background.

2. Ossian Borén - "The Architect"
I'm really getting into architecture, partly because this sort of music is going to sound great in my eco-friendly, hyper minimal, post-post modern, coastal property with a view of Africa in the south of Spain. At that point, my walls, which will be made from recycled shipping containers or some shit, will have a couple of million-dollar Jay Howell drawings on them and the sound system will be integrated into the floors and powered by the wind.

3. Dosh - "Food Cycles"
I know everything is man-made, but this guy really does it all himself. He does that thing that is rare, what's it called? Oh yeah: makes thoroughly great albums. Lots of sampling himself, a deep understanding of synth sounds, and a perfectly modest aesthetic. This guy could be in Ratatat, who I really like, especially listening to their third (most recent) LP and realizing that all they do is talk to Jay Z on the phone while listening to The Books.

4. E*Vax - "What We Meant"
Speaking of Ratatat, this is the dude that makes all the sounds for that band. He has a whole Dntl-flavored solo life as E*Vax. Great programmed percussion. This isn't really in the same ballpark as Oval, but like Oval, it sounds great on Sunday morning while sitting around staring at the city.

5. Four Tet - "Ribbons"
I'm not going to lie to you and say I think this dude is consistent, but when he's on, it rules. This is from a solid EP where, for once, he neither attempts too much nor settles for too little, which, I've determined, is the conundrum of this sort of music. I like all the decisions he makes here regarding bringing sounds in and out. They are carefully arbitrary or haphazardly precise, I may never be sure which.

6. Savath & Savalas - "?"
Here's another old timer, that dude Scott Herron from Prefuse 73. All his newer stuff under this moniker is unlistenable, which I mentioned to a superfan once who immediately sent me the "Rolls and Waves" EP from back in the day. This song is from that EP. It's track two. I don't know the title. I think it's fucking sublime though.

7. The World On Higher Downs - "A Muted Street Song"
This is more on the Tortoise tip. Every song on this secretly great album is like seven to nine minutes long. These guys make me want to curl up and do a cannon ball into a bowl of vanilla yogurt. The sound manipulator really has it going on.

8. Xela - "Afraid Of Monsters"
Two great albums. The songs don't all sound like this, even remotely. I love music that reminds me of Johnny Greenwood perplexing America during Radiohead's performance of "Idioteque" on SNL however long ago that was, when he's just plugging in wires into inputs and making hum sounds. The way groups like this choose sounds, effects, placement. Man. It's a complicated solution, let me tell you.

9. Venitian Snares - "Nutimik"
I can't stand a lot of the break core stuff this guy does. I love that I have a semi-functional awareness of "break core" though! This song rules, and it proves that this play list won't entirely put you to sleep. Also, there's a sound at 2:22 that made me rewind to 2:22.

10. Donna Summer - "What You Truly Need"
Not that Donna Summer, silly. She's great as well, but more as a lifestyle icon. This guy’s name is Jason Forrest. Jason Forrest records are even more complicated and mutilated. He has a label that is surely awesome, too. I love this cut up sampling shit, especially when it gets to this point, where it's just obliterated.

11. Squarepusher - "My Sound"
Squarepusher dude is so smart, he sets such a good example for people who are meticulous and talented and weird. Because he's all over the place, but not afraid of what might happen if he's all over the place.

12. Air In Kyoto - "100 Paper Machines"
Eventful. Funny use of samples.

13. Tycho - "Past Is Prologue"
This might be too techno. But I like this, I still think it's smooth and interesting. Another listenable record.

14. The Field - "Good Things End"
I saw this guy, he was boring live. The record is like a great weekend, though.

15. Mr. Oizo "Last Night A DJ Killed My Dog"
Techno got a bad rap because of the chosen programing of the drums, or at least that's a hypothesis. This section of the mix is pretty much 4/4, straight ahead outsider dance music. Maybe not your thing, but when you get the percussion sounds right and have a modicum of interesting melodic ideas, I the result is basically a pop-version of Oval. This could be easy to disagree with, since I'm being subjective.

16. Underworld - "Best Mamgu Ever"
One other general note about everything on this mix: I find instrumental electronic music really helps me write lyrics. Weird, right? This Underworld song is a great example. It's the kind of thing you hear in coffee shops owned by foreign men that just opened a coffee shop so they could seduce lonely women with their accents, knowledge of foam, and stories of being single fathers in America.

17. Gui Boratto - "Shebang"
Almost out of the downtempo section of our journey, but not before this dude. He is very good. Softer, dry percussion. That's the key. Thom Yorke understands! Paul Oakenfold does not.

18. Octopus Project - "I Saw The Bright Shinies"
I see pics of OP everywhere, and I have their first album which sounds like instrumental Vaya [by At The Drive-In] to me, but this is what they sound like now. I can't believe it, either. This is so awesome!

19. Melodium - "Maybe It's The End Of Time"
Stupid band name. Who knows how or where or why I found this, but this album is remarkable. I desperately want this just to be Noel Gallagher's secret side project or something. (It isn't.)

20. Splinters - "Lilypad Dawn"
Pretty. This was one of the first downtempo/experimental bands I heard. Got the album from one of my KDVS raids. Love it.

21. Solvent - "That Will Be 49 Cents"
Another babbling brook/underground hot spring.

22. Chloe - "Over The Dose"
This sort of music would be especially fun to make if, like me, you love naming things. I love naming things! "Over The Dose" is a great name.

23. Nino Nardini - "Tropical"
One of the best things I've ever heard is an album called "Nuggets" compiled (and maybe remastered) by Luke Vibert, who's an essential outsider techno guy (his albums are rad, oggle them!). He found all this public access music in French library archives, stuff from public access TV in the 70s and stuff. It's proto-electronica. It's gorgeous. I should just upload this whole album and make it a requirement for all my friends to listen to if they want to still be friends with me. It's remarkable. At moments it's like Air, or like Soft Machine, or like Rick James, or like Arthur Russell (why isn't he on this list?), or like my band playing jazz in your kitchen with your pans and rolling pins and cutlery.

24. Lucky Dragons - "Shifting Buzz"
I'm ending with this guy, Lucky Dragons. Four songs from him because I have 80 songs by him and they are all insane. He did this double sided EP with Yacht where they got all the sounds from Nirvana's Bleach, so that's where this track comes from. It starts off as noises then becomes a rhythmic tapestry. What the fuck is a "rhythmic tapestry?" Kurt Cobain would have shit on that phrase. But I bet Krist Novaselic would be kinda into it.

25. Lucky Dragons - "Givers"
Weird, right?

26. Lucky Dragons - "Dissolve Yourself (live)"
Live? Are you joking me? What does that even mean anymore? This guy played at the Whitney Biennial in NYC the night I flew in to town, but I missed it. That's what I'm talking about when I talk about having unique experiences in life. What did you do tonight? "Oh, I played at the Whitney across the hall from some Murakami painting worth $17 Million. Karen O gave me a funny look and left with all of the dudes from Battles and I think I saw Jackson Pollock's ghost. I was paid $15,000 and got an afterhours tour of the museum. They wouldn't let me play laser tag in the sculpture garden, but it was a pretty good night anyway."

27. Lucky Dragons - "I Keep Waiting For Earthquakes"
When I heard this song I said to myself: I am ready to send Mike Sparks, Jr. a great mix.

Click HERE to download the entire 27 song, 23 artist playlist.