mixtape (may 2009)

Something about a man laughing in an abattoir
Marnie Stern "Shea Stadium"
Dirty Projectors "Stillness Is The Move"
Deerhunter "Rainwater Cassette Exchange"
Animal Collective "Lion In A Coma"
Arch M "Cat Grave"
TV On The Radio "Playhouses"
Sonic Youth "Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)"
Cymbals Eat Guitars "Share"
Sunset Rubdown "Idiot Heart"
Deerhoof "Midnight Bicycle Mystery"
Silk Flowers "Flash of Light"
Black Dice "La Cucaracha"
The Field "The More That I Do"

Conversation fear: I happen to put together this latest mixtape the week the writer JG Ballard passed away. I've never been the most dedicated reader of Ballard (1930-2009) as I only got around finishing three of his novels but I would always appreciate him for having the balls to actually write a book as elegantly subversive as Crash in 1970, never mind that I found its nihilist sensibilities better articulated in David Cronenberg's perfectly executed film adaptation in 1996. Ballard's influence on rock musicians (from Joy Division to the Klaxons, apparently) has been well documented of late, since his death. I am not sure how much of this mixtape's music would lay claim to be directly Ballard-influenced, though I was fucking around a bit with some vaguely similar themes of technologically-enabled abattoir blues and free-floating anxieties here. Anyway.