hello again. you may have noticed things look pretty different around here… a redesign is almost as good as a holiday. almost. thanks for all those link recommendations, i have been making my way through them slowly but surely. i always appreciate it when people take the time to comment – it means a lot to me!

so here’s the mid-month music mix. it is unintentionally quite melancholic, which was pretty weird to listen to while i was reading reports and seeing imagery from the heart-wrenching devastation in japan. please read this informative post on how you can help, even in the smallest way.

my only criteria for this mix was something pretty chilled. initially i wanted to fill it only with artists who haven’t featured in any other playlist… but in the end i couldn’t help but add a few of my die-hard favourites.

i have a special place in my heart for the nico track. not only because of that scene. i have played it incessantly for many years, sometimes on repeat, and never ever tire of it. i also can’t believe i haven’t included neutral milk hotel in any of my mixes yet. in the aeroplane over the sea is a great contender for top 10 albums of my lifetime.

ships in the night. download it here. playlist:

1. wilco – solitaire
2. feist & ben gibbard – train song
3. zach hurd – changing landscapes
4. apollo sunshine – breeze
5. misophone – white waves
6. mgmt – congratulations
7. nico – these days
8. neutral milk hotel – king of the carrot flowers, part 1
9. sufjan stevens – heirloom
10. madeleine peyroux – between the bars (elliott smith cover)
11. inlets – junk (paul mccartney cover)
12. beth gibbons – mysteries
13. phoenix – rome (neighbours and devendra banhart remix)
14. gotye – heart’s a mess (lull’s radio edit)
15. incubus – aqueous transmission
16. brazilian girls – ships in the night

ps: thank you for the overwhelming response to the formative years mixtape! that must be some kind of a blog record. for some reason i was kind of hesitant to even post it in the first place, it sort of felt like i was revealing a part of my angsty teenage soul or something. i really enjoyed reading through all the comments, and had a few slapping forehead moments when i realised that i had left off a couple of artists who were essential to that mix (pulp being one of them, as well as springbok nude girls – i think all south africans my age can identify.) perhaps a volume two is in order?

all music is for sampling purposes only – please go out and buy the artists’ records & support them at their shows!

i have always been a music lover. i would often sit in the living room on my parents’ brown corduroy couches (yeah) listening to their old records and cds. when my older brothers weren’t around i’d sneak into their bedrooms and sample hits from the eighties (a-ha is still a favourite.)

i’ve had the idea for this mix in the back of my mind for a while. a selection of songs from some of the artists & albums that were on high rotation when i was a teen: 1995-99. a time when i was finally receiving enough pocket money to go out and buy CDs – when i began to discover the music that would come to define my adolescence.

but CD’s were pricey, and like everyone else i mostly relied on borrowing discs and actually copied them onto cassette tapes. TAPES! i spent literally hours making those tapes, deciding on the order of the songs and then attempting to squeeze the entire track list onto that stupid little paper sleeve that would go into the tape box… that you would inevitably lose anyway.

i could write a paragraph about every one of these artists and how they fit into my history. it’s weird to think that the youngest song in this mix is 12 years old. playing them now brings back so many memories – i hope some of them do the same for you.

formative years. download it here. playlist in chronological order:

1. the cure – boys don’t cry (boy’s don’t cry, 1980)
2. pixies – here comes your man (doolittle, 1989)
3. cranberries – linger (everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we? 1993)
4. nirvana – the man who sold the world (nirvana unplugged in new york, 1994)
5. portishead – sour times (dummy, 1994)
6. blur – girls & boys (park life, 1994)
7. foo fighters – big me (foo fighters, 1995)
8. red hot chili peppers – my friends (one hot minute, 1995)
9. no doubt – sunday morning (tragic kingdom, 1995)
10. smashing pumpkins – thirty-three (mellon collie and the infinite sadness, 1995)
11. fugees – fu-gee-la (the score, 1996)
12. jamiroquai – virtual insanity (travelling without moving, 1996)
13. beck – devils haircut (odelay, 1996)
14. radiohead – let down (ok computer, 1997)
15. bjork – hunter (homogenic, 1997)
16. lauryn hill – to zion (the miseducation of lauryn hill, 1998)
17. air – all i need (moon safari, 1998)
18. chemical brothers – music : response (surrender, 1999)

ps: there are a few artists i could have included in this mix who i didn’t. daft punk, faithless and a bunch more electronica come to mind. there are also some i have left off simply because they irritate the crap out of me now. alanis morissette / jagged little pill: i’m sorry, i did love you once.

i’d like to know – what music did you listen to as a teen?

all music is for sampling purposes only – please go out and buy the artists’ records & support them at their shows!