raxmix vol. 2
Feb. 22nd, 2018 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
outstretched posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
likealarkSecond verse, same as the first (ok not exactly)
This mix is "songs that would be hard to use in a DJ set for one reason or another." It's all over the place, but hopefully in an interesting way.
Apparently I'm going to steal covers from rhythm games forever, so the cover used for this mix is from a track called "Sola" by Hideyuki Ono. (I like this cover because it has a city and birds on it.)
If you are not Rax but also like music, you're welcome to give this a listen too?
> DOWNLOAD <
( Spotify Playlist )
01. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
Fleetwood Mac's song "Rhiannon" is where I get my primary username of "Skylark" from. They're important to my music taste in a way that I'm usually quiet about, and this is one of my favorite songs from them that is also not super appreciated by the musical canon at large (a lot of people have never even heard of this song). But I like it and wanted to share it with you, for lots of reasons. One is that this song has lyrics that do not make sense but nevertheless articulate a kind of wordless and primal anger, the kind that shifts continents, and I feel like...anger isn't something we talk about a lot but that it's an emotion which we likely have shared experiences around; not at ourselves but at others. There's a kind of "sleeping mountain" sensibility that I think we both share and that's felt throughout this piece. Also I was so, so happy that you included Spanish music in your cgr mix that time, and this track has that beautiful lick of Spanish guitar in it, so every time I hear it I think of you a bit. (Wanting to share Spanish-tinged things with you also comes up in a later track.) A lot of songs on this mix are about anger, or identity, or an understanding of self that is not easy to communicate; this song touches upon a lot of those things and so it's why it's first.
02. Amerie - 1 Thing
I said all those nice meaningful things and then this song does none of them lol. This is arguably the only thing I included in the mix because I thought you could use it in a dj set—like the Yelle song I included on the last mix, this is a "vanilla ice cream" song, something that's full of such good hooks and snappy noises that it feels like it begs to be mixed into all kinds of other things. Also this specific kind of sound, this like, 90s retro sound, is deeply important to me because it's this kind of music (Destiny's Child, Aaliyah, Spice Girls) that taught me to start thinking independently. Also it's a good song???
03. The Hamilton Mixtape - Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)
Hey remember I said that latinx stuff is in this mix here it is again
I tried to show you Hamilton and you liked it but it didn't stick, I think. In 2016 they also released this album called The Hamilton Mixtape that remixed songs, not only in the way that music means it but in the way that fandom means it—singing songs from different characters' viewpoints, talking about hidden perspectives glossed over in the original work, etc. This is a song that takes its cue from one song, specifically the best line in the musical (imo), "Immigrants: We get the job done"—and then turns it into an entire anthem about effort, and coming up from nothing, and anger. (remember I mentioned anger) I know this isn't like yours exactly, but it is mine, so mine, this is a song that I listen to while walking the streets of New York that makes me square my shoulders and lift my head high, and I wanted to share this with you because it says something that I want to share with you, but have a hard time communicating. Also damn the lyrics are sick.
04. Tame Impala - The Less I Know The Better
I don't have a super good reason for putting this on here? Just, every time I hear this song I go, "damn, I love that bassline, I want Rax to hear that sweet bassline."
05. Charisma.com - Lunch time funk
I spoiled Charisma.com for you a little bit before but this entire album is so, so good that I had a real hard time picking just one song. So uh...take this whole album, you're welcome. Brilliant and witty and angry feminists who sometimes just stop to talk about real life, seems legit. This song is about being tired because work sucks and how escaping outside for the lunch break and looking cute is sometimes the only way to get through the day, though it does not cover the fact that modern life is soul-sucking. A lot of this group's songs are angry but this one isn't (exactly), it's just a feel good song with slick lyrics about living a modern life.
06. Yasutaka Nakata - Digital Native
Yasutaka's the Perfume/Capsule/Kyary guy and he came out with a solo album for the first time on Feb. 7!!! I love his stuff so I wanted to give you something of his to listen to, but I picked this specifically because it doesn't have any vocals (or at least, not much). I love that you can hear not only callbacks to Yellow Magic Orchestra, but also tracks he was doing for Perfume recently (this is very similar in tone to Cosmic Explorer). You can hear echoes of Madeon and other big DJs throughout, too. And yet, despite the history of things he taps into, this song is still his own style, his own thing that he's never quite done with anyone else. It's an exciting album and I like this track a lot.
