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What I’m Into This Week (6/26 – 7/2)

/ David James / Leave a comment

Gigi Masin live

In the lead-up to the big 4th of July holiday weekend, I’ve spent almost every night working on a new mixtape. I’ve finally got my passion for mixing back and it feels incredible. Instead of months or years between tapes, I hope to make them a regular feature here.

However, this latest mix isn’t quite ready yet. It needs a little more polish before I publish next week. In the meantime, I want to share the best new music I’ve been into all week. At least one of these three things will make your hair stand on end.

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Torn Hawk – Born to Win (Life After Ghostbusters)

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Torn Hawk camero

This is the song that turned me on to Torn Hawk. Born to Win (Life After Ghostbusters) is 15 minutes of blurry cyberpunk guitar bliss.

It was one of those out-of-the-blue eureka moments, shared by a random friend on last.fm. Remember how great a social network that was before they killed groups last year? I still miss it.

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Taylor Swift – Out of the Woods

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Taylor Swift - Out of the Woods

When Taylor Swift dropped 1989 a year and a half ago, I was kind of awestruck. I’d enjoyed a few songs of hers before, but now she was onto a whole new level. While the entire album isn’t perfect, the first half is a breathtaking run of near-perfect pop gems.

At the center lies Out of the Woods, a song that gripped me immediately and never let go. I tried to share it before, but her record label was way too good at getting streams taken down. However, just this week someone pointed out that she finally made a video for the song. So here it is in all its glorious, wolf-chasing, hot nonsense:

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Qluster – Echtzeit

/ David James / 1 Comment

Qluster Echtzeit Cover

Qluster is the current incarnation of one of the longest-running acts on the planet, continually vibrant and productive from 1971 onward. In this possibly final form, the band once known as Cluster has mellowed some of the rough edges and grown subtly complex, losing none of that original alien magic they’ve conjured for 45 years running.

Swapping a C for a Q seems relatively minor, but the twist it signifies has been significant. Since 2011, the band has been incredibly prolific, dropping more than one album per year. The latest, Echtzeit, is the most vibrant yet.

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Mark Van Hoen – Nightvision

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21000 Digipak 6P 1CD-outlines

Every once in a while, a great album by a favorite artist slips right by me. Nightvision is a perfect example. Mark Van Hoen released the album in November of 2015, and I stumbled upon it only this week. Van Hoen’s work has appeared on my best of lists and his former band, Seefeel, created some of my favorite music of all time. This was a huge oversight, as it turns out.

After just a few listens, I really wish I’d heard the album a few months ago. I have no doubt that it would have appeared somewhere on my best of 2015 list. Nightvision is frankly incredible.

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I Think It Is Beautiful That You Are 256 Colors Too

/ David James / 2 Comments

Because sometimes it feels like this.

My mom would have been 65 today. She liked Black Moth Super Rainbow, said it often sounded pretty, reminded her of The Beatles, “but way weirder.”

This tune always felt oddly touching. The combination of sweetly nostalgic melodies and an alien vocoder masks the deep sadness of the lyrics. I feel like my mom would wish the singer felt better.

Sitting in the humid blur of the summer, on a day that’s stormed twice between bouts of unflinching sunny splendor, this tune hits the spot in a way nothing else can.

I don’t want to live through winter
I can’t stand to see everything ending

I’ll just stand on the meadow
I’ll be taken by sunbeams
So goodbye

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