Nathan and I have embarked on a Waterman Bros musical correspondence. For the last month we’ve been sending each other tracks, loosely responding to what the other sends but also just exchanging the best or weirdest of what we’re listening to at the moment. From that archive we’ve distilled an hour-long mix for your pleasure, something we hope to do on a monthly basis for the next however long. Feel free to speculate, in comments, which tracks were suggested by which brother …
Parallelisme (How far to L.A.?)
Bonus tracks:
I won’t offer much by way of commentary except to note the obvious Japanese trajectory in the first half. The first song one of us sent came from the new Deerhoof; in answer came this, for which we unfortunately weren’t able to find a quality file:
Maybe it’s for the best — the mix ended up taking a more danceable direction anyway — but it’s still an awesome track.
And our original closer was this:
We both like the new ending more — a soft landing, as Nathan put it — but it’s hard to argue with Marie. Those cheeks!
Enjoy the rest of your month in whatever little corner of the world you inhabit.
Having some minor trouble with the file — will update later today with a link.
Ok — Mediafire link is live on the mix title. Sorry for the delay.
I downloaded this morning but haven’t found the time to listen yet. Very much looking forward to it. I do need to say how adorable (in the best meaning of the word) it is that you and your brother swap songs to keep in touch. Very, very sweet!
Also, I never knew that YLT was covering a Marie Osmond song (or perhaps you could say an Anita Bryant song). Crazy!
I am getting a “permission denied” message from media fire. Looks like an excellent mix tho.
Hmm. Must have been flagged after Tim used the link, b/c it was working earlier. I’ll try to figure it out. Meantime, I added a Mixcloud link to stream above and it’s over on my Tumblr too (as a stream).
Thank you W brothers for putting together this mix! (And those videos which are also really special). I’ve finally been able to play this mix (fwiw, streaming music from Soundcloud is kind of limiting and complicated, what with iphone devices and un-hotspots, and etc. I just can’t listen unless I’m situated at the right computer with the right speakers. Like tonight. Finally. So, if possible, in the future, being able to DL an album from Mediafire or whatnot still really helps me listen to music much more versatil-y. many thanks) But finally, I can say I’ve heard it all the way through and I am stunned that there are so many cool Japanese disco songs out there. I had no idea–I’m in awe. Mostly though, after playing it all the way through, I’m struck by my impulse to just replay that first track Lavender Diamond? over and over and over. It’s really special. But so is the whole mix. Thank you brothers! More mixes please.
OK — original link replaced by one to a Divshare upload. See if that works. Divshare has more nonsense popups etc to navigate, but we’ve been using it here for years so you’re probably used to it.
Glad you like the mix. I can’t get over how cool that Miharu Koshi song is. I want more of her stuff. Nathan offered that one. Any guesses on where the others came from?
Timo — when I first bought the Marie on vinyl I had no idea she’d done such a popular version of that song. I also only knew it through Georgia’s rendition via YLT. I had no idea it was a cover, even. As for Anita Bryant, I won’t even listen to her version. Prefer to think of her with pie on her face.
The Sylvia track is one of the most obnoxious things I’ve heard in a while. But the rest was quite enjoyable.
I would guess Nathan for the YLT and Bryan for the Arthur Russell.
That Sylvia track is a jewel in the Sugar Hill crown. It’s really fantastic. I picked the YLT (though I originally wanted the 12-minute instrumental version & Nate convinced me it didn’t fit) and he picked the Arthur Russell. Originally he’d picked David Bowie’s “Janine,” but we dropped it once we decided to use the Iggy Pop.