07. dj TAKA - perditus✝paradisus
Who else would make you listen to sweeping orchestral choral electronic dance rhythm game music, honestly
dj TAKA is my favorite rhythm game composer and has been a formative part of my musical taste development since I was like, what, 13? He's been my favorite since the very beginning of my DDR career because all of his stuff is so joyous and intricate. I showed you some of his tracks recently, how he (and rhythm games in general) like to mash up EDM with classical, but I'd planned to include him on this mixtape for months before that. He released a solo album of longer versions of all his tracks from DDR songs, and some new ones! And just! This stuff, this beautiful weird stuff, is a big part of why I love rhythm games so much. I love that there's this specific "type" of music that rhythm gamers listen to that no one else does, that feels like a kind of a secret within our own massive community, so I like insistently sharing a little bit with you now and again.
08. Hozier - Like Real People Do
I really wanted to share this song with you. This whole album is about trauma, and how trauma changes the inside of you into something inhuman, something like a monster but not exactly monstrous, something that always feels like you're on the outside of a room looking in, unable to connect or truly understand. This song is so gentle, and yet so searing, and I understand what it's not-exactly talking about in a way that I feel like you would also get, even though I can't articulate it clearly.
(remember how I said a lot of this mixtape is about anger)
(i would not ask and neither would you)
09. Marian Hill - Down
This is a song from the radio but I love the pseudo-electroswing overtones, the surface attempt at glossiness but really it's just a pop song, I love the silky vocals. I have no real reason for putting this track on here besides the fact that I like it and I thought you might also like it, sorry, not every song is about anger sometimes it's just about sweet hooks.
10. Sir Sly - &Run
Surprise it's kind of about anger again
This song made me pick my head up and listen when I heard it in a Starbucks. The chorus really struck me. It's kind of a Silver song, tbh? And so it's a you song, too. You're a person who throws down roots but I think that you are no stranger to the sensation of fleeing, the sense of being "a kite without a kitestring" that the high fluting part of the chorus makes me think of.
11. Maurice Ravel (performed by Alessandra Ammara) - Jeux d'Eau
Why stop at techno classical, why not just go all in with high classical
You've probably heard this song before, because Ravel is popular and this song is popular and it's no secret that I go a little wild for Romantic and Impressionist composers. But this song is featured in my favorite anime (Nodame Cantabile), it's about water, and also it has that boppy prancy sound that I associate with you, the quick flickering stop-and-start sensation, alert and playful.
12. The Civil Wars - Sacred Heart
"Ciry why do you keep putting French songs on these mixtapes" surprise this actually by an American band known for sounding like southern bluegrass and fire-smoke, like Hozier a few songs before. Again, no fancy reasoning, I just think this song is quite beautiful and thought you might also enjoy it.
13. Yoko Kanno - Renaissance of the Earth
I tried to shove this song onto your last mixtape and straight up could not make it fit, so then I made an entire second mixtape just so I could show it to you!! (That's a bit of a lie, but seriously, I wanted you to hear this one)
As to why I wanted you to listen to it, idk? It's from the Arjuna OST, which is kind of a weird niche show, with a Yoko Kanno soundtrack that people often forget or overlook. But this song has such interesting lively time signature and does cool things with structure imo, so I wanted to show it to you, just to see what you would think of it. I love how the song progresses and adds more and more energy not by adding more instruments, but by making those instruments do more things. I wish it were longer ;_;
Bonus Track: Murray Head - Bangkok / One Night in Bangkok
This is a song, with music from the guys who composed the music for Abba, with lyrics by Tim Rice, from a concept album and musical about chess. OF COURSE I HAD TO TROLL YOU WITH IT
Okay this song is really bad and more than a little offensive, but it's also hilarious. This is the most pearl-clutchingly uptight nerd anthem I have ever heard, every time it makes another odd chess reference I scream a little. The slap cut from the weird orchestral opening into the bad 80s disco is so jarring and awful. There are versions of this song that have a better background and cut out the orchestral opening, but I had to give you the Full Experience.
