01.Wax Tailor (f. Charlotte Savay) – Our Dance
This song sounds familiar from the intro to the samples to the singer. Of course, I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard any of them, but such is my stupid little ears. I like the violin-sounding sample here, it sounds sort of eerie, and the spaghetti western-sounding guitar is a nice punctuation. There’s a lot of dialogue samples, which might be my biggest problem with the song. Normally I like that, but here it’s almost distracting.
02. Costanza – Burqa
Another downbeat song with a female vocalist. I think it sounds like Portishead, but I’m sure someone will be happy to explain to me why it doesn’t. In fact, I can’t think of more than like 2 trip-hop artists that employ a lot of male vocals. Anyone? The beat sounds like the background music from a movie (I can’t decide if it’s the theme music of 48 Hours or the train scene in Risky Business. Sweet baby new year, I’m a dork. In any case, the drums sound great.
03. Leaf – Coffee Drinker
My biggest problem with this song is that it’s too short. It starts out a little dark with bass plunks that just seem to fall off the recording. Then it turns into this acoustic guitar riff with a beat. I like this song and the little transformation it makes. Wondering how the rest of their music sounds.
04. Undadogg – Ether
Another female vocalist over slow beat. Not really feeling this song as much, but it’s mostly because the singer keeps repeating herself. Or it might be because the little fuzz guitar in the background reminds me of Moby, and we all know how I feel about that dude.
05. Portishead – Requiem For Anna
The return of Portishead. This song is also really short. (I’m pretty sure that my 3 favorite songs on this mix are the ones that are under 3 minutes). I’m not sure if it’s the Gainsbourg factor or what, but this is the least impressed I might have ever been with Beth Gibbons’ voice. Everything else, though, is fucking perfect.
06. Endless Blue – Forever
I don’t know what to say about this song, really. It sort of reminds me of that Sia record in a strange way. I think it’s just the way she sings and not her actual voice, though. Not really a fan.
07. Suvome – Hotel
This is more like it. This song has loud-ass drums (I think one of the reasons I focus on drum so much in trip-hop is because a lot of the time I get kinda lost and it runs together for me. Having a key drum sound/beat is crucial for me, as I suppose it is for anyone. and about 3/5 of the way through the track there’s the strangest turntable noise I’ve ever heard outside of DJ Disk.
08. Massive Attack (f. Tracey Thorn) – The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game
Tracey Thorn might have my favorite female voice of all time outside of Sarah Vaughn and Nina Simone. She’s on point here. This song is fucking hot. Not in like hot jamz or “that’s hot”, but just fucking HAWT.
09. PNFA – Blue Light
This sounds like straight hip-hop to me for awhile (I know that’s now a bong sound, but it’s close enough), but where some rapper would come storming in, there’s a nice little bassline that takes over the track and some chirps. I realize that few rappers would rhyme over something like this, but I’m thinking Roots Manuva would pull that shit off right.
10. Leaf – Light Blue Morning
Puma obviously knew I was gonna ask what the rest of their stuff sounds like, so props to her for hooking it up that way. Again, by the time I feel like this song has really started, it’s already halfway over. Still, I like the direction it was headed.
11. Halou – You Are One of Us
This song has those large, sweeping sounds in the chorus but is relatively quiet in the rest of the song. I like this, but I wish they didn’t echo the vocalist’s voice every time she uses that one phrase. But I always enjoy some backwards drums too, so it works out in the end.
12. Radiohead – Climbing Up the Walls (Zero 7 mix)
I like this, because it keeps my favorite part of the song (the distortion on Yorke’s vocals) while making it a relatively relaxing song to listen to instead of the pants-crapping fear that song usually instills in me.
13. Mig – Au Nord De Mon Enfrance
Accoustic guitar, finger cymbals, and a French chanteuse. It’s pretty low-key, and if it weren’t for the drums and a few effects added later I could confuse it with something recorded 30 years ago. I really like this track in an Emiliana Torrini sort of way. Which is nice.
14. Heights of Abraham – Striplight
This sorta reminds me of Hot Chip with a distortion pedal until the last 1:20 or so when this crazy voice enters the picture. It’s probably the only thing I don’t really like about this track. Still, the beat is awesome.
15. Death in Vegas – All That Glitters
This is mostly live drums and keys with a guy sorta talking over it. I say sorta talking because I wouldn’t call it poetry or lyrics, but just sorta talkin. Hmm. This track is right up my alley, though, because it’s funky enough for a redworm BBQ but also has the potential to cool me out on the way home from a crazy show. Does that make any sense at all? It does to me.
16. Kruder & Dorfmeister – Original Bedroom Rockers
This is one of those bands that has been recommended to me at least a half dozen times by reputable sources but I always trip up on checking them out. This probably isn’t gonna speed that up. It might be an entirely different vibe at a sexy party (check that, I’m sure it is), but as it stands it’s just breathy vocals and a dude goin’ “yeah, baby” over a beat that’s interesting but doesn’t bowl me over or anything. I think my problem is that my sexy party attendance is at an all time low. But yeah.
Overall, though I dig this mix and now there’s a few artists I wanna check out. Thanks Puma!
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