Slice 001: Le Trésor A Mathurin.

The first 15 shuffled songs from last night's (almost) random playlist, aka a decent slice of what I'm currently listening to -- complete with hastily-assembled cover art and completely unrelated title*.

This playlist skews a bit toward downtempo/trip-hop/instrumental 'cause I was in an introverted mood and didn't feel like disturbing my violet-colored aura. As to why I've never done this before when the name of this freakin blog is PERPETUAL MIXTAPE, I have no idea. But as usual, I digress.

Slice 001: Le Trésor A Mathurin

1. sayCeT - "Cyrconplex" (One Day At Home)
2. Sia - "The Bully" (Colour The Small One)
3. Boards Of Canada - "Roygbiv" (Music Has The Right To Children)
4. Moby - "Ghost Return" (Wait For Me)
5. M83 - "On A White Lake, Near A Green Mountain" (Dead Seas, Red Cities & Lost Ghosts)
6. Natalie Walker - "Right Here" (Urban Angel)
7. Ironomi - "Yasou 3" (Ironomi)
8. Bosques De Mi Mente - "Soledad" (Ruido Blanco)
9. I Hate This Place - "Never Go" (Our Hearts Still Beating)
10. 8mm - "Save Yourself" (Opener)
11. Childs - "S.A.D." (Yui)
12. Lights Out Asia - "Radars Over The Ghosts Of Chernobyl" (Eyes Like Brontide)
13. Massive Attack - "Paradise Circus" (Heligoland)
14. Emancipator - "Vines" (Safe In The Steep Cliffs)
15. The Aloof - "Stuck On The Shelf" (Sinking)

Suggestions for future listening are always greatly appreciated!

*Some basic ground rules I set for myself, because I'm a huge nerd and also because I like to make things harder on myself than they actually need to be:

1. Two or more songs from the same artist may be listed as long as they're on different albums.
2. Two or more songs from the same album may be listed as long as they're by different artists.

Before you ask: No, I don't have a life. But you probably already knew that.

We Are Our Own Devil.

Only a few days ago, I'd been blessed by the dark notes of Mezzanine by Massive Attack flowing out of my iPod. It's an album I tend to listen to three or four times a year when that particular mood strikes -- the need to immerse oneself into music that's simultaneously cool, calculating, almost-sinister and absolutely seductive -- you know the feeling. Trip-hop exploded onto the scene at around the same time that I was searching for something new and awesome to fill my brain. Mezzanine poured like a slow, silvery liquid into my ears, and I was immediately taken by how dark and ... sexy it was. This was something I'd never heard before.

And I liked it. I've been a fan ever since.

So it really was a fortuitous coincidence that I received an email from Tristen Gacoscos of Filter asking me to check out Massive Attack's new single "Paradise Circus (feat. Hope Sandoval)" and hooked me up with a link to the video. To be honest, it was ... difficult to pay close attention to the actual music while watching the video for the first time. Hmmm yeah yeah yeah for obvious reasons (as you'll see below), but the spliced-in candid interview with Georgina Spelvin about her experiences in The Devil In Miss Jones made for good listening as well.

But yo. This joint just slithers and slides in a strangely retro kind of way, topped off lovely by Hope Sandoval's breathy vocals. I love the chimes and hand-claps, and the way the strings float in like ghosts near the end. This is something I can throw on at the end of a house party as I navigate chinky-eyed around empty bottles of Sapphire, semi-conscious Asian chicks and low-hanging kush clouds. In other words, hot shit.

I'm not going to embed the video here on PM 'cause it's basically porn (let me spell it out for you: EXTREMELY NSFW), but hey, look and listen for yourself.

"We are our own devil." Indeed, Miss Jones, indeed.

Massive Attack's new album, Heligoland, drops 09 February.

Heavy Rotation 006: Esthero | Breath From Another.

Yeah. I know this album came out in 1998. I copped it a year later -- and Breath From Another has the unique distinction as being one of the very few albums to truly remain in heavy rotation in my headphones for over a decade. (In fact, I'm listening to it as I write this entry.) I knew basically nothing about Esthero at the time I bought the CD, but:

1. I was in the mood for more trip-hop/"electronica," being on that Sneaker Pimps/Mono/Hooverphonic tip back then; and
   
   
2. I absolutely loved the album cover design, minimalist as it was. It's gorgeous:

Something about this jewel of an album just succeeds in holding up over time and refuses to sound dated. I really wouldn't classify Breath From Another as a "trip-hop" record; the overall mixture ends up being much more than that. Borrowing influences from a myriad of genres, Esthero never overindulges, but uses them more like vitamin supplements for her own style of music. The tracks flow together without blurring into each other, possessing different moods and emotions, and giving you an oddly satisfying sense of completeness after the last song. The result is that I can play Breath From Another from beginning to end each and every time I cue it up, with zero skips. That being said, I can't say that I have any favorite songs on the album; it's clichéd, but to me, having a favorite would mean neglecting the other tracks. With this LP, that's not going to happen.


Check back with me in 2020. I guarantee you this'll still be getting major spins out of my speakers.