Episode 44

     This episode has to be among the most difficult I’ve ever put together. The issue wasn’t a lack of good material. When I started working on the show Sunday afternoon, I already had 90 minutes of material that hadn’t made it into previous episodes. By the time I finished going through the list of other items that I might include, I found myself with another three hours of music. No, the challenge this time was that I had a set of contenders that were mostly ambient/hazy songs with medium-to-slow tempos. While I eventually found a way to vary the mood and pacing of the show, it took some time and ingenuity.
     While many of the artists (and albums) listed below have appeared on previous playlists, there are a few items that I programmed for the first time—some of them after having tried in vain to find a place for them before. Thus, even though I bought Wolf Parade’s Apologies to the Queen Mary last December, I’ve only recently warmed enough to the disc to give it a good listen and feel one of its tracks might nicely follow, say, a HNIA tune. Something similar is true of the Uncle Tupelo track. In contrast, when I first listened to Lisa Germano’s latest, the question wasn’t whether I could get something into the show, but which among the tracks I would play first. As for some of the artists showing up for the first time (The Cranberries, Translator), chalk their inclusion up to nostalgia.
     Much of the remainder of the show has me almost rediscovering artists I haven’t featured in months, e.g., Kings of Convenience, Sade, Yuka Honda and the Cinematic Orchestra. The latter group is probably the one that has gone the longest without ECI airplay. If you were look through the archived playlists, it would take some time to find the last time I played something by the group. In fact, you would have to go all the back to here, where you would find “The Man with a Movie Camera” nestled in the second hour of the very first episode.
     As we come closer to the end, you can expect to see more reflexive playlists, ones where I revisit recordings that seem to have been lost in my never-ending stream of new acquisitions. Don’t worry, though, my desire to keep the show interesting means that the new releases coming between now and September’s end will also be given their due. With so much great stuff coming and so much more already in the queue, it should be easy for me to make the last six episodes a lot of fun....

• 12:00–1:00 a.m.:
• Piano Magic, “The Tollbooth Martyrs,” The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic, Green UFOs
• Rachel’s, “Reflective Surfaces/Unclear Channel,” Systems/Layers, Quarterstick
• Kings of Convenience, “The Weight of My Words,” Quiet Is the New Loud, Astralwerks
• Cibelle, “Mad Man Song,” The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves, Six Degrees
• Translator, “Everywhere That I’m Not,” Heartbeats and Triggers, 415
• Sleater-Kinney, “Entertain,” The Woods, Sub Pop
• Odawas, “Kids,” The Aether Eater, Jagjaguwar
• Bow Wow Wow, “Baby, Oh No,” I Want Candy, RCA
• His Name Is Alive, “*C*A*T*S*,” Detrola, Silver Mountain
• Wolf Parade, “Dinner Bells,” Apologies to the Queen Mary, Sub Pop
• Hooverphonic, “Eden,” Blue Wonder Power Milk, Epic
• Sade, “Slave Song,” Lovers Rock, Epic

• 1:00–2:00 a.m.:
• Wire, “Kidney Bingos,” A Bell Is a Cup Until It Is Struck, Mute
• The Dukes of Stratosphear, “Collideascope,” Chips from the Chocolate Fireball, Geffen
• Los Lobos, “Saint Behind the Glass,” Kiko, Warner Brothers
• Broadcast, “Corporeal,” Tender Buttons, Warp
• Logh, “Ahabian,” A Sunset Panorama, Hydra Head
• Uncle Tupelo, “Anodyne,” Anodyne, Sire/Reprise
• The Cranberries, “Put Me Down,” Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Can’t We? Island
• The Durutti Column, “Helen,” Keep Breathing, Artful
• Lisa Germano, “Into Oblivion,” In the Maybe World, Young God
• Rose Melberg, “Little Bird,” Cast Away the Clouds, Double Agent
• Great Lake Swimmers, “I Could Be Nothing,” Bodies and Minds, Misra
• Dave Navarro, “Mourning Sun,” Trust No One, Capitol
• Blue States, “Looking Glass,” Nothing Changes Under the Sun, Eighteenth Street Lounge

• 2:00–3:00 a.m.:
• The Roots, “Ain’t Sayin’ Nothin’ New,” Things Fall Apart, MCA
• Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man, “Spider Monkey,” Out of Season, Sanctuary
• Yuka Honda, “Night Diving,” Memories Are My Only Witness, Tzadik
• Celebration, “China,” Celebration, 4AD
• Mojave 3, “When You’re Drifting,” Excuses for Travellers, 4AD
• Carla Bozulich, “Prince of the World,” Evangelista, Constellation
• The Cardigans, “Couldn’t Care Less,” Long Gone Before Daylight, Stockholm
• Violet Indiana, “Angel,” Roulette, Bella Union
• The Cinematic Orchestra, “Burn Out,” Every Day, Ninja Tune
• Boards of Canada, “Tears from the Compound Eye,” The Campfire Headphase, Warp
• Sybarite, “Three Sided,” Nonument, 4AD