Artist	Song
The Real Tuesday Weld	The Day Before You Came
Ute Lemper	A Little Yearning
Leonard Cohen	Take This Longing
The Dresden Dolls	My Alcoholic Friends
Andrew Bird	Imitosis
J.U.F.	Balkanization of Amerikanization
Tom Waits	Heigh Ho
Holly Cole	Good Old World
Alison Krauss	Down to the River to Pray
The Blind Boys of Alabama	Wade in the Water
Elvis Costello & Allen Tousssaint	Tears, Tears, and More Tears
Jamie Lidell	What's the Use
The Staple Singers	Respect Yourself
Cat Power	Living Proof
Neko Case	John Saw That Number
Billy Bragg	A Change Is Gonna Come
Luminescent Orchestrii	Knockin'
Golem	School of Dance
Taraf de Haidouks	Dubala Dumba
Yuriy Gurzhy/Russendisko & Friends v. Zelwer	The New Adventures of Soldier Tufaiev

Comment:

This mix is built out from the first song, which (although you'd never know it from listening to it) is a cover of an ABBA song--and a beautiful reimagining at that. I made the transition to Ute Lemper before I knew that The Real Tuesday Weld had opened for her in several shows. I suppose I was thinking about Leonard Cohen and desire even before this, thanks to Philip Glass's BOOK OF LONGING. And there was something about all the rough-around-the-edges cabaret sound that took me naturally to Dresden Dolls, and that mood sustains itself through Andrew Bird's bleak biological vision into "Balkanization of Amerikanization" (watch for later recurrence of Tziganizatsia) and "Heigh Ho" (Disney, eat your heart out), coming to a kind of comfort in Holly Cole's Tom Waits cover.

There is something new that starts with Alison Krauss and the Blind Boys of Alabama, turns happily sad with Elvis + Allen, becomes questionable with Jamie Lidell and then more pronounced with the Staple Singers, Cat Power, and Neko Case, and truly optimistic with Billy Bragg.

It is only the music that takes us from him to the Luminescent Orchestrii's portrait of Brooklyn and then into the ultimate haywire of Golem, Taraf, and Yuriy Gurzhy. Maybe the last song, about the plight of perpetual immigrants, picks up some of the earlier moods as well.

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