After a dance-heavy mix last time, this one offers a little more variety. J is of course a folk and world music fan, and I’ve started to dig through her CD collection, picking up at least a few interesting artists along the way: Kevin Breit, Amadou & Mariam, Sarah Harmer, Basia Bulat and Tri-Continental, to name a few.
Electronic music continues to hold my attention, but I’m a little tired of the repeated echoes of electro and I never got very far into dubstep. Ninja Tune’s recent four-CD XX twentieth-anniversary collection blew my mind, though: take the various ideas coming out of electro and dubstep, and let some eccentric artists take them in wild directions. Trippy stuff; perhaps more so if I had more of a taste for UK hiphop.
Download here, for a few weeks only.
- kevin drew. frightening lives. rock, from spirit if…, 2007.
- diplo. summer’s gonna hurt you [diplo 2010 remix]. dubstep, from ninja tune xx compilation, 2010.
- dj krush. pretense. instrumental hip hop, from jaku, 2004.
- kanye west. all of the lights. hip hop, from my beautiful dark twisted fantasy, 2010.
- sufjan stevens. riffs and variations on a single note for jelly roll, earl hines, louis armstrong, baby dodds, and the king of swing, to name a few. pop, from come on feel the illinoise, 2005.
- belle & sebastian. string bean jean. pop, from dog on wheels ep, 1997.
- basia bulat. heart of my own. folk, from heart of my own, 2010.
- patrick watson. traveling salesman. rock, from wooden arms, 2009.
- hot chip. keep fallin’. electro-soul, from coming on strong, 2005.
- grasscut. blink in the night. downtempo, from ninja tune xx compilation, 2010.
- béla fleck & the flecktones. prelude. jazz, from outbound, 2000.
- peaking lights. all the sun that shines. downtempo, from 936, 2011.
- parov stelar. catgroove. acid jazz, from coco, 2009.
- dennis ferrer. son of raw. acid jazz, from future sounds of jazz vol. 11 compilation, 2007.
- vive la fête! assez. electro, from nuit blanche, 2003.
- björk. pagan poetry. pop, from vespertine, 2001.
- amadou & mariam. m’bife blues feat. manu chao. world, from dimanche à bamako, 2005.
- harry manx & kevin breit. curly may and his brother. folk, from jubilee, 2003.
Was this list influenced by any YouTube memes or the occasional “just for laughs” impulse? You be the judge.