Not that I make a lot of mix cds these days, but when I do, I definitely tend towards the shorter and more carefully-chosen end of the spectrum; this one (from JF) fits that bill, at a bite-sized nine tracks. It starts off with a song, the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Shake Some Action”, that, wreathed in cascading guitar lines, sounds like a lost classic, and maybe it is; I also particularly like “Oslo Skyline” by an outfit called Jaga Jazzist (an instrumental, dynamic, dramatic, interestingly unpredictable and wendy, and by its ending, heavy as anything) and the frankly uncategorisable “Beg Waves” by Pony Tail (if you threw Life Without Buildings, Love Is All and a fair dose of crazy into a big pot and stirred, the result might be something similar). Elsewhere, there’s a baroque, Magnetic Fields-y song called “Ban Marriage” by the Hidden Cameras, the Chills’ “As Far As I Can See” (reminds me of the Triffids), Destroyer doing his best Talk Talk on a song called “Kaputt”, a sweet folk ditty called “Scarred For Life” (Slapp Happy), David Sylvian’s “Small Metal Gods” and the first Lambchop song I’ve actually liked in “Paperback Bible”.
