Being one of the more music obsessed of my friends, and having plenty of time on my hands, I’m more used to being the giver than the receiver when it comes to mixtapes, so it was nice to get this CD through the post the other month and listen to someone else’s compilation.
The tape’s title “Around the World at 33 1/3” pretty much sums up the breadth of music contained on the maxed out CD-R. A quick glance at the tracklisting revealed very few artists I was familiar with, short of The Beach Boys, Love, Lee Perry and Gal Costa, and to be honest I wouldn’t have expected any less from a Dissensian. Yet far from being an educational chore this is a lively trip through music from at least four, possibly five, continents, each track featuring a different language from the previous.
I’m not overly familiar with many of the styles of music on “Around the World…” and hence I’m hesitant to put genre tags to the contents, but safe to say it features film soundtracks from both Holly and Bollywood (David Shire and R.D. Burman), Krautrock (Krokodil), Jazz (Rufus Harley) and plenty of others. A common theme is the generally upbeat tone and all the tunes are very listenable. I’ve stuck this tape on pretty regularly for pure enjoyment over the last couple of months and it makes a good pottering record. I’ve found myself singing along to languages I don’t even understand on more than one occasion which is a good sign.
In terms of compilation, it flows well and sounds like it’s been recorded live straight off of vinyl. I’d like to imagine Peter Gunn surrounded by record sleeves, rifling through to pick out tunes as the previous one plays. In actual fact, the smooth progression and careful ebb of the atmosphere possibly belies more careful planning than the hastily written tracklisting suggests.
If I had to pick out favourite tracks, the Rufus Harley tune 8 Miles High is a definite stand-out. Even amongst the plethora of styles, this bag-pipe jazz tune sticks out a mile. There’s also a heavily funk infused Chinese tune with no name (“I can’t read Chinese”) which caught my attention and on a more laid-back tip a prog track, which I think is Insane by Mantis, which, well, goes insane at the end. The nameless Lee Perry tune is suitably space-out too.
So I guess "Around the World at 33 1/3" is the mixtape ideal - edutainment in the best possible sense. Beyond that its an enjoyable mixtape that's stayed close to my CD player since I received it and doesn't look like it'll be moving any time soon.
