Artist	Song	Buy
Kenyan Songs and Strings	Chemirocha [Kipsigis] w/Chemutoi Ketienya & Girls
from Kenyan Songs and Strings
R.E.M.	Strange
from Document (1987) I finally heard the original version of "Strange" (on Wire's Pink Flag) last year, and while I love it, it made me appreciate the R.E.M. version I heard in high school--bravura, loud, beery, and outrT.
Soul Coughing	Rolling
from El Oso (1998) It's a pity that Mike Doughty has disavowed the Soul Coughing discography, because tunes like "Rolling" were made for delicious cognitive dissonance--the luxury and assonance of the words and the thick beats.
Zola Jesus	Vessel
from Conatus (2011) Zola Jesus was a discovery for me about this time last year. "Vessel" is the strangest arrangement of the album, with Nika Roza Danilova's voice hocketing into the echoing void at the opening over a sort of middle-period Dead Can Dance accompaniment. And that's just the opening.
Beastie Boys	Bodhisattva Vow
from Ill Communication (1994) I miss Adam Yauch.
The Roots	Right On
from How I Got Over (2010) "Right On": Who knew that Joanna Newsom made such a good chorus for hip-hop?
Shu-De	Yraazhy Kys (The Singing Girl)
from Voices From The Distant Steppe (1994)
Christian Scott	The Eraser
from Yesterday You Said Tomorrow (2010) Christian Scott's "The Eraser," its strikingly original jazz arrangement of Thom Yorke's original, has been in heavy repeat since I heard the album last year. The whole album is worth checking out.
Thom Yorke	Harrowdown Hill
from The Eraser (2006) "Harrowdown Hill" gives you an opportunity to hear Yorke's original glitchy percussion against the jazz acoustic original. Not as starkly tense as some of Radiohead's earlier (or later) works, it feels a little more personal but still despairing.
Sonic Youth	Jean-Baptiste a la fenOtre
from Simon Werner a Disparu (2011) Sonic Youth's final(?) recording, a soundtrack, carries enormous tension throughout it even if you don't understand the cinematic context of the songs, which, um, I don't. Still absorbing.
School Girls In Kayne	Tshetlha Di Kae
from Tswana and Sotho Voices (2000)
The Jesus & Mary Chain	Half Way To Crazy
from Automatic (1989) I dug out "Automatic" the other day--still a great album all these years later.
Sleigh Bells	Infinity Guitars
from Treats (2010) I found Sleigh Bells thanks to Molly Young's plug for the band (she plays the gum-chewing cheerleader in the video for this song). I like the second album better as an album but "Infinity Guitars" is still an astonishing kick to the head.
Radiohead	Staircase
from The Daily Mail & Staircase (2011) Someday Radiohead will make a full album that "Staircase" fits into and I'll be a happy man.
My Morning Jacket	One Big Holiday
from It Still Moves (2003) My Morning Jacket's It Still Moves was the last of the early albums and the one I love best, I think. This one reminds me of growing up in the South.
Bera Pygmies	Skipping Song
from Music Of The Rainforest Pygmies (1961)
Sonic Youth	Antenna
from The Eternal (2009)
Zola Jesus	Hikikomori
from Conatus (2011)
Robert Plant	Silver Rider
from Band of Joy (2010) Robert Plant's cover of "Silver Rider," from the underappreciated Low album The Great Destroyer, is both hypnotic and wholly respectful of the original.
Low	You See Everything
from C'mon (2011) Low's most recent album is the one I've liked best since The Great Destroyer. "You See Everything" is a great spotlight for Mimi Sparhawk's voice.
Sun Kil Moon	Moorestown
from April (2008) Finally we get to "Moorestown." After the psychedelic wonderland of Ghosts of the Great Highway, it took a long time for Sun Kil Moon's acoustic albums to grow on me. But this one had been waiting to find me, and today I realized it was the closer.

Comment:

I wasn't expecting to do another mix so soon after the last one (the business), but this one was kicking around for a while. As always, I was throwing songs I liked to listen to into a temporary playlist called "next," but couldn't figure out how to link them all together. Then one day I heard a recording of Kenyan girls singing (like so much these days, it surfaced out of my library on shuffle), and I said "Hmm." I threw a handful of short world music songs into the mix (from an album of Tuvan throat singing, an Internet-curated collection of African music, and a historic field recording of the Bera pygmies from the 1950s), shuffled them about until I got the right order, and before long I had something that seemed set to shuffle into the ear in the same way that the songs had wormed their way into my mind. This mix was the result.

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