Now with 30% less hope!

Oh, and first things first: http://www.sen dspace.com/file/byfd4n

I'm sure many of you recognize this mix. I asked Eric about deleting the original because i was re-creating it, but he said that would be a pain. He also said i'd lose points, but i was ok with that.

And i'm sure some people are wondering why i didn't remake "The Soundtrack to your Depression" as it's done better rating-wise and all that. But to be honest, i like this one a lot more. I was really happy with the way the original turned out and since i made it, i wanted it to get better ratings than it had, as it's my second-favorite of the ones i've made. But honestly, i think this revision makes it even better. Just a few songs are different, the order has been changed a bit, and i think it just makes it that much better.

The idea here is...a bit darker, a bit more delusional and a bit more desperate than the original version. While i wanted to stay away from songs that really toe the line between limerence and love with the original version, that line can be very blurry when you're all by yourself. And maybe it's not just because "it would work better for this contest."

Oh, and in case you're wondering aout the title and artwork...the original used the lovely Audrey Tautou. This is because she's in a film called "À la folie... pas du tout" (English title: He Loves Me, he Loves me Not). In it, she plays an erotomaniac, which is the tie-in there.

Erotomania is a disorder in which a person holds the delusional belief that another person, usually someone they have very little or no contact with, is in love with them.

So then why the switch to Anna Karina now? Simply because i firmly believe that she is the pinnacle of human aesthetcs. And i guess that's not really saying that much, because we are notoriously awkward creatures. But even so, oh my. If i had a time machine, i would most certainly make an attempt to sweep her off of her feet.

So then, do i actually envy erotomaniacs?

...

Don't ask silly questions. Of course i do.

I guess this whole tape is sort of a critique of punk, by the people who play it. This tape is dedicated to the assholes, the hangers-on, people looking to cash-in, the tryhards, the fashion-obsessed, the fakes, the elitist wannabes, the hypocrites, and oh...so many others.

I decided to keep this one short, keeping it to one side of a 60-minute tape. This isn't due to a lack of material, as every hardcore band ever has written at least one song about "the scene." In fact, it's all some bands write about, and i think it makes for pretty vapid lyrics. It doesn't really matter how clever you are or how many good lines you use, when it's all you talk about, that's lame. So the length of this tape is simply because there's not a lot to say about it, and i didn't really want to rehash the same messages for another thirty minutes. I considered making this just side two, and making side one completely ironic...basically songs by bands who are being hypocritical, inane, or who fall into the catagories above. So i'd include bands like Chain of Strength (lolz @ "True 'til Death"), Vegan Reich, Anti-Flag (i was thinking "Angry Young and Poor" would be a great choice), the Casualties, et cetera. But eventually i decided i wasn't much into that idea. So instead of having to endure thirty minutes of shit before the good stuff, it's just straight to the fun. Enjoy.

The covers mx is one of the staples of mixtaping. Here are some i enjoy...and i think that's about all i have to say here.

I think the title prettymuch says what you'll hear here.

This is a mix exclusively containing shoegazing, nügazing, and dreampop. If played at high volumes, the induced effects may include arousal, a loss of coordination, a spontaneous wish to not be wearing clothes anymore, and it's not entirely out of the question to find your legs giving way and writhing on whatever surface you have fallen onto in order to better feel the texture of it against your skin while these songs lovingly, lustingly caress your eardrums.

If you don't believe me, simply say so and i'll upload it for you to judge for yourself.

This is a mix of all free jazz & avant-jazz...although i don't think there's a real difference between the two of them. The general idea is that as the tracks go on, the dissonance gradually increases, although i don't really have an objective measure of "dissonance" so maybe i mixed one or two up in the order.

So now you're probably thinking, "Why did you do a mix of all free jazz? Are you realy that goddamn pretentious?" To the second question, the answer is yes. But more than that, i like to expose people to things they haven't heard before. A lot of people have heard Miles Davis, but not many have heard Ornette Coleman. A lot of people know who John Coltrane is, but are largely unaware of the chaos of his later works.

And that brings me to another point. Free jazz is probably one of the most influential types of music to the kind of music i'm most interested and involved in, which would be diy punk and noise and the points at which they cross. Lou Reed cited Ornette Coleman as a major influence; Lightning Bolt likes Sun Ra. Emo, especially, has taken a lot of influence from free jazz: for instance on the back of Swing Kids' first 7", you'll find a quote from Cecil Taylor. But more than that, you'd have to be deaf to not hear the paralells in the cacophony and chaos found in many emo bands and the similar dissonance in the climactic parts of a free jazz movement. And of course noise would simply not exist without free jazz first setting a precedent.

