I'm thoroughly delighted to announce that - due to the almost otherwise entirely unwelcome predations of two weeks off work with Real Flu - I have had time to compile an Xmas collection this year. Thirty tracks of festive fun and frightfulness, from the modern noise stylings of Jesu and Wooden Shjips to all manner of cheesy ghastliness from yesteryear.
Being a selection of top pop from my world to yours. See Frank's #118 for more waffle about all of these.
BTW, I found some YouTube links for some of the tracks (* or another track by the band in question) so you don't even have to download the two archives if you don't wanna.
01. CHRISTIAN PROMMER'S DRUMLESSON Trans Europa Express
02. MAJOR LAZER feat MR LEXX & SANTIGOLD Hold the Line
03. SALEM King Night
04. BEST COAST I Want To
05. SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS Babelonia
06. SOFT MOON Parallels
07. SHOGUN KUNITOKI Vinonaamakasio *
08. EL JEFE AND THE EXECUTIVE LOOK The Fountain *
09. YOKO ONO Why?
10. THE SAINTS This Perfect Day
11. ZINJA HLUNGWANI N'wa Gezani My Love
12. HARMONIA & ENO Sometime in Autumn (Shackleton remix)
13. KEITH HUDSON Hunting *
14. BALAM ACAB Regret Making Mistakes
15. TRUTH Revelation
16. HOLGER CZUKAY & CONNY PLANK Biomutanten
17. DEMDIKE STARE Caged in Stammheim *
18. VOLCANO CHOIR Seeplymouth
19. MICACHU & THE SHAPES Vulture
20. BEAK> Iron Acton
21. BELL ORCHESTRE As Seen Through Windows
22. EMERALDS Living Room *
Plus a couple of crappy bonus trax and an inlay card. You love it.
A colleague of mine has recently heard Can for the first time. I envy him having the opportunity to listen to that great music with fresh ears! I thought I'd help him on his way by making a Can compilation for him. In doing so I re-discovered a playlist I'd put together as a potential TOAD some time ago, titled Buckfast of Champignons. I was intending it for use at Sunday brunch, you see. But now I have re-jigged it and expanded into what I think is a reasonable selection of music you might like if you also like Can. And which if us does not like Can? I have also re-named it:
Much of this will be familiar to most of the regulars visitors to this blog. I hope you all enjoy nonetheless.
1. She is a Rainbow in Curved Air - Acid Mothers Temple
2. Ali's Here - Ali Farka Toure
3. You don't Pull no Punches, but you don't Push the River - Van Morrison
4. Spiders (Kidsmoke) - Wilco
5. Rolling Thunder - Steffan Basho-Junghans
6. Fur Immer - Neu!
7. Wished I Was in Heaven Sitting Down - Mississippi Fred McDowell
8. Spem in Alium - King's College Choir & Stephen Cleobury / Thomas Tallis
9. SHIRIN: Chaharmezrab-e bidad - Behnam Manahedji
10. Chaminuka We - Hakurotwi Mude, Cosmas Magaya, Luken Pasipamire, Ephat Mujuru
11. Kabacha Meflayey - Tsehaytu Beraki
12. E-Musik - Neu!
13. Can I Sleep In Your Arms? - Willie Nelson
14. Galactic Joke (B) - Cosmic Jokers
15. Barnowl - Caribou
16. Hallogallo - Neu!
17. A Raga Called Pat, part 4 - John Fahey
18. Homesickness - Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou
Rory.
A thrilling, comprehensive guide to New York’s buzzing downtown underground post-punk scene. Director Scott Crary kicks things off with the birth of No Wave in the late 1970’s, providing an angular rush with a priceless collection of live performances from Suicide, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, the Theoretical Girls and DNA. From this initial explosion of artistic energy, the film moves through the 1980’s, passing the torch to Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo of Sonic Youth and Michael Gira of Swans, before crashlanding in the noisy Now! of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Black Dice, Liars, A.R.E. Weapons and the Gypsy stylings of Gogol Bordello. Interviews connect the threads between the past and the present, an ever-fertile scene is defined, celebrated and trashed with equal amounts of enthusiasm, and the creators of some of the most challenging rock music of all-time get to explain what they do, why they do it and where it’s all heading.
Starring the legendary artist Jean Michel Basquiat, Downtown 81 vividly depicts the explosive downtown A young artist needs money to reclaim the apartment from which he has been evicted. He wanders the downtown streets carrying a painting he hopes to sell, encountering friends, whose lives (and performances) we peek into. He finally manages to sell his painting but he’s paid by check. He spends the evening wandering from club to club, looking for a beautiful girl he had met earlier, so he’ll have a place to spend the night.
The cast includes Deborah Harry, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, James White and the Blacks, DNA, Tuxedo Moon, the Plastics, and Walter Steding and the Dragon People. Also on the soundtrack are Melle Mel, John Lurie, Lydia Lunch, Suicide, Vincent Gallo, Kenny Burrell and Basquiat’s own band, Gray.
Twenty more mind-expanding pieces of modern music for you, plus a bonus. Starts quietly, then heads for the back of your skull with all the subtlety of a lame new Hollywood remake of Driller Killer.
So this is Xmas and... what have you DONE? 
I know, rush rush rush. Anyway, the URL given in the APA is wrong... because, well, let's just say someone objected to one of the tracks on this. But here's an unedited repost, so D/L these two sections (they are separate parts of the archive so you don't need both... though you do need them):