Volume 4 – August 29, 2004

Asia No Junshin (True Asia) – Puffy AmiYumi [4:40]
Human Beatbox/Robot Beatbox – Apeonaut [3:03]
It’s a Beautiful Day – Pizzicato Five [4:26]
Cosmic Dare (Pretty with a Pistol) – Yoko Kanno & The Seatbelts [4:28]
The Rolling People – The Verve [7:02]
I’m Happy But You Don’t Like Me – Asobi Seksu [3:08]
Godless (Massive Attack Edit) – The Dandy Warhols [3:05]
Twiggy Twiggy – Pizzicato Five [4:04]
Golden Brown – The Stranglers [3:25]
Apeman – The Kinks [3:54]
Anna Mae – Mellophone [4:15]
Denya – Souad Massi [3:23]
Brimful of Asha – Cornershop [5:17]

Liner Notes:

This was my third set list in a row that was far too long. I hadn’t yet fully grasped how much talking I’d have to do despite having a show that was about playing music, and the station ID breaks took way longer than I’d anticipated.

Cartoon fans will recognize Puffy AmiYumi as the duo who did the theme song for Teen Titans, and of course Yoko Kanno (here with her band The Seatbelts) is probably the best television composer of the ’90s/’00s, even though as far as I can tell she worked exclusively on anime series. Pizzacato Five were my first encounter with Japanese music, and I found them via my teenage obsession with Matador Records. Appearances to the contrary, Asobi Seksu is an American band that was originally called “Sportfuck” (which is basically the same as their ultimate name, just in English). I knew absolutely nothing about Souad Massi at the time except that a friend had given me some songs from her first two albums and I liked them (“Denya” is from her debut album, Raoui). She’s an Algerian singer based in Paris, and blends Berber folk sounds with singer/songwriter stuff in really interesting ways. The Brits and Danes are here doing their thing, and then we’ve got Apeonaut, who are a genuine Internet phenomenon. I knew them(?) from their soundtrack for the now-defunct MingTheMercilless.com, a site full of absurdist images and strange music. Please note that the track name is actually “Human Beatbox/Robot Beatbox,” and not “Inhuman Beatbox” as the uploader of that YouTube video suggests. Rumour has it that Apeonaut is in fact the pseudonym of an Irish DJ named Brian Swords, but I can’t confirm that.

The photo I used for this album cover is the inside of the hose connecting a dryer to its external vent.