New music mix. Songs about love and loss and longing. Happy spring. Use headphones.

Tracklist:

"Passenger Seat" - Death Cab for Cutie
"Please Forgive My Heart" - Bobby Womack
"I <3 U So" - Cassius
"Chamber of Reflection" - Mac Demarco
"Panther" - MADE IN HEIGHTS
"All I Want" - Dawn Golden
"Ever (Foreign Flag)" - Team Sleep
"Upside" - Allen Stone
"Eventually" - Tame Impala
"Careful You" - TV on the Radio
"Open" - Rhye
"Wonder Where We Land" - SBTRKT ft. Sampha
"Try" - The xx
"Baby" - Reggae Disco Rockers
"The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove" - Dead Can Dance
"Seasons (Waiting On You) [BADBADNOTGOOD Reinterpretation]" - Future Islands
"Bodyache" - Purity Ring
"Torn Apart" - Snoop Lion ft. Rita Ora
"Paris" - Little Dragon
"Begin Again" - Purity Ring
"Celebrating Nothing" - Phantogram
"Wings" - HAERTS
"Recover" - CHVRCHES
"The Separation" - Ceremony
"What's a Girl to Do?" - Bat for Lashes
"Your Life Your Call" - Junip
"Courage" - The Whitest Boy Alive
"The Selfish Giant" - Damon Albarn
"Loud Places" - Jamie xx ft. Romy
"True Affection" - Father John Misty
"Pulaski at Night" - Andrew Bird
"Get the Point" - My Morning Jacket
"The Only Thing" - Sufjan Stevens

Mix 9: an anniversary

This is the first in a series of songs dedicated to endangered animals. Each song will be paired with a limited edition Project XTNCT design featuring the animal.

As with half of the world's species, Mountain Gorillas are in peril and will probably no longer exist within a century.

With fewer than 790 individuals left in the wild, they're some of the rarest creatures on the planet, living only in a few national parks in Africa. 

One, Virunga National Park, was profiled in the compelling feature film, Virunga.

Buy a Project XTNCT shirt if you like the bass-heavy song (which, strangely, started out as a nonexistent Queens of the Stone Age song I dreamt about). Half of the profits will be donated to help the Mountain Gorillas and other wildlife of Virunga.

Virunga

"Cougar Hunt" is a song I've had in the system for months now. May or may not be on an album. With or without other animal songs.

And no, this isn't about picking up older single ladies. 

Cougar Hunt

I made a song. About dogs. Because I like songs and dogs.

My Pit Bull

“THUGS” is my first new song in over four years. Listen above or download the MP3.

The United States of America is a nation on edge. Tension is high between those who support the Black Lives Matter movement—especially after the graphic death of George Floyd (Rest in Power)—and the increasingly neofascist police state led by an unhinged president who calls antifascists “THUGS” (effectively declaring himself a fascist).

In dozens of cities across the U.S., peaceful protesters have been standing up to police officers who are armed with military-grade weaponry.

In addition to being exposed to overwhelming amounts of police brutality on social media and the evening news, the average American citizen is waking up to how much of their money goes to policing instead of critical social services.

More than $100 billion funds police forces in America every year. The NYPD alone (whose brutal violence against peaceful protesters has been shown in countless videos) has a budget of $6 billion: more than spending on homeless services, housing development and upkeep, youth and community services, health and hospitals, and parks and recreation combined.

Though many of our leaders seem to lack basic empathy, citizens are standing up to bullies en masse. 

Good things will come.

Learn more at the links above and blacklivesmatter.com.

THUGS

2020: dumpster fire, unprecedented times, new normal, blah blah blah, yeah, we get it. 

I’m sure I stared at screens more last year than in the previous several combined. A lot of this was streaming shows and movies about dystopian/post-apocalyptic/dumpster fire stories: The Walking Dead (zombies), The Man in the High Castle (Nazis), The Boys (evil corporation/superheroes), American Horror Story (Satan), etc. Apparently watching fictional people suffer (and often die) made it easier to absorb the fact that—in the real world—nearly 400,000 Americans died from a (horribly mismanaged) pandemic.

The Handmaid’s Tale (the patriarchy) was another series I watched and enjoyed (at the expense of the fictional characters). The words “treason and coconuts” from one of the more witty lines stuck in my head: They immediately conjured an image of 45 wasting away alone on a desert island, his skin more of a blistered red than a burnt orange. I started a crappy song about it last summer and finally finished it this week by making it a little less crappy. It’s my parting gift to one of the worst leaders in the history of the world.

(For what it’s worth, I read a lot last year, too; some stuff in the same vein as what I watched: State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, 1984, Station Eleven, The Dog Stars, the Oryx and Crake trilogy, Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope. I’ll still enjoy this kind of darkness even after things get better.)

Treason and Coconuts

“She’s Lost Control” is the first song I’ve sung on without vocoder, so you can actually hear my voice. Take that for what it’s worth.

My favorite radio station (and the only one I listen to)—KEXP—honored the 40th anniversary of Ian Curtis's passing last summer. 

The day inspired me to cover a song start to finish for the first time: Over the past 20+ years, I produced a Nine Inch Nails remix, used plenty of samples in almost all of my songs, and made an instrumental of Prince's "I Would Die 4 U". But I've never completely covered someone else's song.

Wading back in to making music over the past few months, I was frustrated at the abilities and knowledge I felt I'd lost yet again: I have a habit of being creative with my free time in short bursts, then getting busy with work and stopping for long periods of time. 

I immediately felt overwhelmed with the infinite technical possibilities presented by what is supposed to be user-friendly software and hardware. 

And though this song is about a woman whom Ian Curtis knew who died of an epileptic seizure (Curtis also suffered from epilepsy), I guess being reminded of the Joy Division story and Ian Curtis's battle with depression particularly resonated with me, especially given the sense of isolation—and so many other challenging emotions—that so many of us have felt this year with the pandemic and economic and social upheaval.

Anyway, it feels good to be doing this again, and I plan to keep it up. I need creative outlets outside of work, and even if what I make doesn't interest hardly anyone—there’s an incredible array of creative choices out there—it makes my life more balanced.

I hope you enjoy.

Tiger Shark - She's Lost Control

Hard, bass-heavy electronic beats inspired by Public Enemy, Atari Teenage Riot, Meat Beat Manifesto, plants and animals, mountains, and the state of humanity.

Tiger Shark

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