Friday Music

Here we go again, kids–the second installment of my “internet mix tape”–a handful of mp3 links of nifty stuff that I like, and hope that you like too.

We’ll get the obligatory “I made this!” self-promotion out of the way first: Al-Azif is a recent bit of my work as “@nubis”–this time around, built around Lovecraft-inspired samples. Teach them Shoggoths to dance, baby.

UPDATE: Rassa-frassa yahoo. The link appears to be all discombobulated. So, instead of direct linking it, I’ll just direct you to my yahoo briefcase. Just click on the “Music” folder, and the file’s in there, where you can download it.

Ugress is a Norway-based, trip-hop-ish electronica outfit. They’ve got a number of free downloads on their site, but my favorite is Cowboy Desperado, which is a nice bit of cinematic bombast, including some nifty rhythmical use of Merlin’s “dragon” speech from [i]Excalibur[/i] later in the track. (As a brief note: I just noticed that their site is crawling today. Since I had no problems with it yesterday, I’m assuming this is a temporary problem. If you can’t grab the song, check back again later. It’s worth it.)

The Dresden Dolls – “Bad Habit”: If you haven’t gotten this album yet, go get it now. Seriously. Self-described “Brechtian Cabaret Punk”, and not too far off the mark. “Coin-operated Boy” was a radio darling, but the rest of the album is deeper and more satisfying. Any band comprised of a woman playing piano and a guy playing drums, done up in white-face and 1930’s Wiemar Republic cabaret costumes is just too nifty to ignore.

Spillsbury Raus – “Schlagziele”: German electro-pop from the band Spillsbury Raus. Babel @ altavista translates the title as “Impact Goals”….which makes no sense to me, but whaddaya want: it’s in German. Imagine Nena (“99 Luftballons”) meets Interpol.

As the lads from Python once said, Now for something completely different. 19th-century opera different. Leo Delibes – “Duo De Flores” You all know this song, but you don’t know you know it. It’s been used in movies, and for most of British Airways advertising campaigns since the 90s. The “Duo for Flowers” is from the 1883 opera Lakmé. It never fails to affect me every time I listen to it.

…and, last but not least, Cibo Matto – “Sci-fi Wasabi”. Because if you heard Japanese women performing an electronica/hip-hop track with references to Obi-wan Kenobi, wouldn’t you want to share it?

That’s it for this week. Back again in 7.