Philip Sherburne, who has been discussed in these pages before, posted a year-end mix to his blog back at the end of December (sorry I missed it then, but even this site took most of the holidays off). The mix, "Every Single Day is a Yellow Day (Everybody Had a Hard Year)", is, most of you will be pleased to know, not techno-centric (though not wanting a techno mix from Sherburne is like asking a vintner if he's got any beer lying around). Most of the tracks here will be familiar to your average Pitchfork reader, including contributions from Iron and Wine (Sherburne just posted about The Shepherd's Dog, a record I still can't get can't quite get my ears around, probably for lack of trying), Grizzly Bear, Matthew Dear, Thom Yorke, and, well, Prince. The big treat, though, is the first selection, Susanna and the Magical Orchestra's cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (courtesy Zeon's Music Blog). Unlike other abortive attempts to replicate the original's cinematic intensity or distill the song's plaintive ethos, SatMO cast their version as almost a cross-gender rebuttal, slowing the tempo to a crawl and highlighting singer Susanna Karolina Wallumrod's placid yet direct vocals. The result is a song that you might actually listen to in your bedroom, with or without the curtains drawn.
