Stranger Turning Stranger - A Mixmas Miracle 2019 (Full Mix Leak 320 MP3 Album)

We’re doing this! 2019 2020 WHOOOOOO! 2019 2000! THE MIX OF THE FUTURE!

1. Ah, shoot…false start. This soundbar always hates my phone at first. NO SPOILERS, SOUNDBAR! Let me listen to Ohtis for a minute while it catches up. Come on, soundbar…you’re six feet away.

Great news – no more connection issues. I’m giving up on the traitorous soundbar and switching to headphones.

1. Nice opening – Four Tet-ish bloops and static. STATIC! That’s my sound of the year. And also strings, which are my other sound of the year. When I went through my candidates for my mix I realized I had a ton of static and strings. This is awfully nice but don’t go all Braveheart on m- Why is my kid talking to me? Can’t she see the headphones and doesn’t she remember that I JUST told her I was putting headphones in? I missed the transition to the new age space sounds but here they are now. I like the warbly closing plus STATIC!
2. Country twang, that’s my thang. Whoo dang! Drink TANG! “Tired of my sad songs”? Never! I heard promises of sad bastard music. Full horn section showtunes galore – I feel like there was a lot of this type of music this year. Kassi Valazza almost made my mix but it wasn’t meant to be because she had no static. I like the slide of that guitar, although this song kind of makes me want another country album by Karl Blau.

OK, I really want this on the speakers that I bought with HARD-EARNED MONEY holy crap I am feeling a little crazy. I need more of those chill, chill space sounds. That reminds me, I forgot to see who the first songs were. Let me use the CD as a way to block out the later songs so I only see what I want. THAT’S HIGH TECH. Oh hey, Slow Meadow. Did I help find this one? “Liminal” is a great word and is probably 41% of the reason I liked the book Liminal States. Song two was Faye Webster? I probably should have given that album more of a chance but I ended up getting more into Kassi Valazza instead. Who am I kidding? I’ve had years where half the songs on my mix were country-tinged singer/songwriter women.

3. Back on track, now on speakers! Ooh…uh…these are not my favorite vocals. It’s weird how close they are to the kind of androgynous warbling I really love but between the audio filter and the warbling falsetto it just sounds so forced. Oh look at that, it’s the Deerhunter album I hated. I think I would adore this song if it wasn’t trying so hard. Maybe they can make a covers album of their own songs but in the style of Halcyon Digest. Even better, in the style of Atlas Sound. Oh yeah – I remember liking this part at 2:30 way better the two times I listened to this album. I’ve really fallen out of love with Deerhunter, or at least newer Deerhunter. I do like a lot of the last half of this song but I’m not in this thing for HALF SONGS. I feel a little less crazy now but I still plan on shouting as much as possible. The whole song should have been the last 90 seconds, three times over. That’s kind of a mean trick to put an awful part at the beginning so that I like the last part even more, Deerhunter.
4. ORVILLE! YOU MADE IT! Orville was like three albums away from fitting on my mix but he’ll have to wait for the next album – there were just a few draggy spots on this one. I appreciate going from Rob Moran-level hardcore famous to doing something like this and his voice is pretty amazing. This album also has some fantastic lyrics and this song’s standout is obviously “spend a Johnny’s cash”. My favorite song was Winds Change but Buffalo Run was the one that was going to make it on my mix because it had the vibe I needed.
5. OHTIS! That opening line is what really got me to pay attention the first time I heard the album. Some years I worry that my mix will be all country and everyone will turn tail and remember it as worse than Transformers but guess what? NOTHING IS WORSE THAN TRANSFORMERS. This mix is 60% country so far and that’s just fine by me, pardner. Obviously I’m happy this song is on here because it was my number one album of the year, pardner. Every song stuck with me and at one point I think I listened to it at least 10 times in a row. Helps that it’s so short, pardner.
6. No wonder someone thought we were soul twins – there are strong parallels with my mix here. I had such a hard time with the two Tourist albums this year because they both had such different feelings while sharing a lot of the same sounds. My year was more Everyday than Wild so that’s probably why the earlier album won out with me. I like that this track is in the middle of the album because it feels more like a conclusion than an interlude so I’m paying attention to see why the mix is over so soon. TRICK MIX! NOT OVER YET!

