In the meantime, I’ll be periodically posting mp3 mix tapes.  This one is basically for stoners, and it’s best enjoyed outside on randomized order.  A soul one is coming soon and you can probably expect more after that (depending on how long the redesign takes).

Tracklist and a mediafire link are after the jump.

DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE HERE (7zip is a free and user-friendly unzipping software, if you don’t already have something)

Song......................Artist..........................Album
You and I.................Washed Out......................Adult Swim Singles
Take Shelter..............Active Child....................Curtis Lane 
Strangers In The Wind.....Cut Copy........................In Ghost Colours
Sometimes.................Beach Fossils...................S/T LP  
Round And Round...........Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti...Before Today 
Just Wait Til Next Year...John Maus.......................Songs  
Friend of the Night.......Teen Inc........................Fountains 7"
Fly Like an Eagle.........Steve Miller Band...............Fly Like an Eagle
Feel It All Around........Washed Out......................Life of Leisure 
Do Your Best..............John Maus.......................Love Is Real 
Darlin'...................Dead Meadow.....................Three Kings  
Cortez the Killer.........Neil Young......................Zuma 
Chinatown.................Wild Nothing....................Gemini  
Can't Hear My Eyes........Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti...Before Today
Air Supply................Sweet Trip......................You Will Never Know Why

If you like this, allow me to also plug Rachel and my DJ night (every 2nd Thursday of the month at Enid’s) as well as DJ Overgold’s (wayyyyy to many to mention, but he’s highly google-able).  See you all again when we land,

Guten Morgan

And most exciting of all, two of my most anticipated 2010 releases have leaked, and they are just as dreamy and summery as you would both hope and expect!  Ariel Pink’s 4AD debut and Beach Fossils official full-length.  Former one-man bands, both artists have benefited from the permanent involvement of their touring musicians and from cleaned-up (but not antiseptic) production choices.  My favorite MP3s from both releases are streaming below.

Everyone knows this reasonably unimportant fact:  Ariel Pink was a one-man ”shit-gaze” phenomenom back when Psychedelic Horseshit was a gleam in the Siltbreeze eye.  He made his own homemade sound effects, buried melodies under tape hiss, cut off those melodies at awkward moments, jumped radically between time signatures, and was generally perceived of as an “outsider artist,” despite growing up in a predominantly Jewish enclave adjacent to Beverly Hills. 

This story hasn’t rung true for a while, though.  A little over a year ago Ariel Pink broke with the narrative by releasing Can’t Hear My Eyes, a single on Mexican Summer that signaled his intention to move more towards at least mid-fi recording.  The hazy 70s vibe of the Paw Tracks reissue releases remains but is no longer obscured by idiosyncratic production.  Before Today includes a re-recording of Can’t Hear My Eyes, with minimal changes from last year, but it’s the new tracks that really shine.  Round and Round has already been released (and is amazing) as a single but Beverly Kills and Bright Lit Blue Skies are my personal standouts.  Give these a listen–in terms of atmosphere, they most remind me of Under The Bushes, Under The Stars-era Guided By Voices, filtered through instrumentation choices that leave it sounding like something you’d encounter in a dentist’s waiting room, sitting with the late afternoon sun streaming in through the vertical blinds.

• Ariel Pink: Beverly Kills Ariel Pink: Beverly Kills
• Ariel Pink: Bright Lit Blue Skies Ariel Pink: Bright Lit Blue Skies

Beach Fossils, by contrast, are a more straightforward pleasure: if Ariel Pink makes music to get high to and play D&D on the front porch, Beach Fossils makes music for the moments spent chasing down that spare towel before catching your ride to the beach.  While Beach Fossils have  never been notably lo-fi, they’ve toned down their perhaps-excessive use of vocal reverb (another tiresome detail noted by every reviewer) while retaining the killer pop hooks of their singles, all of which are also included on this LP.  Two previously unreleased standouts are below.

• Beach Fossils: Twelve Roses Beach Fossils: Twelve Roses
• Beach Fossils: Sometimes Beach Fossils: Sometimes

But you know what?  I don’t have much more to write about their sound than I did over this last summer.  The vocal sounds are a little cleaner now and the distortion is falling away, though not as dramatically as on Ariel Pink’s magnificent Can’t Hear My Eyes single last winter.  Check out Youth and Wide Awake, streaming on the Beach Fossils myspace page, and Time, available for download right here: right here  The band (no longer a one-man show) plays a number of NYC-area shows over the next month or two, performing most of them with The Beets and Christmas Island, and a couple of lucky gigs with German Measles (see you on the 10th, 13th, or 20th, kiddoes).

Sorry for the short post, but that’s all you’ll get from me until a good, proper full-length is released this year.

EXCEPT! By popular demand, I also include below the chili recipe that I went with on New Years day.  It’s roughly adapted from a Tyler Florence recipe that I thought was too smoky and modified accordingly.  It makes a huge quantity of chili, so you may want to halve it or something.  I think it was a success.  I’m calling it Morgan’s Meaty Treat 5-Alarm Chili™ .

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds beef shoulder (cubed by butcher)
• 1 box whole foods beef broth
• 3 medium onions (diced)
• 6 garlic cloves (halved)
• 2 jalapenos (chopped)
• 1 red pepper (chopped)
• 3 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 tablespoons ground coriander
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon mustard powder
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 1 teaspoon adobo powder
• Dash of cinnamon
• 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 (12-oz) can or bottle pilsener
• 2 (15 ounce) cans kidney beans
• 1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans
• 1/4 cup cornmeal

Directions:

• Salt and pepper meat and place in stock pot.
• Add broth and enough additional water to cover meat with an inch to spare.
• Bring to a boil at medium heat and skim any foam from surface.
• Mix in all remaining ingredients except cornmeal and beans.
• Simmer approx. 2 hours until meat is tender.
• Remove meat and shred (discarding excess fat) while simultaneously adding beans and cornmeal to sauce and reducing.
• When ready, return meat to pot and simmer chili approx. 1-2 hours, stirring regularly and seasoning as desired with dried red chili flakes.

Anyway, I checked the Woodsist website a couple of days back.  Right now, the label is notable for releasing beloved albums by bands of the moment (Kurt Vile, Blank Dogs, Psychedelic Horseshit) and the past 15-30 seconds (Wavves, Woods, Thee Oh Sees, Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls).  While any of these artists could be the individual subject of a post, this week’s guten morgan is about 3 artists whose albums are just now in the Woodsist pipeline:  Fergus & Geronimo, Beach Fossils, and Meth Teeth.   Each of these artists is only just on the verge of recording something really substantial, so for now, I’d recommend checking out their websites for songs that aren’t yet available as .mp3s.

Fergus & Geronimo:  Classic surfy pop music with a raw, imperfect edge.

• Harder Than It’s Ever Been Harder Than It’s Ever Been
• Tell It In My Ear Tell It In My Ear

 Beach Fossils:  Slightly dreamier pop music.  Wistful (I use that word a lot in my posts here) but driving.

• Vacation Vacation
• Daydream Daydream

Meth Teeth:  Slightly more rollicking pop music.  Unemployment Forever is a song title that nicely describes the many fears that haunt my dreams.

• Unemployment Forever Unemployment Forever