fixtapes, number one
love (love love!)

Written by

fixtapesone

Download fixtapes, number one. (DropBox).

“I’m sorry that I fell so far and I hope that you still love me,” he mumbled. “Let’s just smoke cigarettes and pretend we’re not upset.” Burning embers lit the dried butts in the ashtray, flickered, went out. He recalled the days they wasted on love (love love!), how they faded from the winter onwards. Hoping their affections would maybe sprout wings, passing afternoons hiding in the forests, imagining that the songbirds’ calls were their own. Nerves normal, breath normal, speaking of love and life and other things they knew nothing about. Laughing as they yelled jumbled phrases they thought were funny: “I THINK ABOUT TAKING CARE OF YOU SOMETIMES!” “NOW THAT I’M OLDER, I FEEL DIFFERENT ABOUT THINGS!” “QUETZALCOATL EATS PLUMS!” She loved The Mountain Goats. He recalled the first time he saw the ocean. Her father offered to drive them to it, took a day off work to indulge in the frivolities of childish romance. Gazing outwards, he offered an aphorism: “This is where God does his laundry,” as the whitewash cuddled the sand.

She stood from her seat cross-legged on the ocher patio, ignoring the brunt of his recollections. She muttered, disdainfully, about how he was obsessed with Lost Memories and Things Being Their Thing and how tiring that was – a mental drain – for her. Turning, she offered her parting words – “it’s over” – and left.

I’m Sorry That I Fell So Far & I Hope That You Still Love Mecontron.
Let’s Just Smoke Cigarettes & Pretend We’re Not Upsetcontron.
Burning EmbersLou Reed.
The DaysFrench Club.
Love Love LoveOf Monsters & Men.
Faded From The Winter OnwardsIron & Wine.
Maybe Sprout WingsThe Mountain Goats.
Passing AfternoonsIron & Wine.
Nerves Normal, Breath NormalWintersleep.
Now That I’m OlderSufjan Stevens.
Quetzalcoatl Eats PlumsThe Mountain Goats.
Where God Does His LaundrySpanish Prisoners.
Lost MemoryLexie Roth.
Our ThingElliott Smith.
It’s OverTom Waits.

Download fixtapes, number one. (DropBox).

Your childhood is over.

Written by

Swans – Lunacy (ft. Alan Sparhawk & Mimi Parker)

There was a car crash on one of our nation’s highways two nights ago. A drunk police officer was responsible. Three people died: a mother and her two young daughters. Three others, injured. Media outlets printed a picture of the older daughter, prone on the road, wearing a mask of blood. The next day, there was a protest. There were clashes with the police. A racist journalist said the police should gun the (mostly black) protesters down and “plant cabbages” where they stood. Today, a famous musician got off ridiculously lightly for beating the shit out of a citizen a few years ago. In the global/national/whatever scheme of things, this isn’t really big news. But it isn’t not-news either. It’s just what happens here.

I wish this was fiction.

[The Seer.]

My unfounded theory

Written by

My Bloody Valentine – Wonder 2 (mp3 removed)

Eating, shitting and sleeping. That’s what life essentially consists of, according to my dad sometimes. There’s a level of truth to this, reductive as it is, if you exclude things like doing drugs, talking about and wildly exaggerating drug stories with friends, travel, getting into relationships, sex, playing video games, The Internet, and enduring the manifold awkwardness that modernity confronts us with on a regular basis. Still, the three things mentioned at the top of the paragraph are different, because they retain meaning despite the fact that we do them all the time. P.S. This is 63% of why Louis C.K. is a transcendentally funny man.

Ever have a 5-second epiphany, while watching some professional sporting event – football in my case – about how utterly, completely absurd it is? Like, a bunch of humans running at insane speeds, physically jousting with each other, often violently, stretching themselves to the limits of their own strength . . . in order to kick a round piece of leather into a mesh netting. What? I mean, I love it, but I have no idea why. It is not an unhappy experience, though, simply a weird one – a gentle reminder from your own mind of how strange your existence is. There is something to be said for being disoriented (or disorientated, if you’re British).

The new My Bloody Valentine record is quite brilliant and you should buy it if it’s your kind of thing, but you didn’t really need me to tell you that, really, because almost all of the Very Serious Music Critics can tell you and have already told you that. I do, however, have a theory about this record, one for which there is no real evidence.

