Mixtapes, Music

The Mix: with tracknames

Ah well, I had forgotten that I didn’t update my mix mp3 post with the names of the songs. The songs represented a major part of my work-music, and my late-night playlist – that happens to be the theme of the collection, by the way. With the exception of one or two, which I knew had to be on the list, they were all very tough selections for me. What do you select from an album that gives you so much pleasure as a singular entity? Is each song a mindblowing experience on its own or is it the cumulative after-effects of the song that preceded it and the one that will follow? And then the order, should song A become track 2 or is it better as an end-track? Should this song come before that one, and what should follow it? Decisions, decisions….

Took me about 8 hours of continuous listening to the 20 songs I selected, before deciding on the final thirteen, and the order.

The tracks, then.

Track 1: Queen of All Ears by The Lounge Lizards. These guys were supposed to be proficient in “fake jazz” when they began twenty years ago, which is just a way of saying that they played whatever they felt like, with surprisingly melodious results. This track “Queen of All Ears” is the fifth in their 1998 album of the same name, the name taken from Jimi Hendrix’s liner notes to Electric Ladyland “And on he walked until after crowning Ethel the dog the Only Queen of Ears…”.The rest of the songs on the album are mindbogglingly good as well, but what drew me to this track is the Indianness of the lead instrument. What, you didn’t notice?

Track 2: Do The Whirlwind by Architecture in Helsinki. My favourite band of the year, one that really unsettles you and forces you to listen to their music. This Australian band has released two albums so far – the first, Fingers Crossed (described as “eight people playing 14 songs in 37 minutes with 31 instruments”) was released in 2003, and the next, In Case We Die, from which this track is taken, in 2005. The song wins my vote for the catchiest song of 2005, bar none.

Track 3: Summer by Joe Hisaishi. While much has been written ( and said) about Hisaishi’s collaborations with Hayao Miyazaki, his collaborations with film-maker Takeshi Kitano are equally magical – piano-laced melodies, mellow instruments tinged with just the right amount of pathos. This track is from a very unlikely Kitano work, the story of a young boy who goes on a trip, during his summer vacation, to find his mother. The main piano line is infectious, I once heard this track over and over again between 7 PM and 3 AM, just because I could not get the main piano line out of my mind.

Track 4: Horizon – The Cinematic Orchestra – I completely dig the percussion line in this song, the clean sound of the jazz drums and the way the conga drums kick in at 2 minutes 48 seconds and go completely berserk for the next 40 seconds. I also love the bass line. And the female voice. And the organ motif that repeats after every eighth bar. Most of the other Cinematic Orchestra tracks do not have vocals in them, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, trust me.

Track 5: Assassin’s Tango – John Powell (from the Mr and Mrs Smith score) – Mr and Mrs Smith was one of these movies that made me fall asleep in the theater after the interval – there is just so much oozing coolness one can take, even in a Hollywood blockbuster. But just like the other cool yawn-inducer of the year (Ocean’s Twelve, in case you weren’t paying attention), MaMS had a very..er…cool background score, markedly lacking in cliched orchestral cues and sweeps. Case in point, this track.

Track 6: Green Grass of Tunner – múm – I have already spoken about the band before, the other Icelandic outfit I love. This track was off their 2002 album Finally We Are No One, which was the first album of theirs I heard.

Track 7: Love Trap – Susheela Raman
Ok, so I could go completely berserk and write a huge account of how
much Susheela Raman completely rocks and why I am sure I will buy all
her albums this year, but I will let do the honours. ( They don’t call me Beatzo Magnanimity Phreniac for
nothing) The lad has stalked her in ways and means that put us lesser
stalkers to shame. And that’s a compliment, believe me.

Track 8: Ba Ba – Sigur Ros
This is a band that takes the concept of musical layers to the nth
degree. Little sounds chitter in your ears, strange twisted sonic
collages that you might ignore at the first listen, hypnotized by the
main melody but that break into your senses when you listen more
carefully. Possibly the soundtrack to a dark fairy-tale.

Track 9: The Real Story – David Holmes (from the Ocean’s Twelve soundtrack) – I don’t think this track featured in the actual Ocean’s Twelve tracklisting, and that means even I have no idea how it landed up with me. I love the way this tries to imitate the classic spy themes of the sixties and the seventies, like some kind of a bastard offspring of Schifrin-Hayes-Norman, without going overboard.

Track 10: Yekermo Sew – Mulatu Astatke ( from the Broken Flowers soundtrack) – While I haven’t seen Jim Jarmusch’s latest movie ( I should buy it, now that the DVD is in National Market), the soundtrack, which boasts of an impressive range of Jazz-tinged tracks by not-too-well-known World Music artistes, had been playing in my room quite a number of times this year. Selecting this track, from out of the others, was a chore – all of them are that good.

Track 11: Islandisk – Rinneradio – My friend from Finland, who is now wading around in lakes in his hometown at minus fifteen degrees, introduced me to a lot of Finnish bands during his trip to India ( on the upside, I introduced him to Varttina, heh) and Rinneradio was one of my favourites. Prog jazz with electronic influences, the band’s huge in the Finnish music scene.

