Side A:
Side B:
March 17, 2024
When I curate the mixtapes, I usually do so chronologically from my inbox. Whatever I accept next gets paired with whatever was accepted immediately before, in increments of six. I'm always pleasantly surprised by how eclectic the mixes become of their own accord. Little bit of everything, every time.
That said, my system slipped on this one! First mixtape with a double featured artist, mea culpa. Not mad about it though. I like to think that maybe this week's mixtape was made by some love-sick 90s kid with a big affinity for Billy Corgan.
I want to say thank you always to folks who tell me how much they love the M7 project. Please know it helps when I feel like it's not reaching anyone, or that it doesn't matter. Kind words can keep someone going, and I'm grateful for yours.
D.T. Robbins brings his signature absurdist bent to an early aughts house party full of Bob Dylan posers and American Apparel-clad hipsters in "It Ain't Me Babe." There's sex in a church parking lot and Terry Richardson makes an appearance as an unexpected sleaze king saviour. What more could you want from a story?
Z.H. Gill's narrator goes deep and deadpan on internal monologue in "Drown (Singles Soundtrack Version)", picking his way through his ex's pretentious art show while trying to untangle his personal connection to the artist from a review he has to write about the art. Who among us hasn't.
I'll admit it: I am an occasional sucker for alliterative poems and sentences, when they're pulled off well. Jedidiah Vinzon's "My Funny Valentine" scratches that itch while folding two lovers into each other in this rainbow-soaked, flesh-and-bone beaut.
Genuinely loving how many M7 pieces have memories connected to cars: aux cords, stereos, tape decks, lost virginity, illicit romances, highway drives, the whole lot. Giovanna Vitale's "Coney Island Baby" traces the arc of a relationship from a Toyota Corolla to the fresh earth of an August garden and further still to the bottom of an espresso cup in a Bologna bar.
Glenn Orgias pens a casual heartbreaker in "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", a piece that tempers humour with grief among a string of small slights - and small kindnesses – that pass between strangers.
David Yourdon's "Life is for the Living" takes us from the dull glow of a diner to the salty surf of a beach in South America and back, daring a lover to show up to a late-night meet over fistfuls of coconut donuts and coffee.
Lots of love, pals. Hope you're enjoying more spring daylight, wherever this finds you.
xo Kirsti