I only troll you out of deep and abiding love!!!!!
This mix is "songs that would be hard to use in a DJ set for one reason or another." It's all over the place, but hopefully in an interesting way.
Apparently I'm going to steal covers from rhythm games forever, so the cover used for this mix is from a track called "Sola" by Hideyuki Ono. (I like this cover because it has a city and birds on it.)
If you are not Rax but also like music, you're welcome to give this a listen too?
 |
|
|
( Spotify Playlist )
01. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
Fleetwood Mac's song "Rhiannon" is where I get my primary username of "Skylark" from. They're important to my music taste in a way that I'm usually quiet about, and this is one of my favorite songs from them that is also not super appreciated by the musical canon at large (a lot of people have never even heard of this song). But I like it and wanted to share it with you, for lots of reasons. One is that this song has lyrics that do not make sense but nevertheless articulate a kind of wordless and primal anger, the kind that shifts continents, and I feel like...anger isn't something we talk about a lot but that it's an emotion which we likely have shared experiences around; not at ourselves but at others. There's a kind of "sleeping mountain" sensibility that I think we both share and that's felt throughout this piece. Also I was so, so happy that you included Spanish music in your cgr mix that time, and this track has that beautiful lick of Spanish guitar in it, so every time I hear it I think of you a bit. (Wanting to share Spanish-tinged things with you also comes up in a later track.) A lot of songs on this mix are about anger, or identity, or an understanding of self that is not easy to communicate; this song touches upon a lot of those things and so it's why it's first.
02. Amerie - 1 Thing
I said all those nice meaningful things and then this song does none of them lol. This is arguably the only thing I included in the mix because I thought you could use it in a dj set—like the Yelle song I included on the last mix, this is a "vanilla ice cream" song, something that's full of such good hooks and snappy noises that it feels like it begs to be mixed into all kinds of other things. Also this specific kind of sound, this like, 90s retro sound, is deeply important to me because it's this kind of music (Destiny's Child, Aaliyah, Spice Girls) that taught me to start thinking independently. Also it's a good song???
03. The Hamilton Mixtape - Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)
Hey remember I said that latinx stuff is in this mix here it is again
I tried to show you Hamilton and you liked it but it didn't stick, I think. In 2016 they also released this album called The Hamilton Mixtape that remixed songs, not only in the way that music means it but in the way that fandom means it—singing songs from different characters' viewpoints, talking about hidden perspectives glossed over in the original work, etc. This is a song that takes its cue from one song, specifically the best line in the musical (imo), "Immigrants: We get the job done"—and then turns it into an entire anthem about effort, and coming up from nothing, and anger. (remember I mentioned anger) I know this isn't like yours exactly, but it is mine, so mine, this is a song that I listen to while walking the streets of New York that makes me square my shoulders and lift my head high, and I wanted to share this with you because it says something that I want to share with you, but have a hard time communicating. Also damn the lyrics are sick.
04. Tame Impala - The Less I Know The Better
I don't have a super good reason for putting this on here? Just, every time I hear this song I go, "damn, I love that bassline, I want Rax to hear that sweet bassline."
05. Charisma.com - Lunch time funk
I spoiled Charisma.com for you a little bit before but this entire album is so, so good that I had a real hard time picking just one song. So uh...take this whole album, you're welcome. Brilliant and witty and angry feminists who sometimes just stop to talk about real life, seems legit. This song is about being tired because work sucks and how escaping outside for the lunch break and looking cute is sometimes the only way to get through the day, though it does not cover the fact that modern life is soul-sucking. A lot of this group's songs are angry but this one isn't (exactly), it's just a feel good song with slick lyrics about living a modern life.
06. Yasutaka Nakata - Digital Native
Yasutaka's the Perfume/Capsule/Kyary guy and he came out with a solo album for the first time on Feb. 7!!! I love his stuff so I wanted to give you something of his to listen to, but I picked this specifically because it doesn't have any vocals (or at least, not much). I love that you can hear not only callbacks to Yellow Magic Orchestra, but also tracks he was doing for Perfume recently (this is very similar in tone to Cosmic Explorer). You can hear echoes of Madeon and other big DJs throughout, too. And yet, despite the history of things he taps into, this song is still his own style, his own thing that he's never quite done with anyone else. It's an exciting album and I like this track a lot.
