light vessel automatic

In the last few months, the internet has been my main source of music (along with Andrew and Graeme). It’s partly that cds are expensive in Japan, and partly that a while ago I came across 3hive, which regularly posts links to interesting downloadable music.

So, seeing as how I’ve almost entirely failed to send out any Christmas cards or presents this year, I thought I would make a virtual compilation tape for you who might like such a thing — a collection of some things I have found and liked in the last few months. The track-listing is below: the track names (left) link to the music, the band names (right) link to the band’s homepage, wherever I’ve been able to find one. Download them all, make a playlist in the order below, and there you are… Merry Christmas (though most of this music is, truth be told, neither especially merry nor Christmassy). Tell me, though: do you particularly love or hate any of this music? I would like to know!

Note: some links you will have to right-click and then select ‘save link target as…’, otherwise they’ll just start playing in your browser. (crossed-out links are now broken)

1. Park Hopper — Sleepy Rabbit
2. Don’t Die Before Your Day — The Arrogants
3. Good Clean Fun (Nobody Remix) — Clearlake
4. Leaves Do Fall — The Rosebuds
5. Destroy Everything You Touch — Ladytron
6. All That I Know To Have Changed In You — Castanets
7. Postal Workers Canceling Stamps At The University Of Ghana Post Office
8. Suddenly — Ryan Ferguson
9. In The City Of Eggtimers — The Notes & Scratches
10. Au Nord De Mon Enfance — Mig
11. Judas — Antje Duvekot
12. The Greatest — Cat Power
13. (Special Japan-release Bonus Track!) Dross — Smashing Pumpkins

Credits: Tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12 via 3hive; Tracks 7, 10, 11 via aurgasm; Track 1 via seatunes; Track 13 via stadtkind.

A few things:

• All the above links are downloadable at the time of posting, but because they’re on external websites, there’s no way of knowing how long they’ll be available for. If you find a link no longer works, please let me know.
• I might make some artwork for it at some point.
• If you were to want to burn this compilation into an actual cd, this should do the job (on Windows, anyway).
• If you are an artist who for some reason is unhappy about being linked to, please
  
  email me: hello [at] lightvesselautomatic.org

  , and I will unlink.

• I could write about how excited even a pessimist like me gets when I think about the implications that all this freely available music has for the future of everything: about how technology has now made it feasible for musicians (and artists, and writers…) to slip modern capitalism’s constrictive, joyless grip and distribute their art to thousands and thousands of people with money barely entering into the picture… but I won’t.
• Unlike the others, the final, bonus track is not a recent one, but it’s there because (a) it is from Smashing Pumpkins’ final album, Machina II, which was possibly the first, and still one of the only major records by a big famous band to be given away free on the internet — which even five years later seems pretty radical; (b) I think a barrage of blistering rock makes for a nice, unexpected wake-up smack in the mouth after several quiet acoustic songs; and (c) Smashing Pumpkins are the greatest rock band ever.