Still Humming Lullabies Mixtape

As I’ve started working full time recently I’ve not had much spare time at all, and any of it that’s been spent on writing has been directed away from this blog and to matters that seem like they have deadlines. I have however had time to listen to music, there’s always time for music no matter what you doing and from that sprung the idea of making mixtapes to be posted here that some way relate to a specific activity. Being the brand conscious daddio that I am, the titles of the compilations in this series will probably all begin with “Still…”

Enough expository dialogue, today I present to you :

Still Humming Lullabies

Follow the link and type the 3 digit code displayed next to the box in the top right hand corner. There’ll then be a 25 second countdown and after that you just need to click the Download button that replaces the countdown. The files are compressed as an rar archive, so you’ll need to download WinRAR to decompress it.

The purpose of this compilation is not just to lull it’s listener to sleep, but to continue interacting the listener’s brain and grandly help orchestrate fantastic and grand dreams. No one dream in particular, but just to stimulate that subconscious creativity that dwells inside us all and manifests itself as we sleep. From the warped non-sensical dreams that trip over their own ideas and colours to the complex, plot driven sorts that upon waking feel like you’ve participated in an epic adventure, all the way to those that are of no discernable form; I believe dreams help lubricate a person’s imagination and can also be an awful lot of fun.

The theory that music can do all this, is all lovely and nice, but very probably untrue. However, during the making of the playlist I zoned out and submerged myself in the Land of Nod and in recent memory it’s not been so idea packed, plot driven and at the same time nonsensical as during this nap. To give you a taste of what I mean, this particular dream involved a child’s relationship with a book and his ability to travel to and from it’s magical lands in a circular/ouroboros manner due to it being published at regular intervals as a serial. Whilst it makes perfect sense to me there’s no way in hell I could delve any deeper than that and still have it make any sense to anyone else reading this. Which I see as reason enough to indulge this little theory and the perfect excuse to make a compilation of ambient, minimal and purely obtuse tunes.

Track 1 - goes nowhere - Melissa Welch

Taken from the 3 track ep “sleep-wake” that Melissa released in 2005 when she was only 16. It’s described everywhere as a very dream-like track and I can’t argue, making it the perfect starting point for us. I can’t find much about Melissa on the net she does however have a myspace page showcasing her most recent musical efforts.

Track 2 - Scenic Recovery - Labradford

From the self-titled 1996 release, this album saw Labradford dabbling with sampled and real time percussion which I’m informed had not been heard on previous Labradford releases. Later albums would see them embracing the string section amongst other consistencies of post-rock movement and the seeds of that to come0 are obvious in this track.

Track 3 - Subterraneans - David Bowie

The final track from the first of Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy”, and one of the few Bowie album’s I care for. The first half of the record features short, more pop-orientated songs whilst the second half is chocked with long instrumental tracks that can probably equally credited to the series’ collaborator, brian Eno.

Track 4 - I Wrote This Song for the Girl Paris Hilton - Vincent Gallo

Artistic Jack of all trades and probable colossal wanker, Gallo’s “outrageous” stunts include making his “disease-free” sperm purchasable over the internet for $1 million to anyone bar those of dark complexion and cursing film critic Roger Ebert’s colon with cancer. This song is taken from the 2001 Warp Records release “When” and probably appeared in the short film “Honey Bunny” featuring Paris Hilton, though it’s too pretty a song to hold that against it.

Track 5 - A Moment to Myself - Alex Smoke

Glaswegian minimal techno taken from his second album “Paradolia” available on Soma Records. I don’t know a whole lot about him and am far too lazy to research properly, but I know he’s in Cardiff at the end of the month and suggest you all check it out.

Track 6 - Over and Over - Apparat

Apparat aka Sascha Ring is part-owner of the label “Shitkatapult”, with himself having done a John Peel session in 2004 and the label being featured as label of the month on the show in July of the same year. Interesting bit of trivia, the first track released on the label was actually a rock ‘n’ roll release, fancy that.

Track 7 - Safety in Number One - A Cloud Mireya

A collaboration of members from Prefuse 73 and ON!AIR!LIBRARY!. Recorded as a side-project during down-time from their main bands, the collection of songs on the album “Singular” started off as lullabies with some stretching out to epic lengths, making them the perfect addition to this compilation.

Track 8 - Warszawa W Nocy - Dictaphone

German duo Dictaphone’s Nacht ep is all clicks and glitches layered with resonant ambience, their background in film scoring imbues the music with an emotional and human touch, seperating them somewhat from everyone else doing this sort of thing.

Track 9 - Little Red Riding Hood hit the Road - Robert Wyatt

Starting his musical life as a member of the influential Canterbury scene band The Soft Machine, Wyatt during his spell with the band Matching Mole jumping from a window during a drunken party and became paralysed from the waist down which led him to quit the band and drumming altogether. He spent his recuperative period rejigging what would’ve been the Matching Mole album into his second effort, the humourously titled “Rock Bottom”, from which this track was taken.

Amusingly, sabotaging a pub or bar’s atmosphere by selecting an obtuse, overly long, or song otherwise likely to irritate the clientele through use of an MP3 jukebox is generally referred to as “Wyatting”. Well, its amusing to smug, miserable old sods such as myself anyway.

As I’m an idiot and can’t figure out how to make a torrent file work properly, I’ll be using the webhost I’ve linked to above to host the files for the time being.

For best results Still Banging On recommends you start this compilation right before taking your 4 pm nap, at a moderate volume and on a sunny day.