Categories
FREE MP3s MIX TAPE

Franz Nicolay Makes MAGNET A Mix Tape

Do The Struggle, produced by Oktopus (dälek), is Franz Nicolay’s third solo LP. The multi-instrumentalist has played with various groups, including the Hold Steady and was a touring member for Against Me!. Today, Nicolay makes MAGNET a mix tape. Check it out below.

“Did Your Broken Heart Make You Who You Are?” (download):

Arthur Russell “A Little Lost”
I thought a lot about Arthur Russell while making Do The Struggle, as an example of someone who managed to combine pop sensibility, the dance and experimental electronica of his day, contemporary classical and free jazz, country and everything else into what must have seemed—and still can seem—an inexplicable catalog. Video

Scott Walker “Cossacks Are”
The other presiding spirit—at least for me—was the Scott Walker of The Drift and Tilt, uncompromisingly difficult, intellectual and melodramatic—deconstructing song form and arrangement. You get the idea the songs have been tracked with a live band in a certain way, then everything but the vocal was erased, and an entirely different group of people, not necessarily musicians, was brought in to rebuild what they imagine might have been the song. Video

Hop Along “Tibetan Pop Songs”
This is my favorite new thing by people I didn’t know anything about at the beginning of this year. Like a feral Rilo Kiley, mapping the profound ambivalence of obsession, vacillating between selfish demand and self-effacement: “Nobody deserves you the way that I do/Come home my stranger in India, because waiting on you is too hard/The reason I haven’t written back is because I’m still doing all that bad shit I was/My love is average. I obey an average law.” Video

Bill Callahan “All Thoughts Are Prey To Some Beast”
A record from a few years ago I discovered this year. An extraordinary extended metaphor and even more extraordinary supporting arrangement. I get shivers. Video

Morning Glory “Another Way (Outside The Walls Of Eden)”
Sometimes I meet musicians who just have that spark, who hear lines that are both perfect and unexpected, who can sing, write, play everything, and if they don’t, they’ll pick it up and hunch over it in the corner for hours until they can. You can just tell, in minutes: Yula Be’eri (ex-World/Inferno) is one, Emily Hope Price from Pearl And The Beard is one, and Ezra Kire from Morning Glory (ex-Leftover Crack) is one. He’s been in the wilderness for a while, but he came back with a spectacularly ambitious record of focused pop punk energized by his recovery and not too humble to make the Clash and Dylan just sections in a revolution rock suite. Video

Future Of The Left “Beneath The Waves An Ocean”
The musical equivalent of an episode of Louie: ironic, referential, poignant, simplistic and chilling. Video

Todd Snider “Too Soon To Tell”
Virtually every line here is a classic. I’m a connoisseur of a good spite lyric, and “They say that living well is the best revenge/I say bullshit/The best revenge is revenge” is the best revenge couplet in a year full of them: Dylan, “I’ll pay in blood/But not my own.” Morning Glory, “Life’s a long revenge.” My humble entry in “Live Free”: “Wish I could show you how you hurt me in a way that wouldn’t hurt you, too.” Get this record. Video

The Weeknd “Initiation”
I’m obsessed with this vocal effect. The production on these records is the futuristic business, and the vibe is some creepy business. Video

Namjilyn Norovbanzad
I disembarked in Ulan Bataar on my last tour at 6 a.m., after two straight days on the train, and this was playing over the station PA. It’ll put you in the mood. Video

Mischief Brew “Catch Fire”
They were years ahead of the folk-punk boom, and by the time it hit they’d moved on to being the best band in Philadelphia. This reminds me of vintage Chumbawamba, poppy and righteous and subtle. Video

The Cut Ups “The Gold War”
So punk they’re back on MySpace. You like righteous, anthemic old-school with a conscience? Sure you do. Audio

Orquestra Tipica Fernandez Fierro “Bluses De Boedo”
These are a bunch of Argentinians who sound like a tango orchestra fell down a fire escape. Video

Vic Ruggiero “Eye Of The Beholder”
I played a couple dates with Vic in the spring and was mightily impressed by his ability to write in the kind of classic style that makes you think he’s covering an obscure 45 of girl-group pop, garage surf or, in this case, calypso. And also, apparently, not to give too much of a shit about that ability: He was touring with his Fender, caseless, sticking out of his backpack; just plugging into whatever was onstage and taking requests. Video