My theory is that each song on m b v represents – well, not “represents” but has some sort of strange relationship with – different types of sexual encounters. These include: sensual, lovely, romantic sex; contrived, camera-voyeurism sex; graduation sex; sweaty, tight, period sex; a type of sexual encounter which has not yet been experienced on this planet, but which, if it were to take place, would happen in the back of an airplane charged with unloading apocalyptic explosives upon humanity (“Wonder 2”).

According to this theory: The album took 22 years to be released because, well, Kevin Shields took his time accumulating the necessary experiences. Then he turned these things into sound.

[m b v.]

Make my sad songs sincere

Written by

puppy dog eyes

The Magnetic Fields – No One Will Ever Love You

I’m second choice with the dog even. Third, really. Rawles prefers either roommate over me.

If we’re alone in the apartment, he’s affectionate. He’ll burrow into my chest as I’m watching soccer, or prance around in excitement as I put on my shoes, or sleep in my bed, his chin resting on my stomach. But when someone else is around, the pecking order is clear.

Sometimes, when the humans are sitting on the couch watching Modern Family or something, I’ll call Rawles and pat my thighs. He’ll jump up, walk over my lap and snuggle with the roommate next to me.

For Valentine’s Day I bought myself 69 Love Songs.

The Magnetic Fields – (Crazy For You But) Not That Crazy

Because we live in the Western world and read from left to right, the steak knives on the left endure much heavier use. In the row of six along the bottom of the knife block in the kitchen, the far right one seldom leaves its slot. The two middle ones probably haven’t breathed fresh oxygen since we moved in three-quarters of a year ago.

The mug in the far right corner of the cupboard would probably leave a dust ring. The bottom small fork might have never tasted a human tongue.

Lately I’ve taken to remedying the imbalance. I shuffle the steak knives. I rotate the cups. I extract my silverware from the bottom. Everything deserves to be held on occasion.

I can’t tell if I’m OCD or just lonely.

[69 Love Songs.]

sensitive torso

Written by

Daniel Horowitz

Brian Eno – Becalmed

I need tea tree oil right now and tea tree oil is the only thing I need. No rest till tea tree oil. I gave away an almost-empty bottle to the people camping in my backyard to keep the mosquitoes away. We didn’t use to have mosquitoes. There’s a crater-sized ditch in our yard where we tried to dig a pool and never finished. Now the bottom’s choked with murky water and mosquitoes breed with fevered purpose. Did you know people who eat a lot of bananas attract more mosquitoes? I know that because for about a month I ate, like, a lot of bananas and mosquitoes went nuts for me, and then I stopped and so did the attention. Also, I read it somewhere.

Sometimes when I lie down I imagine the nerves in my fingers going out like burnt-out light bulbs one by one, and then my hands, and my arms and legs and feet too, gradually all my extraneous senses dropping out like a bad connection. Actually, truthfully I’ve only done that once or twice. I could probably sell it as a new form of meditation, but like, kind of unsettling meditation. That’s very 2013, I’d say. I don’t know where you’d stop, though, with the nerves dropping out. Like are you just a really sensitive torso, or do even your tastebuds fall away? If you get good at it you could stay like that for ages; unfeeling. You wouldn’t even notice the mosquitoes. Or maybe you would and you’d just let them bleed you dry.

I could tell you approximately how many mosquitoes it would take to drain a human body, one bite apiece. If that’s something you’d like to know. But first I think I’ll just lie here for a while. Think maybe I’ll start my own count.

[Another Green World.]

I’m not the girl you’re taking home

Written by

batman

Robyn – Dancing On My Own

Doing the Harlem Shake alone in your room on Valentine’s Day when the the drier buzzes.

[Body Talk.]

Round and round the block

Written by

yeyeye

Written by

mechanic hands

Daphni – Ye Ye

Squat in your sandals and shorts. Spit on the filthy concrete. Wet your finger in the spittle puddle and rub it on the tire valve. Screw the cap back on. Spin the recently replaced tire. Squeeze a tube of oil over the chain. Grease it down with your steady, blackened finger.

[Jiaolong.]

Woodpigeons

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Let’s not be friends.

Written by

[free download: Stupid.]