While You Were Sleeping

Here's another somnambulent mix, for the late night confessionals.

Poetics aside, i'm really pleased with how these discs came out, some really lovely slo burners. A nice introduction to my early holy holies, Dead Can Dance and Cranes, mixed with more recent introductions to the canon like Michael Hurley and Vic Chesnutt. This is music that inspires and drives me, keeps me company while the rest of the world is sleeping. Peel back the curtain, and take a peek into my cellar...

A friend of mine was asleep on the couch, same locale as tender sweet enlightenment, a month before. I was thinking back on all that had gone before, love lost, love regained, love vanishing like some magician's cruel sense of humor. Kicking out the late night vibes, dreamy, mellow, lovely. My friend slept peacefully, breathing regularly. Together but alone.

And here's the real shit, the writing on the wall: what is love, anyway? Is it marriage and procreation? Is it physical? Is it practical? Does it make sense? I fell in love with a girl, doing my best to be bold and follow my instincts. It was timeless and revelatory. It cracked me open like Vesuvius. But the fact of the matter is that i never see this person, she is intensely tied up, living up to her destiny, and i have done my best to be respectful, low pressure, giving space where space is needed.

Then there's this other woman, my awesome soul sister. We drink coffee and smoke cigarettes in the morning, walk around town and make bizarre sound collages and talk about everything under the sun and the moon. Things in motion, unfurling like the banner of some dead empire; springing back to life, flowing with the dusty blood of poets, unfolding into mystery. Radiating in the inky blackness, glowing like a pierced heart, sparking like damaged telephone lines, dead voices reciting.

Undefinable, unknowable. Majestic. Mystical. Regal. Lovely. Something being born...

3 weeks ago, i was dead sure. I had LOVE pegged down, botanically classified. Put under glass. Now, i don't know my ass from a hole in the ground. Doing my best to do the next right thing, the thing in front of me. Right now, it is being honest and vulnerable, and spilling the soundtrack from a beautiful evening, so you can have a soulful night of yr own. From my brain, to yr living room.

Track Listing

Disc 1

1. Slowdive - Souvlaki Space Station

2. Cranes - Watersong

3. Dead Can Dance - The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove

4. Julee Cruise - Into the Night

5. Gregory Alan Isakov - The Stable Song

6. Chet Baker - My Funny Valentine

7. Cat Power - Say

8. Michael Hurley - Troubled Waters

9. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Feeling of Gaze

10. The American Analog Set - The Green Green Grass

11. Kronos Quartet - Psalom (Arvo Part)

12. Cocteau Twins - Oil of Angels

13. The New Year - Sinking Ship

14. Vic Chesnutt - ?

Disc 2

1. Hildur Gudnadottir - Overcast

2. Dreamer's Cloth - The Coconut Pearl B2

3. Flying Saucer Attack - My Dreaming Hill

4. Aerial M - Dazed and Awake

5. Colleen - Floating in the Clearest Night

6. Eluvium - New Animals from the Air

7. Dakota Suite - One Day Without Harming You

8. Thomas Brinkmann - LopLop

9. Hauschka - Weeks of Rain

10. Hauschka - Nadelwald

11. Fursaxa - Firefly Refrain

For the heartsick

Here's one for the inevitable shadow of love: the faded romance, the regret, the longing. The sleepless nights. Here's one for moving on, here's one for lingering; for remembering, for dreaming, for talking to someone who's not there. When you fall in love with someone, it breaks you open to the world, its like living without skin. It can be almost hallucinogenic in its intensity.

This is an 11-track compilation i put together, featuring the various stages and nuances of seperation. Celebratory, lamenting, hopeful, bitter. I covered as wide as a swath, to give as many lonely souls out there as possible something to latch onto.

The inevitable northwest rainy season is beginning, and the rosy hue of summer is beginning to seem like a beautiful dream. At times, i wonder if the things i have seen and felt and learned were merely delusions, ecstatic states brought on by too much sun and dancing and vegetables. I don't think so. Ultimately, this mix is for someone who you still miss, there is a thread of hope that cannot be drowned in 6 months of rain, which is why i closed out with The Angels of Light, Untitled Love Song, from How i loved you. This mix really starts to cook on the second half; the mixture of Arvo Part's fragile Für Alina with the rustic despair of The Handsome Family's Passenger Pigeons is about the closest i can get to describing how i am feeling, sitting here typing at 4 am, in a new state, tremendously missing somebody but appreciating where i am at. My heart hurts, but i am also enjoying myself. These songs sound perfect in my earholes, i am appreciating the quiet, appreciating the rain, making mixes for lonely people in the night. Yr not alone.