Pardner

7. Oh, golly. Is this the saddest song? Also a trick – they’re all the saddest song. Even if I didn’t know he killed himself this whole album would be the saddest song. Every single track has a double meaning. My junior Mixmas elf stole my saddest song just because it’s about SNOW. It gets me because it’s less overt and there’s the meta aspect where the song sings about songs and it hits you that dead or alive, the person who recorded the song has become a ghost and the “whoa” chorus becomes longing moaning. My second saddest song is what made it to my mix and that one is much more overt the way Nights That Won’t Happen is. The play on words is cute but how cute is it to start a song with a direct statement about imminent suicide? I would have accepted a mix that was just every song on this album.
8. Space rock, help me meditate. There were a few of these kinds of albums this year (Moon Duo too-o!) and they all landed just outside of my mix. I liked a bunch of them but loved none of them. Some of my all-time favorite albums are space rock (Spacemen 3!) but the batch from this year didn’t have any true standouts for me, although I’m not complaining about getting a bunch of albums that I enjoyed having on all the way through.
9. I didn’t even have to make a second disc – this mix covered it for me! I liked this year’s…wait…last year’s Sharon Van Etten more than the last couple for the time and place. I managed to always have this album on at the right time this year and it helped raise it up for me, although it’s unlikely that anything will hold a candle to the timing of Epic for me a decade ago. “You Shadow” was my song. The biggest thing Sharon had to fight against with me was that this year was AMAZING for women with guitars, throaty voices, and a clever sense of playing with song structures and conventions. See also: like half the songs on my mix.
10. Will this be Swans? Low Roar? What else from my lost disc will be on here? Probably nothing now that I ask. Huh. Is this hardcore? Where’s Rob Moran when I need him most? TWO ROB MORAN REFERENCES! COUNT IT! This…might be from Transformers.
11. Oh thank God. Back to my disc two. This is one of the two Anna Tivel songs I had as possibilities – “Minneapolis” was the other. I thought this song was the perfect way to open an album. It’s just too bad that not every song on the album had the same sense to be in the right place at the right time. “Minneapolis” has all my favorite musical things though – ambiguity and clouds of dust. Just writing that puts me halfway to a decent song. Add in the last 90 seconds of that Deerhunter song and I’m ready to be an indie music superstar with as many as 15 fans!
12. Do I know this one? I do not. It has a bird name so whee! That’s probably why I liked the San Fermin album. I don’t like Electric Guitar, I learn over and over. I like electric guitars just fine and especially crunchy or staticky or fuzzy ones but rarely Electric Guitar. This is a little too 70s not-quite-easy-listening for me. I picture a lot of brown pants. It’s no Transformers but it’s also not something I would listen to more than once probably. I can’t understand the lyrics because the vocals are just too darn smooth, pardner. BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME, Robert Zimmerman. I might be getting a little tired. I do enjoy the faded horn outro.
13. Closing out with…sounds calm….sounds piano…sounds like something I don’t know. Eluvium. Did I listen to this? Maybe, but it didn’t stick. I used to totally hate piano unless it was really buried but I’ve become more piano-positive over the last few years. Moonface helped me reach this place of acceptance, and maybe even appreciation. Well this is nice. I appreciates it. It really turned a corner halfway through there without really doing a whole lot. It just occurred to me…I think I had more instrumental songs this year. First time?

What an adventure. There’s a small part of me that wishes there was less overlap so that I could discover new things but considering the insane volume of albums I listened to last year it’s not a total surprise. The dog is having a face-twitching dream and it’s probably in response to that restful last song. What a great way to close it out.

Good night, pardner.