Week 3, Mix-a-Day: Futurism / Introducing Jeffrey Beaumont

Click here for the week's schedule.

One of my favorite things to do in the entire world is make mixes. Calling me a music obsessive probably understates the true intensity with which music grips me. It is no coincidence that a number of the activities on this Hyperliving calendar play with my relationship with music, because so much of what has mattered to me in life has defined by that relationship.

Part of my appreciation for music includes a slavish attention to the way it makes me feel. Certain songs pull at every string in my heart and unravel me until i am nothing but a throbbing heart. Examples? "Try a Little Tenderness." "If You Need Me." "Boys Don't Cry." "In My Life." Und so weiter. Maybe you get the point--these weary songs ache and ache and ache some more. [Some of these will be repped in the Jeffrey Beaumont Meta Mix at the end of the week.] They make me feel like, if I look hard enough, I can really discover a way in which all of life can be distilled to five minutes.

Anyway, I will write a lot more about this next week when I will not be able to listen to music at all. So, without further adieu, here are the week's first two mixes:

Futurism in Dark and Light

I began these mixes vaguely with the idea in mind that I really needed to make a mix that I could put some Pink Floyd on. Which, depending on who you are, may seem hilarious, or "Right on, man" or confused. I've sort of come full circle on the Floyd, as they were crucial to my psychedelic-explorative (but still sort of mainstreamish) development stage. However, the Floyd I was into during those times was mostly Meddle through Animals--the burgeoning "classic" era--but the music I've been into lately is all earlier and wraps up with Meddle. After years of intense love, I dismissed Pink Floyd at some point in freshman year of college, around the same time I stopped listening to Phish, the Dead and the Allman Brothers. Beyond my decreasing interest in "guitar workouts," I also disdained the folk I met who cited them as a "major life influence," and so Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and Animals all became part of a mass of my cds that never made the transition to ripped mp3.

While a lot of that change-of-heart still makes sense to me now--"Wish You Here" or, especially, "Another Brick in the Wall" seem to be particularly difficult to listen to--in the past few years I've come back to Pink Floyd as I've gone back to seeking out experimental rock and roll (as opposed to the experimental electronic music I sought out in college). It's hard to listen to Krautrock, King Crimson or Canterbury scene sounds and not want also to hear mid-early Floyd for peer context. Umm... yeah.

Anyway, since I began crafting a mix that featured mostly Floyd and Can and some prog (Gong, King Crimson), but as a began expanding it, I realized that a) i'd moved away from those genres a bit, b) had enough songs to fill up more than one disc, and c) it seemed like it would make sense to subdivide the themes into light and dark (i like ying-yang balance in art). I generally try to give no more than one song to an artist on a mix, but it made sense to me to have two each from Pink Floyd, Faust, and Can since they were centerpieces of inspiration. And so, here they are below. Let me know what you think and/or if you're interested in anything specific and would like to know more.

"Futurism in Dark"
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1 David Lynch - The Ghost Of Love , 1:05
2 Amon Tobin - Bloodstone , 4:10
3 Can - Tango Whiskeyman , 4:03
4 Broadcast - DDL , 2:28
5 Portishead - Requiem for Anna , 2:39
6 Silver Apples - Ruby , 2:28
7 Cluster - Caramba , 3:57
8 Burial - In McDonalds , 2:07
9 Slint - Glenn , 6:11
10 Sixtoo - Boxcutter emporium pt. 3 , 2:58
11 Kroke - The Secret Of the life Tree , 4:29
12 Nina Simone - Sinnerman , 10:21
13 Boom Bip - Last Walk Around Mirror Lake (Boards of Canada Remix) , 4:31
14 Japan - Ghosts , 4:37
15 Air - Cemetary Party , 2:37
16 King Crimson - The Court Of The Crimson King 9:23
Total: 67:59

"Futurism in Light"
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1 Gastr del Sol - Our Exquisite Replica of "Eternity" , 8:28
2 Boards of Canada - Dayvan Cowboy , 5:01
3 Pink Floyd - Fearless , 6:08
4 Faust - It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl , 7:25
5 Frank Zappa - Peaches En Regalia , 3:31
6 Stereolab - Analogue Rock , 4:13
7 Sonic Youth - New Hampshire , 5:13
8 Can - I'm So Green , 3:06
9 Gong - Tried So Hard , 4:39
10 Faust - Chere chambre , 3:08
11 Psychic TV - The Orchids , 3:01
12 Grateful Dead - Beautiful Jam , 4:41
13 Tortoise - Cornpone Brunch (Mike Watt Remix), 4:18
14 Robert Wyatt - Raining In My Heart , 2:43
15 Pink Floyd - Wot's ... Uh The Deal , 5:09
Total: 70:30

Until tomorrow,
Jeffrey