07. dj TAKA - perditus✝paradisus
Who else would make you listen to sweeping orchestral choral electronic dance rhythm game music, honestly
dj TAKA is my favorite rhythm game composer and has been a formative part of my musical taste development since I was like, what, 13? He's been my favorite since the very beginning of my DDR career because all of his stuff is so joyous and intricate. I showed you some of his tracks recently, how he (and rhythm games in general) like to mash up EDM with classical, but I'd planned to include him on this mixtape for months before that. He released a solo album of longer versions of all his tracks from DDR songs, and some new ones! And just! This stuff, this beautiful weird stuff, is a big part of why I love rhythm games so much. I love that there's this specific "type" of music that rhythm gamers listen to that no one else does, that feels like a kind of a secret within our own massive community, so I like insistently sharing a little bit with you now and again.
08. Hozier - Like Real People Do
I really wanted to share this song with you. This whole album is about trauma, and how trauma changes the inside of you into something inhuman, something like a monster but not exactly monstrous, something that always feels like you're on the outside of a room looking in, unable to connect or truly understand. This song is so gentle, and yet so searing, and I understand what it's not-exactly talking about in a way that I feel like you would also get, even though I can't articulate it clearly.
(remember how I said a lot of this mixtape is about anger)
(i would not ask and neither would you)
09. Marian Hill - Down
This is a song from the radio but I love the pseudo-electroswing overtones, the surface attempt at glossiness but really it's just a pop song, I love the silky vocals. I have no real reason for putting this track on here besides the fact that I like it and I thought you might also like it, sorry, not every song is about anger sometimes it's just about sweet hooks.
10. Sir Sly - &Run
Surprise it's kind of about anger again
This song made me pick my head up and listen when I heard it in a Starbucks. The chorus really struck me. It's kind of a Silver song, tbh? And so it's a you song, too. You're a person who throws down roots but I think that you are no stranger to the sensation of fleeing, the sense of being "a kite without a kitestring" that the high fluting part of the chorus makes me think of.
11. Maurice Ravel (performed by Alessandra Ammara) - Jeux d'Eau
Why stop at techno classical, why not just go all in with high classical
You've probably heard this song before, because Ravel is popular and this song is popular and it's no secret that I go a little wild for Romantic and Impressionist composers. But this song is featured in my favorite anime (Nodame Cantabile), it's about water, and also it has that boppy prancy sound that I associate with you, the quick flickering stop-and-start sensation, alert and playful.
12. The Civil Wars - Sacred Heart
"Ciry why do you keep putting French songs on these mixtapes" surprise this actually by an American band known for sounding like southern bluegrass and fire-smoke, like Hozier a few songs before. Again, no fancy reasoning, I just think this song is quite beautiful and thought you might also enjoy it.
13. Yoko Kanno - Renaissance of the Earth
I tried to shove this song onto your last mixtape and straight up could not make it fit, so then I made an entire second mixtape just so I could show it to you!! (That's a bit of a lie, but seriously, I wanted you to hear this one)
As to why I wanted you to listen to it, idk? It's from the Arjuna OST, which is kind of a weird niche show, with a Yoko Kanno soundtrack that people often forget or overlook. But this song has such interesting lively time signature and does cool things with structure imo, so I wanted to show it to you, just to see what you would think of it. I love how the song progresses and adds more and more energy not by adding more instruments, but by making those instruments do more things. I wish it were longer ;_;
Bonus Track: Murray Head - Bangkok / One Night in Bangkok
This is a song, with music from the guys who composed the music for Abba, with lyrics by Tim Rice, from a concept album and musical about chess. OF COURSE I HAD TO TROLL YOU WITH IT
Okay this song is really bad and more than a little offensive, but it's also hilarious. This is the most pearl-clutchingly uptight nerd anthem I have ever heard, every time it makes another odd chess reference I scream a little. The slap cut from the weird orchestral opening into the bad 80s disco is so jarring and awful. There are versions of this song that have a better background and cut out the orchestral opening, but I had to give you the Full Experience.
I only troll you out of deep and abiding love!!!!!
