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They have been making and swapping summer mixtapes on the Plan B forum. I did not join in - heat induces torpor, and pollen, mucus. But if I did…

Os Mutantes - Panis Et Circenses
What I like best about the clip above is the Manichean culture wars in the comments box between people who write “wtf is up wit the crowd? so miserable, lolz” and those who sweep in after saying “THEY WERE LIVING UNDER A DICTATORSHIP - PLEASE STUDY SOUTH AMERICAN POLITICS BEFORE POSTING”.

New Order - Perfect Kiss
Won’t embed, for some reason. Click! This isn’t the New Order track I’d put on my superfucking summer max-mix, but the video of the band layering up one of their epics in characteristically bashful fashion makes them seem even more titanic.

Loose Ends - Hangin’ On A String
Ok, so now we cool down with what is basically the audio equivalent of modish gourmet ice cream. Frictionless. I could write paragraphs on this song, but that would only be slowing you getting frosty cool over at the motherlode.

Dr. John - Danse Flambeau
This is what I’ve been listening to at my desk when evening is finally arriving and - as heat and light recede - the immediate world becomes bearable again. I couldn’t find the particular song, but here’s a creepy alternative.

Hey Willpower - Double Fantasy II
If twee indie R&B (with extra cream) sounds like a bad (and perhaps suspicious) idea, well, it often is - but this is done right: camp, imperfect, kind of warmly dumb, but sincere enough to endear.

Paris - Bring It To Ya
This stone cold classic, meanwhile, takes the perfect tang of g-funk’s bass/synth combo and replaces slack gangsterism with a couple of fiercely smart blasts of righteous rhetoric. Be warned the (unofficial) video mostly consists of police brutality.

Droids - (Do You Have) The Force?
Click it! Currently being sold by PRs as Daft Punk - from the Seventies, here’s this French Italo duo performing their biggest hit. It may well cause a disturbance in yr heart.

High Places - Jump In
Another casualty of Wordpress and YouTube’s trained relationship. Anyway, get past the muddyish beginning to where they play ‘Jump In’, a song they wrote for a local school. It’s like a tyre swing, or fireflies, or any one of those midsummer signifiers I’ve read about. Goooooooo allergens!

Posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008by kicking_k