winter break mix tape.

Given my previously explained love of the mixtape, I'm trying something new on the blog this year, in the form of occasional mixes for particular moments. Eventually I'm hoping to become tech savvy enough to create an actual downloadable file on some sort of a computer and post it here (I am told that such a thing can be done! I shouldn't have broken up with that DJ I dated last spring before he showed me how! Ah, regret), but for now, you're just going to have to live with a Youtube playlist.

Anyway, this first installment is music for a winter vacation. This year, for the first time since probably grad school, I had a period of time that actually resembled a Christmas break. Sure, I worked a day or two here and there, but there were no snowbound car-treks down the 401, no frantic rushes back to an underheated apartment and an ornery cat. I had the chance to actually settle into the holidays, and I even had a couple of days following Christmas with nothing but time to hunker down and hole up. It made me both nostalgic for Christmas breaks in years past (surreptitious trips to the park in the snow to meet pals from highschool, late nights in the basement watching television, the glow of the Christmas tree in a darkened front window) and utterly thrilled with my Christmas Present. So in that vein, here's a mix of songs, old and new, to celebrate the end of a long and lingering holiday, to anticipate with both dread and relief the dark days of winter ahead, to burrow, and of course, to dance like a motherfucking fool in your living room.



Here's the breakdown:

1. Pearl Jam--Corduroy (everything has changed, absolutely nothing's changed.)
2. Joel Plaskett Emergency--You're Mine (because he's always on my list.)
3. Jack White--Missing Pieces
4. The Lumineers--Classy Girls (a song I hope to live by this year).
5. M. Ward--Lullabye and Exile (a song for late nights and moony thoughts.)
6. Django Django--Hail Bop (I like some harmonies with my indie dance pop.)
7. The Flying Burrito Brothers--Wild Horses (oh man, oh man.)
8. Sloan--Bells On (the song that has always and will always slay me dead.)
9. Vampire Weekend--Taxi Cab (a song for a snowy walk at dusk.)
10. New Radicals--You get What You Give (the guiltiest pleasure.)
11. Robyn--Dancing On My Own (my JAM for 2013, mark my words.)


You can also listen here.