Painting by Henry Darger - KING of Outsider art

As this is an excessively long post I thought I’d liven it up with pictures by my favourite artist – Henry Darger! I first actually saw his paintings actually in the flesh (not even on the internet first or anything!!) at a weird exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill. I was there for afternoon tea for my Gran’s birthday circa early 2007 and they happened to have a show including his work!

His story is completely crazy and is worth a look up on Wikipedia… the documentary about him is also good but they animate his drawings and give them voices which is a bit cringe to death! Oh and of course, the Vivian Girls are named after the girls in his painting (if you didn’t know already).

Anyway, onto MY MIXTAPE!!

♫ amanda blank – i would like you better if we slept together (MP3)

Vocal effect-A-LI-CIOUS from my favourite ‘first lady of acid wash’ rapper Amanda Blank! I don’t understand how she hasn’t had more success in her solo career but there it is… although I’m sure it’s because dumb straight boys don’t like female rappers!

♫ baby monster – curses (MP3)

Twinkley electronics with grimy beats – reminds me of a dark postal service. Apparently, they’re going to be touring the UK but no news of that yet! I guess check out their Myspace.

♫ harlem – south of france (MP3)

It sounds like vintage american rock with frank black-esque vocals. Something about the fact that he screams that ‘I hate every book I’ve ever read’ in the chorus makes me joyous – it’s the kind of thing that I would say with the sole intention of winding up intellectuals (when in fact I’ve not hated a book I’ve read; you just would stop reading it wouldn’t you – haha!).

♫ matt & kim – daylight (MP3)

To me, this is some kind of lost big number from a broadway musical, reworked into an epic summery anthem. It’s been knocking about for quite a few months but hey, what’s so cool about being fresh!

♫ miike snow – animal (fake blood remix) (MP3)

Miike Snow’s humming and sweet voice take on monsterous distorted bass bomps from Fake Blood! It’s like classic Japanese monster movie, Mothra vs Godzilla… his vocals would be Mothra CLEARLY.

♫ snob scrilla – spaceship (MP3)

For the Star Trek geek in me LOVES this lo-fi N.E.R.D.fest. ‘SPACESHIP SPACESHIP SPACESHIP!’ Although I have to admit that my favourite SciFi rapping came from Princess Superstar’s album My Machine back in 2005! Lady rappers > boy rappers AGAIN! This is still a really good song though!

♫ the phenomenal handclap band – 15 to 20 (MP3)

PURE F-U-N!! If you don’t have the 5 times table stuck in your head after a listen to this I’LL DIE!  Lady Tigra previous of L’Trimm fame supplied the vocals for this. You’ll find loads of early Le Tigre fans also love L’Trimm’s 80s classic ‘Cars that go boom’ as it was widely shared, p2p, mislabelled as a Le Tigre track – check it out (why is everything good being leached out of YouTube?). OOoooo FACTUAL!

♫ vomit supreme – versus love (MP3)

I have to be honest as say this song is skimpy on vocal/lyrical excellence but where it lacks, it MORE than makes up for it in epic soundscapes and crashing guitar dirges that make my heart soar! Also, HELLO amazing name! They are Danish so I’ll forgive them the lack of lyrics! Promoted as part of the June Musical Alliance Pact!

♫ wave machines – i go i go i go (MP3)

Funny uplifting ditty using all manner of tiny instrument noises weft into a wonky pop song! I think another reasons I love this song is because when he sings ‘I go, I go, I go’  I can’t help imagining that it’s ‘Iko Iko (Unday)’. MY ONLY UK BAND – SHAME ON ME! Quite a good video!

♫ woods – to clean (MP3)

Lo-fi drone-zone backing lightened with undeniably sweet high-pitched vocals. A blog I just read described them as ‘Brooklyn freak folk’ which sounds good to me so I stole it. I imagine, if you’re in a band, one person comes up with a description and then that becomes what you are for THE REST OF TIME due to lazy blogging… like my own!! Classic me times three (I just came up with that… feel free to re-appropriate).

Hope you enjoyed!!!!