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.