Josh's Froz-T-Freez » Atlas Sound

Froztmix 1: Summer Sun

Josh W. — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 00:35:40 +0000

Today I inaugurate a new feature here at the Froz-T-Freez: the Froztmix. As we commence the beautiful hot month of July, this particular froztmix has been made with pure summer listening in mind.

What is a Froztmix? It is no more and no less than a virtual mixtape. This particular mix has been calculated to fit on two sides of a 90 minute cassette tape. Of course, you can also listen to it using the mp3 player of your choice, or burn it onto a CD.

I suggest this mix as ideal for automobile listening while traveling, or for a small but good sounding portable stereo in an echoey basement or bathroom while doing laundry or other chores.

Well, on with it. Right click on each side and choose “Save as…” to get the goods.

Froztmix 1

Side A

Animal Collective: Summertime Clothes
Sleigh Bells: Crown on the Ground
Grizzly Bear: Two Weeks
Vampire Weekend: California English
Atlas Sound: Walkabout (feat. Noah Lennox)
Neon Indian: Deadbeat Summer
Nite Jewel: Want You Back
The Cool Kids: Strawberry Girl
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti: ’Round and ‘Round
Laura Veirs: July Flame
Ganglians: To June

Side B

Deerhunter: Strange Lights
The Carter Family: Keep on the Sunny Side
Best Coast: Sun Was High (So Was I)
No Age: Here Should Be My Home
Girls: Morning Light
Yes: And You and I
T. Rex: Mambo Sun
Vampire Weekend: Cousins
White Denim: Shake Shake Shake
Holiday Shores: Errand of Tongue
Girls: Summertime

If you find that you like any of the songs on this mix, please explore the artists’ work further and purchase the music. Any questions or comments are, as always, welcome.

Froz-T-Freez Favorite Albums of 2009

Josh W. — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:36:35 +0000

So, this was going to be the year when I finally got my act together and published a nice bunch of reviews of my favorite albums of the year by the end of the year. Turns out it’s not going to happen, as I got dumped on this December with snow, work, family stuff, and, most recently, preparing to move. So, no plethora of album reviews for you, but I will try to do better next year. I figured the least I could do is put together some lists of favorites, even if I can’t provide much of any context, description, or justification for my choices. Here are my favorite albums of 2009, arranged in an arbitrary manner most convenient to my purposes.

Fifteen Favorites:

Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest
Holiday Shores: Columbus’d the Whim
M. Ward: Hold Time
Andrew Bird: Noble Beast
Woods: Songs of Shame
Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca
The Flaming Lips: Embryonic
Passion Pit: Manners
Caetano Veloso: Zii e Zie
Mormon Tabernacle Choir: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Kurt Vile: Childish Prodigy
Girls: Album
Atlas Sound: Logos
Ganglians: Monster Head Room

Five EPs:

Neon Indian: Psychic Chasms
Abe Vigoda: Reviver
Deerhunter: Rainwater Cassette Exchange
Animal Collective: Fall Be Kind
Bon Iver: Blood Bank

A Trio of Great Rock Albums:

The Dead Weather: Horehound
Dinosaur Jr.: Farm
Sonic Youth: The Eternal

Two Magic Albums:

Here We Go Magic: Here We Go Magic
Memory Tapes: Seek Magic

A few other albums I feel are worth mentioning:
(alphabetical by artist)

Crystal Antlers: Tentacles
Dan Deacon: Bromst
Bob Dylan: Together Through Life
Harlem Shakes: Technicolor Health
Heartless Bastards: The Mountain
Little Dragon: Machine Dreams
Mos Def: The Ecstatic
Small Black: Small Black
Wavves: Wavves
Wilco: Wilco (the album)

Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Of course, these lists are only a frozen instance of my musical taste at this moment in time. I reserve the right to add to or take away from them at any moment in the future, as I discover new music that came out in the past year, or discover upon repeated listens that an album is much better than I thought it was, or much inferior to what it initially sounded to me.

Tip: A great place to listen to virtually any album for free (completely legal, too) is lala.com. They will let you stream a song or an entire album all the way through one time to try it. I’m not bothering to link all these up there, and there are of course many other ways to check out new music, but I just suggest it as a great way to test out music. You can buy perpetual streaming rights there for super cheap, as well ($ 0.10 a song, or $ 0.80-1.00 an album). I don’t receive any compensation from lala.com, I just think it’s a great web site. I hope that Apple/iTunes doesn’t ruin the things I like about them.

Ice Cream Trucks and Carnival Rides

Josh W. — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:56:00 +0000

I guess I kind of forgot that posting to my blog isn’t a major literary event, and maybe something is better than nothing at all. It’s been rather too quiet lately here at the Freez. To my credit, I did finally improvise a rudimentary, homemade masthead (see above), which debuts today.

So, in lieu of the fabulous pieces of writing the FroztFreez has remained virtually unknown for, I’m passing along a little summertime musical treat for everyone. It sounds like ice cream trucks and carnival rides. (I actually heard an ice cream truck driving through Vivian Park today and it made me want to listen to this song some more.) It’s a great jam called “Walkabout,” a new collaboration between Atlas Sound (the solo project of Bradford Cox, lead singer for Deerhunter) and Noah Lennox (a.k.a. Panda Bear, a member of Animal Collective). I predict it will make you smile and maybe bob your head. I also predict it will eventually be used to sell Volkswagens and maybe mutual funds. Since I like to say that Animal Collective are my favorite band, and I know that secretly Deerhunter are probably really my favorite band, it was certainly nice of these two guys from my two favorite bands to get together and make this track. Just press play to hear it, and right click on the link below if you want to download the free track to have for yourself.

Walkabout – Atlas Sound with Noah Lennox

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]