Mixtape Week: Sunday

It's Sunday, so today's mixtape is one designed to help you in your quest to get your chill on on this most cold chillin' of days. Bank holiday tomorrow too, so you know that your chill isn't going to be all tainted by thoughts of dread at having to get up so dang early tomorrow.

Oh, and it's a double again. 30 tracks of the most chillingest stuff out there.


YER MAM!'S MIXTAPE WEEK: SUNDAY

DISC ONE

1. iLiKETRAiNS - Spencer Perceval (Latest single from a band that could be, given a couple of years and a kickarse debut album, one of the best bands in Britain. Sounds like the end of the world.)
2. Soulsavers - Revival (Mark Lanegan could sing the phone book and make it sound like a death march. The gospel choir and crashing piano chords give proceedings a hopeful tinge, but you know that Mark Lanegan would eat your soul given half a chance.)
3. Angie Stone - Wish I Didn't Miss You (The closest thing that the nu-soul niche has gotten to the spirit of the old stuff. It helps that it lifts the tune from The O'Jays' 'Backstabbers', mind.)
4. Benny Sings - For Your Love (Skirting the outer edges of cheesedom, occasionally dipping a cheeky toe in Camembert lake, Benny Sings is a kind of post-modern take on 70s soul music. The irrepressible groove of this tune elevates it to essential status. Not bad for something that could easily have just been a one-note joke.)
5. Marvin Gaye - I Want You (And now the real thing. Oozing sex and class, you just know that Marvin got the dames in the house all worked up whenever he belted this one out.)
6. Otis Gayle - I'll Be Around (Low-key lover's rock take on the Detroit Spinners classic. Gayle plays it straight down the line, but adds a lilting ska facet to the soul standard.)
7. Owusu & Hannibal - Le Fox (Bubbling, smoky soul from Ubiquity's Danish duo. Their album from last year, Living With... is one that I've only recently discovered. One of 2006's most slept-on gems.)
8. Blue Six - Fast Free Delivery (The lyrics are pure fromage, but the groove is addictive. Reminds me of some Acid Jazz stuff, actually. Not as bad a thing as you might be thinking.)
9. Soul II Soul - Fairplay (The tune that got one of Britain's best ever soul acts a record deal still sounds like it could light up any dancefloor in the known world, despite being nineteen years old now.)
10. William Onyeabor - Body And Soul (Ten-plus minutes of pure, uncut African funk. You know it makes sense.)
11. James Brown - Hell (You've got to love a song that starts with a gong being struck, but there's no need to seek an excuse to like this tough, funky little unit.)
12. Little Milton - More And More (Blues-flecked funky soul number from one of music's true greats who never really got the dues he deserved. Time to rectify that, I think.)
13. Caetano Veloso - Outro (From Veloso's 2006 album, Ce, this sounds like The Strokes transplanted to Rio at carnival time. Great stuff.)
14. Lavender Diamond - Like An Arrow (Menacing, lurching, folk-funk from the band's superb debut album, Imagine Our Love, out tomorrow on Rough Trade.)
15. Claudine Longet - God Only Knows (Longet's story is a strange one that takes in Andy Williams, the Folies Bergeres and criminally negligent homicide. There isn't a dash of her colourful life in this very French version of The Beach Boys' perennial though.)
16. Fifty Foot Hose - God Bless The Child (Yep, a psychedelic, bad trip run through of the Billie Holiday tune. It's done fairly straight but with loads of added weird moog effects.)
17. The National - Start A War (Matt Berninger is easily one of the best singers and lyricists in American rock music right now and this cut from the forthcoming Boxer album is just one of the reasons why.)

DISC TWO

1. Colourbox - Looks Like We're Shy One Horse (This post-punk/dub/spaghetti western epic is one of my favourite songs of all time and I don't think I've ever put it on a mixtape before. "You brought two too many". A wink and a thumbs-up to anyone who can name the film the dialogue is taken from in the comments box.)
2. Seko Molenga And Kalo Kawongolo - Moto Ya Motema (In 1977, Lee Perry apparently stumbled upon these two Zairean musicians after they had been abandoned by their manager in Kingston. He took them into his Black Ark and got them to cut a record with The Upsetters. This is just part of the result of those sessions, but it should be enough to urge you to seek out the album.)
3. Gina X Performance - Nice Mover (Slinky as fuck, this art-disco groover was so far ahead of its time that we're still catching up.)
4. My Sister Klaus - Call Yourself (Everything on My Sister Klaus' debut album, Chateau Rouge sounds like a pastiche, but in a good way. This is his mid-70s Bowie tune.)
5. !!! - Heart Of Hearts (The Brothers Mix) (The Brothers take the hectic punk-funk original and slow it down to a nice, dreamy pace, ditching the vocal on the way. In fact, it's pretty much unrecognisable. Like a completely different song.)
6. Diskjokke - Once More With Violence (The highlight from Jokke's Heft & Plunder EP on Kindisch, this is a tech-y, space-disco number that is just another in a long line of bombs from the fjords.)
7. Sorcerer - Surfing At Midnight (Trippy, Balearic disco from the Tirk stable. The Prins Thomas miks on the flip is worth a look, but it's the original that I prefer.)
8. Magnus International - Kosmetisk (What is in the water up there?! I'm fucking moving to Norway as soon as I can.)
9. Howard Wales - Rendezvous With The Sun (Another tune that begins with a gong, this is a surging sci-fi funk number favoured by DJ Harvey. Anything he gives the seal of approval to is good enough for me.)
10. Ahmad - Back In The Day (Remix) ("Jerome, Jerome, put on that Bobby Womack!")
11. Funkadelic - I'm Never Gonna Tell It (Really digging this one at the moment. Thanks to Royksopp for putting it on their Back To Mine mix.)
12. Lindstrom & Prins Thomas - Mighty Girl (As featured on the upcoming Reinterpretations collection, this is the one with those arpeggios that just will not quit. One of my personal L&PT faves.)
13. Marshall Jefferson Vs. Noosa Heads - Mushrooms (Salt City Orchestra Remix) ("And I never saw that girl again.... And I never took a mushroom again" Absolute classic.)

Sunday's Mixtape, Ripped, Zipped And Sent Into Space