For the heartsick

Track Listing

1. Donald Woods & The Vel-Airs - Death of an Angel

2. The Vitones - The Storm (So Blue)

3. Lee Fields and the Expressions - My World is Empty Without You

4. Tom Waits - Who are you

5. David Sylvian - The Heart is Sure

6. Arvo Part - Fur Alina

7. Mirah & Ginger Takahashi - Pure

8. Joy Division - Atmosphere

9. David Bowie - Letter to Hermione

10. The Handsome Family - Passenger Pigeons

11. The Angels of Light - Untitled Love Song

Late Nite Romance

So this is a fairly remarkable occasion to commemorate, my first mix CD on this blog. I did a halloween mix, last Oct., but that was mainly a sound-fx dj mix, whereas this is a good ol' fashioned mix tape.
I went over to my buddy Mark's house last night, to solicit advice on making mixes, at which he is most adept. He's got a dj setup and a killer vinyl selection, with tons of old soul, country, classic rock, reggae, and much weirdness (Mark is a fairly weird dude. He's from the same town as Capt. Beefheart.) We picked out a stack of records, put a blank tape in the boom box, i let him pick the first track, and two hours later, i had not one, but TWO mixtapes; glorious, romantic, weird, inspired, otherworldly messiness, made with 100% heart and soul. I was practically sweating with exhilaration, when it was all over. It inspired me to complete a digital mix i've been fucking around with for the past week, with smooth electronic jams, to rock yr bodies, exalt yr minds, soothe yr spirits, all yr tensions, all yr worries. In the night, you don't have to worry about the daytime, and what the daytime people do. You are free to be lovers, and poets and dreamers, and wild animals! and all those other things we hold so holy around here at Js Heaven. I wanted to make this mix because i have so much amazing music around, electronically, particularly electronic music, badass beats from near and far, and NOBODY can be expected to have all that DJ vinyl lying around their crib. But in the spirit of the mixes i made yesterday, these are kind of crude, far from perfect, but pretty damn good! Just imagine that they are all seamlessly mixed in Ableton Live, perfectly beat matched by Jeff Mills or Carl Craig or somebody brilliant. It will be good for yr imaginative faculties.
This mix has a little funk, a little house, a little folk, a whole lotta fuckin bass! Whereas we celebrate sweetness and light in these parts, we ARE NOT afraid to get down and fucking dirty, downright nasty at times. These are night-time jams, and night time is for lovers. Along the way, striving to dig out the perfect romantic techno tracks, i came across a new style, which is known as 'Lovestep', which is like the smoother, more soulful cousin of dubstep. Its still got the low-end, but its not being made for hooligans on ketamine, wielding machetes. It embraces dubstep's potential as BODY MUSIC, which is what i always loved about it, was willing to dodge drunken frat boys for. I am totally grateful to see dubstep, and underground dance music in general, moving forward, evolving. I have felt for the last ten years or so, that electronic music was the vanguard for brilliant, creative people, crossing multiple cultures and styles. It brings people together, and that's what this mix is all about: bringing people together. Love... its not just for couples anymore. Its something bigger than that, all encroaching, all encompassing. And this mix, its not only love, but ROMANCE, that most taboo of topics, previously only allowed in teenagers and effeminate men. Well, i'm here to say, i'm bringin romance back. It represents all the finest things in life. It represents a way of looking at the world, and when we are lucky, and when we are paying attention, the right person can open our eyes to this otherworld.
I've been accused of being a romantic, of being a daydreamer. Unrealistic. Impractical. Shallow, even. I'll wear that shit on my sleeve. I am a romantic, a poet and a dreamer and a lover. And i made you all a mix tape.

Late Night Romance

Track Listing
1. Overcome - Tricky; Maxinquaye
2. Teardrop - Jose Gonzalez; Teardrop EP
3. Dark & Long - Underworld; Dubnobasswithmyheadman
4. Wilhelm's Fucking Best - James Drake (james blake/drake mashup)
5. Slowly - Amon Tobin; Supermodified
6. Cockroach - Starkey; luvstep 2 mix
7. Freestylers ft. belle humble cracks (flux pavilion remix) - luvstep 2 mix
8. I Took 2 - Daedelus; Love To Make Music To
9. Something Beautiful - Trombone Shorty; Backatown
10. Thinking About You (s&s drunklove mix) - sticks&stones; webrip
11. Love is the Drug (Paris, Tx) - Burger/Ink; Las Vegas
12. Warm Windows - Casino vs. Japan; Go Hawaii
13. Adrift - Tycho (Shigeto's Adrift A Dream Remix)
14. My Angel Rocks Back and Forth - Four Tet; Live in Copenhagen

I like to imagine people driving around listening to this. It would make me happy if you did this. It would make me doubly happy if you told me about it. There's no cover art or anything on this release, as i'm not snappy enough yet to know how to do such things. Maybe next time... in the meantime, enjoy!