Track 12: Oceans Apart – Julie Delpy – Sasi thinks that the whole collection was a buildup to this song. Heh, I wish I could tell him it was not so. Heh heh, just kidding. Fact is, after I finished watching Before Sunset, I just let the DVD menu play over and over again, just to hear this song – and proceeded to get absolutely mad at myself for not being able to find this song anywhere. Of course, when I did, I went a little loony for sometime. Watch the movie, if you haven’t already; you will know what I mean. What a voice, what a song!

Track 13: The Real Folk Blues – Yoko Kanno – Probably, without having watched the TV series Cowboy Bebop, you won’t understand why this song is a perfect one to end a CD. Hearing this song play on the end credits of every episode is almost like exhaling after holding your breath after a long time, a head rush of sorts. Yoko Kanno, people, remember the name.

Right, that’s it then. Now I need to figure out an effortless way to upload large volumes before I can think of preparing the next instalment of mixes.

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Gratituous self-promotion in the name of nostalgia deptt.

I used to draw and paint, once upon a time. Even went to art school when I was a kid, and found out that watercolours was the only medium I had some amount of control on. Until of course, I discovered the joys of pen and ink and trying to imitate John Totleben’s artwork.

After buying a scanner ( along with the computer I bought my parents the other day ), I spent some time scanning whatever of my samples I could find.

Scans

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A Zinda Guwahatian Oldboy

“Radishes”, my mother exclaims, “You loved radishes, didn’t you? You there, how much are you selling those radishes for?”

“Maaaaa, no radishes. Whoever said I like them?”, I reply.

“Radishes 8 rupees a puwaa, baidew”, “Only 7 rupees a puwaa”. “The freshest ones right here, baidew”. A puwaa is 250 grams, and baidew is Axomiya for elder sister.

“Alright, squashes then. Squashes are good for health.” She persists.

I make my best windpipe-slit-by-samurai-sword-noise, a kind of wet gurgling that peeves her completely, as she looks at the radishes, and dismisses them, and prods at the cabbages. Cabbages are safe, she decides, because I do not react at all, and proceeds to buy two huge ones.

The shopkeepers look resentfully at the radish-hater and his mother as they exit from the maze of shops. I try my best not to look guilty.

* * *
I tell my parents I am buying a computer for them. My mother, who painstakingly writes out five copies of a question-paper for her tuition students every other day, could do with a printer – she even did an MS Office course thingie a couple of months back, just before my old computer decided to conk out for good. My father who warily circled the old computer until I showed him that it could play movies too, and how, was just getting used to it – I was kind of getting used myself to the phone calls asking me how to make the Windows Media Player fullscreen when a video was playing.

So this time, I tell them I am buying a new computer, and also point out that an internet connection would be good, now that BSNL has these broadband schemes. Somehow my father detects that note of hesitation when I talk about the internet. “What is it?”, he asks me, “A lot of bother? Forget it then.”

“Not really”, I tell him. “It’s just that if you aren’t careful enough, you might get viruses and I am a little worried about how you guys would handle it.”

“No, no, we will be careful. I will make sure nobody’s wearing shoes inside the computer room.”

I love these guys.

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Heads-up from Guwahati!

Right, so I am at home and chilling out good and proper. I am chilling out so much that I cannot go to bed without wearing a sweater and socks and two mattresses. Brrr.

So you can download the quiz I did at IIM Kolkata, I was conscious enough after the late-night/early-morning revelries to upload both the powerpoints right here. The prelims are about 3 MB, and the finals are 8.7 MB.

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ANNNNNNNND

The quiz is done.

I am conducting the lit-arts quiz for this year’s Nihilanth, the annual ( well, sort of) inter-IIT-IIM quiz festival, due to be held on the 14th and 15th at IIM Kolkata. This is one of the rare times when personal stuff has taken precedence over question-setting, and I had to stay back late at the office two days before the quiz to finish setting all the questions. I have never cut it this close, and I will be glad, really really glad, if the quiz is well-received.

Reasons behind this lateness: my recent move from Bangalore to Hyderabad, and the fact that I have not unpacked any of my books/CDs/DVDs and my computer. Why? Because I am off, right after Nihilanth, to Guwahati, for a well-deserved two-week vacation, and I didn’t want the hassle of reorganising and dusting the preciousses after I get back. A lot of furniture-buying and room-reorganising are in the pipeline once I return. Also, had to do some major work-related revisions at the office, so not too much time to access the Internet there. The All-Important Call for which I was doing so got over about two hours ago, and I could rush through the final touches to the quiz. Another reason was that my roomie’s internet connection seems to have conked off for the past three days, leaving me unable to do much at home post-office.

The plan for the Guwahati trip is to listen to all of John Zorn’s albums ( a gigatorrent of which did whatever all well-recommended gigatorrents tend to do), and re-read the first couple of books of a series that I plan to finish after I am back. ( What series? I am not saying anything. It might be a question in my quiz, heh) If I am lucky, my sister and brother-in-law will also be at home at the time, on a brief trip from London, where both of them are working at the moment. If I am really lucky, my sister will be able to spare luggage-space to get the 28 volumes of Lone Wolf and Cub at one go, along with assorted signed books.

And in other news, I bought a washing machine. Haier, fully-automatic, 5 year-warranty and all that. Now if only those lazy salespeople would come and set the thing up….

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