Lest I cease documenting my listening habits, here’s Crunch I (f.k.a. Winter’s Diary 30), so named for the tape I found in the deck of my most recently acquired stereo. My version of Crunch I, though not without crunch, is a good deal less crunchy than its original (trust me), but in certain other ways I might pass for that middle-aged man who sells stereos on Craigslist. I’ve reached that foretold place where more and more of my most significant music discoveries are deep cuts from massively popular artists. So it goes. If nothing else, I hope that Bare Trees / Older / Emancipation / Trans constitutes a pattern of albums not often excerpted for a mixtape’s Side A. If it would help I’d list the artists’ names in an invisible font, below, to emphasize that these are forgotten songs, but, alas, I also still believe that context matters.
A
Fleetwood Mac • Sunny Side of Heaven
George Michael • The Strangest Thing
Versus • Into Blue
Edith Frost • Cars and Parties (demo)
Tink • Your Side
The Ocean Blue • Ask Me Jon
Prince • Dreamin’ About U
Neil Young • Hold On To Your Love
Mac McCaughan • Lost Again
A.R. Kane • Miles Apart
Kehlani • Get Like
Evans The Death • Disowner
B
Terence Trent D’Arby • I Still Love You
Cocteau Twins • Theft, and Wandering Around Lost
Wire • Free Falling Divisions
The Lucy Show • The Twister
Judee Sill • The Lamb Ran Away With The Crown
The Terminals • Frozen Car
The Proper Ornaments • The Frozen Stare
The Auteurs • Idiot Brother
The Chambers Brothers • So Tired
Solange • Rise
Fantasia • No Time For It
Depeche Mode • Here Is The House
Highlights: As it is in Carol, I hear “ask me” as a phrase used to minimize the burden of coming out (A6). In response, the rest of the tape flits between intimacy and desolation, the former expressed as a constriction of time, the latter a dilation, but all of it subject to the cosmic clock that states itself, unmistakably, at the end (B11-12).
In the next issue, maybe: 3Ds, Marine Girls, Hugo Largo (whether nearing wild heaven or just Roches at half-speed), Associates, Tanya Donelly, Flock of Dimes, Alexander O’Neal, and Dusty Springfield’s ABC Dunhill years.
