Image: Tony V

AUSTRALIAN record label Modular Recordings has a great website with dozens of mixtapes or “modcasts” by various artists, acts, and the producers / crew at Modular.

The one I picked for today, Dreamtime – Music For Airports, Planes, Trains and Buses has the following notes:

For the last 3 weeks I’ve been forced to float around Europe thanks to some immigration issues keeping me from my new home in London. A lot of this time has been spent shuffling between airports, planes, trains, buses, hotels, friends flats and footpaths, in Paris, Rome, Gothenburg and Stockholm.

Created with the dual purpose in mind of calming the nerves in the face of tense customs situations and equally sounding sublime while gazing out the window of a moving vessel, here’s a mix of stuff that sounded perfect at various points in time during my exile. More gentle blend than mix so to speak.

This Time Tomorrow – The Kinks
Morning Of The Earth – G Wayne Thomas
The Ballad Of El Goodo – Big Star
Diana – Skip Spence
Copenhagen – Scott Walker
No Other - Gene Clark
Spooky – Gary Walker And The Rain
Tango Whiskeyman – Can
Lullaby – Moondog
Milky Way – Weather Report
Walking In The Rain – Flash And The Pan
Be With – Koushik
Jennifer – Faust
1/1 [Excerpt] – Brian Eno

This was the first mixtape I’ve listened to in a while that wasn’t at least fifty percent beats and breaks. It felt dense and soundtrack-y

Overall I don’t know if I’d say this felt like travel music though. More like travel music for a smuggler in Key West in the 70s or something. Someone with a mustache. At least until the end where it gets to the Brian Eno: then it’s total sunrise in Patagonia or wherever you want it to be.

Still, when it comes to mixtapes, interpretations matter less than intention. They’re like hearing a place and time through someone else’s ears. Bigup modular. Thanks for producing these.

Download and enjoy.

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