The mix-tape. It’s a simple enough proposition, but one which is fraught with surprising complexities. Is the selection of tracks an honest brokering of personal tastes, a gamble on eclecticism, a randomly compiled gallery of passing fancies, or indeed a wish list? Is the person who puts the tape together revealing their innermost soul or providing something they think we want to hear? Perhaps even expect to hear. It’s almost impossible to say. If truth be known my own favourite song changes from day to day, from mood to mood and from person to person depending to whom I am talking to. It also depends on whether I intend to be unpredictable or whether I wish to be fairly pedestrian. Let’s face it, compiling a mix-tape is not something you undertake lightly. Excuse the dramatic nature of this claim, but it’s about as straightforward an exercise as holding your finger to your nose when you’re drunk. Mostly I equate it with what kind of Christmas card you’re most likely to buy. The mix-tape, like the card, must convey something about you, how you might see others, how you like others to see you. So which do you go for? The minimal geometric shapes? The snow-scene? The cute one? The silly one? The one you can ill afford but the one which she’s bound to be impressed by, the one that shows her you love her the most? You probably do all of these.
Unlike most mix-tapes, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy has compiled a collection of tracks that demonstrate the curve of light-alternative better than any mix-tape that’s yet been put together. The artists here make perfect sense: Beulah, Earlimart, Snow Patrol, The Handsome Family, Little Wings, Giant Sand, Fruit Bats, Home. If it wasn’t for Snow Patrol the selection would read like a roll-call for all the trashcan Americana of the last ten years. In terms of what inspires the heart and mind of the man, it’s also quite revealing; shockingly so on occasions. In fact, few artists could be as candid about there source material as this, revealing as it does a combination of lifts, steals and subconscious approximations. Want to know where Grandaddy sourced the ‘colourful and ever changing arrangements’ of tracks like ‘Hewlett’s Daughter’? Look no further than Beulah’s ‘Burned By The Sun’. The sad flowing chords of ‘Okay With My Decay’ listen to Earlimart. The whimsical misery of ‘I’m On Standby’? Check out Home’s ‘Comin’ Up Empty Again’. And what to get an idea of where the skewed arpeggios and synth sounds on ‘Now It’s On?’ emerged from? Have a peek at Goldenboy’s ‘Wild Was The Night’. For fans of the band, there’s even a cracking new Grandaddy track stuck on right at the end.
It’s a peerless collection of tracks, whatever the status or indeed the intent of the mind that formed them. Buy it, get ideas from it, get acquainted a little more with artists on it, pass it on to your mates, enjoy it. That’s what it’s all about.