Smokelit Flashback VI

"Snow-Coated Thought Cage"

[This is one post in a series about my music mixes.  The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use.  You may wish to read the introduction for more background.  You may also want to check out the first volume in this multi-volume mix for more info on its theme.

Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

We’re coming up on 5 years since we last visited the noir-infused trip-hop that is Smokelit Flashback, which was, once upon a time, my longest mix.  It’s been eclipsed lately by Salsatic Vibrato (and equalled by Shadowfall Equinox),¹ but there’s still a lot of great music to be discovered here, so let’s dive in.

You know, I talked a bit on Shadowfall Equinox V about how every volume of a mix is just a bit different from the others, even though they share strong connecting tissue.  In that same volume, I also talked about a song that kept getting bumped from one volume to the next because it didn’t quite fit on any of them.  And so it was with the Sneaker Pimps—one of the few trip-hop artists to see some pop success—with their classic “6 Underground,” which just barely failed to break the top 40 in the U.S.² but went all the way to #15 in the U.K.  It’s a great tune, but just a little too upbeat, too ... well, poppy ... for the other volumes of this mix.  So it kept getting pushed along until it found some volumemates to land with.  (And, honestly, opening volume VI with “6 Underground” was just too spot-on to pass up.)

One of the first such volumemates was “A Girl Like You” by Edwyn Collins, which is not really trip-hop at all, but certainly quite poppy.³  These two tunes are both so radio-friendly that, for a long time, I had them butting up against each other as the opening tracks of the volume.  But eventually I had to face the fact that, while the songs might pair nicely, a transition is more about the closing notes of one track and the opening notes of the next, and these two didn’t really gel in that way.  But despite their pop leanings, they both still have ... something ... something noir-ish and trippy and indelibly Smokelit Flashback.

So, somewhat stragely, this is a fairly upbeat volume of this mix.  Perhaps that’s most reflected in the fact that we see so few of our go-to artists here: of those artists with 4 or more tracks on the mix, only Hooverphonic makes it here: there’s no Naomi, no Portishead, and no Falling You.  Those appearing 3 times fare a bit better, with with Devics, Goldfrapp, and hands upon black earth all making their third appearance right here.  Hooverphonic’s “2Wicky” leans into the upbeat vibe, with its assurance that “SH-10151, this is the serial number of our orbital gun.” I wouldn’t call it uptempo, for sure, but the stacatto snare hits and swirling keyboards make it upbeat in my book.  Too, Goldfrapp’s breathy spoken-word vocals on “Utopia” lead to some crescendoes of high-pitched synth notes that make it difficult to classify as downbeat.  It’s a bit more difficult for Devics or hube to be upbeat, but the plaintive, saloon-piano of “Heaven Please” actually served as a pretty nice bridge between “6 Underground” and “Girl Like You.” As for hands upon black earth, “Ovforever” kicks off with the whispered repetition of “no dream is the earth ... just a dream,” but then acquires a driving synth beat that is not particularly upbeat, but not particularly downbeat either.⁴  It’s nearly 7 minutes of that, but somehow it works and doesn’t get repetitive.

Showing up for only the second time are Mono, Baco de Gaia, and Ugress.  Mono’s solid trip-hop bona fides will out, of course; while “The Outsider” is definitely a bit more upbeat than “Life in Mono,”⁵ it still retains the Portishead-like quality that made Siobhan de Maré the amazing front woman of not one but two trip-hop bands.⁶  Ugress, on the other hand, is quite often upbeat, as we’ve seen repeatedly on Paradoxically Sized World (volumes II, III, and IV) and dramatically on Fulminant Cadenza, but he can also be a bit dark, which we saw last volume.  “Queen of Darkness” has some great vocals, some wordless (and no doubt retuned) operatics that sound like the faux theremin of Star Trek, and a chilling sound bite from Christopher Walken’s portrayal of the archangel Gabriel from The Prophecy.⁷  Banco de Gaia’s chill (which is, of course, also called downtempo) is fairly consistent, but they did one club hit (“Obsidian”), and the vocal version of “Glove Puppet” I use here features the same singer, Jennifer Folker (who is also half of Dahlia, whom you may recall from volumes III and IV).  Folker’s soaring vocals sound almost like a plea, which is echoed in the lyrics (e.g. “please remember what I look like”).  Again, not exactly upbeat, but something more immediate than the standard downbeat fare.