Oh, and if you're asking "Is this the last time you'e going to put something pornographic on a mixtape cover?" the answer is maybe.

Side b. No further explanation needed.

This is a real mixtape i made for a person which doesn't have a unified title, only the seperate sides have titles. So here is side a.

I can't really account for the length only i know that tape stretches...and i know all of these songs made it onto side a. I don't really feel like being as descriptive about these songs as with some of my more conceptual mixes.

Oh, and the cover art probably seems "lazy" to you. But the thing is, with this mixtape i made a complete set of liner notes using my local library's photocopier. And for the cover, i wanted something minimal...so i just cut words out of a newspaper. Do you have any idea how hard it is to work with such tiny pieces of paper as the words in a newspaper?

This is something of a companion tape to my previous offering. A lot of bands / artists link the loss of love with depression, but they're quite different. These are songs for the lovelorn.

This tape isn't about blaming someone because they don't love you in return or feeling sorry for yourself. It's about seeing the beauty in sadness, in realizing that if you truly love someone, you'lll want them to be happy no matter who they are with. It's about how someties things go wrong and it's nobody's fault....and it's about a hundred other things. Just listen to it, and i think you'll understand.

Or maybe, you already do understand...all too well. Kisses.

This is not intended to be a completely sarcastic thing, although it is partially one i suppose, simply because i have a habit of not taking anything seriously. I have been depressed with relative consistency for several years now, and while it's not exactly a picnic, i'm not about to blow my brains out tommorow either.

For me, depression is not so much about feeling "sad" all the time, though like any other humanoid being (besies game show hosts, naturally) i go through periods of sadness, and i also go through periods of happiness. To me it's more about feeling isolated from other people, about forcing smiles more than i should, and about...well, as Ernest Hemingway said, "Even in the middle of a crowd, i was always alone."

So with that having been said...here are some songs i enjoy listening to when i'm really down. They don't make me feel better necessarily...which could be why i listen to them when i'm so down.

Oh, and there's other words and phrases hidden in the cover art? Can you find them all? If you do, you'll get...well, absolutely nothing to be honest.

Intended format: 60 minute tape (the time limit here should be raised to 90 minutes, for srs)
Side a: 29.13
Side b: 29.57

All Japanese bands / artists. This mixtape will hit you like you're starring in a bukkake porn.

Now you're probably thinking, "What, no [name of band or artist here]?"

Well, to be completely honest, i plan on making a second one due to the limited amount of time i have, and an overabundance of great Japanese bands and or artists. So either the band or artist you've named above will appear on the next tape (i probably won't make a volume three, though i wouldn't completely rule it out), or they suck.

Intended format: 60 minute tape.
side a [1-6] length: 29:29
side b [7-12] length: 29:50

There are lots of people who think that politics are just an obligation, to be fulfilled whenever necessary.

There are also a lot of people wo think art is something to be passively experienced. In gallerias, theaters, wherever.

Those people don't get it. Politics doesn't simply affect you everyday life, politics is a part of your everyday life, whether you like it or not. These are my politics, this is my life.

Similarly, it is not art that imitates life or life that imitates art...life simply is art, and art is life. Art is not something to be passively experienced, art is only art when it is paticipatory.

This is an ode to Situationalist International...those people who realized the poverty of everday life could only be changed through art. These songs are about isolation, solitary confinement in a prison without walls, but which is impossible to escape from. These songs are about mass media, about control. And most importantly of all...these songs are about art as the revolutionay's only recourse.

More than an ode, however, this is a challenge. Read DeBord. Read Vaniegem. Read Adorno, Focault, Marcuse. Only don't take what they say for gospel, just because they're dead now. Think critically. Educate yourself, because the only class they're teaching anymore is, "Becoming a Gear 101"

Side note: You may notice tha the length seems a bit short. This is not because of a lack of material or lazinesss, although you are free to see it as the latter if you like; but as to the former i have to object. There were several songs that i wanted to include but couldn't due to the time constraints of this chosen format. Side two of the tape is intended to be occupied by twenty-one minutes of static, followed by twenty-four minutes of complete silence. This is intended to be referential to Guy DeBord's famous (or infamous) film, Howlings in Favor of Sade, which is simply white frames with a soundtrack of speaking, intersparsed with black frames and silence. The final twenty-four minutes fall into the latter catagory; a black screen with complete silence.