The latest and greatest season mix

"Almost Anything" - Spring 2011

1. Friendly Fires - Live Those Days Tonight
2. My Morning Jacket - Holdin' on to Black Metal
3. Here We Go Magic - Hands in the Sky
4. Dodos - Good
5. Beastie Boys ft. Nas - Too Many Rappers
6. Land of Talk - Hamburg, Noon
7. Tune-Yards - Bizness
8. LCD Soundsystem - Pow Pow
9. Wild Nothing - Chinatown
10. The Mountain Goats - Estate Sale Sign
11. Junip - In Every Direction
12. TV on the Radio - Will Do
13. Peter, Bjorn and John - (Don't Let Them) Cool Off
14. !!! - Heart of Hearts
15. Radiohead - Codex
16. Panda Bear - Afterburner
17. Fleet Foxes - Grown Ocean

Annotations:

-This was a tough one to put together because there were a LOT of close calls. I would've loved to include Crystal Stilts' "Through the Floor", Battles' "Futura", and Iron & Wine's "Your Fake Name is Good Enough for Me", but a CD's only 80 minutes.

-Also Fleet Foxes' "The Shrine/An Argument", which I have the clearest memory of from seeing their concert in May. Awesome show and awesome song, but it was just too long for the mix, and "Grown Ocean" is no slouch at all (the more I think about it, the more it feels like my favorite song on the new album).

-"Pow Pow" is supposedly the last song LCD Soundsystem ever made, so it feels like a fitting representation of the season that saw the band bid us farewell. (Too bad it wasn't actually played at their farewell show, but oh well.) Speaking of, I never got around to writing up a blog entry about the retirement of one of my all-time favorite bands - and experiencing their last show via webcast in a house full of friends - but maybe I'll get around to that at some point.

-John Darnielle does righteous anger better than just about anyone, and I'm not saying this was an angry season for me (could've been, but wasn't), but you can't help but get swept up in his enthusiasm on songs like "Estate Sale Sign". Darnielle sounds more alive here than he has in a good while, and the rest of All Eternals Deck is pretty great, too. Also: Pomona gets another shout out!

-Junip is the new band of Jose Gonzalez - who everyone in the world except me is already familiar with, I think. The production alone on this album, and this song especially, is just incredible. There aren't many albums that make you feel like you're in the room with the dudes while they're playing, but this is one. Now I have to go out and track down Gonzalez's other work, too.

-I dunno if it's a happy accident or I'm just that awesome, but a lot of the transitions just KILL on here. "Good" into "Too Many Rappers" shouldn't work nearly as well as it does, and the fade from "Codex" to "Afterburner" feels sublime to me. Overall I think this is one of my best sequencing jobs yet, so allow me to pat myself on the back.