In the “not particularly surprising” category, Wax Tailor’s lazy, swirling, exotica-adjacent trip-hop works well here.  It’s the first time we’ve seen the French producer, but almost certainly won’t be the last.  And surely you had to know we’d eventually get to Julee Cruise—the only shocking thing is that it isn’t a track off the Twin Peaks soundtrack, but rather from Graeme Revell’s excellent soundtrack for Until the End of the World, where it has just enough twangy guitar that it makes a perfect follow-on to “A Girl Like You.” And, considering that the last time we saw Kristin Hersh she was hanging out on Smooth as Whispercats, it shouldn’t be too weird to see her show up here.  The Throwing Muses alum has a tendency to sing lyrics that are just a bit ... off, and “Beestung” is no exception: I don’t know what a “snow-coated thought cage” is, but I just had to make it the volume title.  For this tune, the music is also a bit anxiety producing—I suspect it’s in a minor key, but I admit my musical acuity is insufficient to know for sure.  Although I still think “The Key” is the pinnacle of Hersh’s career, I also love “Beestung,” and was thrilled to get a chance to feature it here.

My most favorite find of all, though, would have to be Waldeck.  I originally discovered him because of his almost loungy cover of “Bai Mir Bist du Schön,” but he has so much range, as you may remember from hearing “The Night Garden” on Phantasma Chorale I.  Here, he epitomizes the more upbeat side of this mix with an extremely trip-hop-y tune which includes only a single lyric—the repeated whispered “get up”—backed by tinkling piano, a clarinet lick, some synth noodling, and a “scratchy record” overlay to give it some character.  It’s a sublime track, and it’s really the centerpiece of this volume.

Finally, our closer is a fairly well-known trip-hop tune (assuming you’re into trip-hop, that is), “Golden” by Thunderball.  Thunderball is a DC-based group on the label founded by the guys behind Thievery Corporation.⁸  “Golden” is a mellow instrumental that has a lot of character, which makes it the perfect note for closing out this mix.

Smokelit Flashback VI
[ Snow-Coated Thought Cage ]

“6 Underground” by Sneaker Pimps, off Becoming X
“Heaven Please” by Devics, off My Beautiful Sinking Ship
“A Girl Like You” by Edwyn Collins, off Gorgeous George
“Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” by Julee Cruise, off Until the End of the World [Soundtrack]
“My Favorite Plum” by Suzanne Vega, off Nine Objects of Desire
“Beestung” by Kristin Hersh, off Strings [EP]
“The Outsider” by Mono, off Formica Blues
“Communion (instrumental)” by Swing out Sister, off It's Better to Travel
“Get Up Carmen” by Waldeck, off Ballroom Stories
“2Wicky” by Hooverphonic, off A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular
“Ovforever” by hands upon black earth, off hands upon black earth
“Mary Ann” by Swingerhead, off She Could Be a Spy
“Glove Puppet [vocal version]” by Banco de Gaia, off Igizeh
“3:51 AM” by oOoOO, off Without Your Love
“Ungodly Fruit” by Wax Tailor, off Tales of the Forgotten Melodies
“Utopia” by Goldfrapp, off Felt Mountain
“Lost” by Emma's Mini, off Beat Generation Mad Trick
“Queen of Darkness” by Ugress, off Resound
“Golden” by Thunderball [Single]

