Astral News

A splendid compilation made by a friend, back in Ye Olde Y2K. I played drums on one of the songs, so I'm biased, but I think this record really hits a wonderful cross-section of the best sorts of music made at that time, at the craziness of the millenium and before the Great George W. Bush Disaster: the songs are by turns artsy, funky, willfully odd, sleepily obscure, quirkily fun, dreamy. Probably more adjectives too. There's a Clouddead song, which is always worth hearing. And the song sung by my wife-to-be, with wobbly mallet-drums by yours truly, holds up nicely.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/awk6mo9381c6f18/VA-%2019%20Ways%20to%20Avoid%20the%20Draft.zip

This is also for sale, here, if you'd like to reward the people that made it possible. http://www.elsieandjack.com/marino/mi009c.html

We Dream Of A Ship That Sails Away

While cleaning the basement, found this mix-CD that I made in August 1999. Back then I listened to a lot of rock music (if you can call this collection of drifty, arty and melancholy songs rock). Most of this isn't from the 90s so I don't think it will have aged badly, though it isn't necessarily what I listen to these days.

I've always loved making mixed tapes/CDs/mp3s, and made a lot of them. Who knows if anyone ever listened to them. There were many times in my own driven-by-and-obsessed-with-music life, when the music someone else handed me (on cassette, mostly) changed my life in a dramatic way. I've always hoped to do that for someone else. But all you can do is make stuff you love and hand it over, sometimes it doesn't work.

In any case I've been feeling a lot of nostalgia lately. Maybe it's the dreary bleak and frozen gray February weather, but I'm feeling old, like my best days are behind me and all along I thought I was just getting ready for something better. Well, I've got nothing to complain about, my life is full of joy and has had its share of small excitements. But it's a little alarming to see so much of it as past tense.

So finding a set of the music I loved back when I was still in my twenties has some cheap appeal. Moreover, it's a good collection of songs that ought to create a pretty nice melancholy mood for your day. (Included: Kinks, Big Star, Ash Ra Tempel, Flying Saucer Attack, Brian Eno, more).

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did/do/will.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ttqtymnmih2/Non-Linear Mix 1999.zip

To The Moon And Back

Post-Spacemen 3 synthy dream-drone. The first song is rock, the rest is mostly made for napping and/or home sedations. A bit 1990s-sounding now, but still pretty unique in its way.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mrzn5xmdwjz/Spectrum- Soul Kiss (Glide Divine).zip