Another nice state-of-the-moment-indie mix cd from David. Notable songs:
* "This Isn't Farm Life" - The Essex Green. Quirky forthright literate melodic indie girl pop (with neat backing vocals). Ticks all the boxes (plus it works in a bit of a sunny psychedelic thing); and yep, I like it.
* "Sea of Love" - Tom Waits. Almost as good as the Cat Power version. Hell, maybe even better, though of course without the benefit of years to sulking along with it, I'm less utterly enamoured of Waits' version as yet.
* "The Woods" (live) - Stars. I wonder if the way I'm starting to feel about Stars is how I would have felt about the Shins had Garden State never happened. They're just so...so nice. In a good way.
* "Heartbeats" - The Knife. I still don't buy into this 'the Knife are great' business (I think that Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content got it right when he commented that the current tastemaker approval of the Knife was a sign that hipster culture has lapped itself) but "Heartbeats" is definitely the best of their songs that I've heard, and has convinced me to hold off on fully writing them off.
* "Black Eyed Dog" - Nick Drake. Not much to say except that it's very good.
* "Spider Monkey" - Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man. I'd heard that this album was v.g., but have never been inspired enough to track it down (Portishead are very much an outfit from my past). This song, though, spooky and scratched, like Portishead but different, is cool.
* "Lover's Spit" - Feist. I've frequently derided the original version of this song as being exactly on a level with Richard Ashcroft's solo work, but a part of me has always liked it anyway. I think it's the cod grandeur of it all - something which Feist strips away in order to give it the Cat Power treatment (though without the awe-inspiringness)...not as dreary as I initially thought, but the original is better.
Has a nice flow to it and a consistency of tone which makes it work as a mix cd as a whole. Nice.