Total:  19 tracks,  78:19

Of the more unusual picks, probably none is moreso than Swingerhead, whose dangerously-close-to-silly “She Might Be a Spy” was featured on Salsatic Vibrato IV.⁹  Well, apparently the “she” who “might be a spy” is the titular “Mary Ann,” because while this tune has an exotica feel that nearly pushed it into Zephyrous Aquamarine territory, it most brings to mind a spy movie soundtrack, thus bringing us full circle to my observation that Portishead sounded like the soundtrack for a very trippy James Bond movie that never was.  Plus it has those same Star-Trek-y theremin-adjacent wordless vocalizations that we heard on the Ugress track, so it just seemed perfect here.¹⁰

There’s only one proper bridge on this volume, which is courtesy of oOoOO (supposedly pronounced “oh” and supposedly designed to represent a hand: the little “o"s are the knuckles of tucked in fingers, and the big “O"s are extended fingers).  The San Franciscan artist is often called the pioneer of witch house (the genre for which Grimes is famous), but he’s also sometimes described as chillwave, and that’s a perfect label for “3:51 AM,” which has just a touch of hip-hop, but is mostly gothic-adjacent downtempo.  It’s the perfect lead-in to the quote from Jack Benny’s strange black comedy about Nazis To Be or Not to Be that is the opening of “Ungodly Fruit.”

That having been said, Swing Out Sister’s other instrumental track from It’s Better to Travel¹¹ serves much the same purpose as a bridge ... just a very long one.  But its jazzy meandering does work well to take us from the much more mellow trip-hop of Mono to the more evocative and upbeat Waldeck.

Suzanne Vega might seem an odd choice at first, but instead of thinking of her folksier fare such as “Luka” or “Tom’s Diner,” try remembering her whimsical side (featured on Bleeding Salvador I), or her slinkier side (from Slithy Toves I).  This is somewhere in between, though definitely leaning more toward the slithery sound of “Caramel” from the latter.  Perhaps it’s the echoey bass twang, or perhaps the Hammond organ sound, but this tune has put me firmly in mind of this mix for quite a while, and I was just waiting for a volume pop-tolerant enough to showcase it.

Last but certainly not least, I’m excited to finally introduce you to emma’s mini, a Seattle duo that Magnatune describes as “glamorously femme electropop.” Discovered via Magnatune, of course,¹² emma’s mini has a lot of great, upbeat music that definitely slots into the electropop genre, but “Lost” is kind of downbeat for them ... which means it’s pretty upbeat for Smokelit Flashback.  I thought it really captured the vibe of trip-hop trapped in an old black-and-white movie, though, so I slotted it for this mix, and this is where it finally bubbled up.  We’ll be hearing from them again on other mixes, I’m sure.¹³

Next time, I think we’ll take a second crack at getting smooth.

⇐ Smokelit Flashback V

Smokelit Flashback VII ⇒

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1 And don’t even get me started on 80s My Way, which has ... well, a lot of volumes.  But that one doesn’t really count as a “proper” mix.

2 Peaking at 45, actually.

3 At number #32, it was in the bottom of the top 40 in the U.S., but it was #4 in the U.K. and actually #1 in a few countries, such as Belgium and Iceland.

4 Fun fact: remember back on volume IV when I used hube’s “Dream” to transition into “the canoe and the waterfall” by Falling You?  That worked because “Dream” ends with the words “he turns to me and speaks without words ...” Well, the whispered refrain of “Ovforever” is what that transitions into on the hube album.

5 Which we heard back on volume III.

6 The other being Violet Indiana, which showed up last volume.

7 One of my favorite films; you should check it out.

8 Who we heard from on volume III and volume V.

9 And whose more straight-ahead track “Swing Out” was a late addition to Salsatic Vibrato II.

10 And the possibility that it actually refers to the Gilligan’s Island character can be ignored: I’m living proof.

11 We heard the first on Phantasma Chorale I.

12 As is hands upon black earth.  I suppose artists who don’t like to capitalize their names are just naturally attracted to a virtual record label with a “We’re Not Evil” motto.  See Rose-Coloured Brainpan for a more full discussion of Magnatune.

13 Most likely their next appearance will be on HipHop Bottlerocket II.