2019 Soul Mix Covers
Adobe Photoshop, 1200px x 1200px
Another year, another series of mixes compiled by yours truly.
The past few years have been tough as a person of color who, though at first glance doesn't look American, has actually assimilated so much into American culture that he's fallen into a subculture. As a result, the soul mixes I've built have taken on a curious quality of being hard-edged and a little on the depressing side to start out, but become a bit more positive towards the last few tracks.
The past few years have been tough as a person of color who, though at first glance doesn't look American, has actually assimilated so much into American culture that he's fallen into a subculture. As a result, the soul mixes I've built have taken on a curious quality of being hard-edged and a little on the depressing side to start out, but become a bit more positive towards the last few tracks.
This digital compilation, available all spring and summer to my friends at an undisclosed location, was compiled with that mindset. The world is a tough place, with so little love and validation afforded to many of us. The late-60's/early 70's imagery of inner city life balanced with glimpses of hope and love, the couple looking at wedding rings in a shop window on the front cover, followed up by the woman showing off her wedding band on the back cover, shows the need for all of us to keep digging deep and holding onto whatever scraps of love and positivity we can find.
And of course, halftone texture is a thing I'm really into.
Fall 2019 saw a change of pace for my curation output as I gave friends a goth mix for Halloween, with a bunch of tracks compiled from post-punk, darkwave and deathrock bands I've discovered over the years. Someday I'll visit that black Icelandic church.
The angel used as the background of the tracklist portion was taken much closer to home, at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA.
The angel used as the background of the tracklist portion was taken much closer to home, at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA.
Finally, for Christmas, I took things back to northern soul territory, with a few curveballs. Japan has had a fine tradition of soul-influenced rock, psychedelic rock and garage rock/early punk, and I decided to go a little goofier and include some tracks from bands I've found over the years such as The Spiders and The Jaguars. In keeping with that zany, 60's Japanese pop-culture influence, I decided to play around with some images of Kamen Rider apparently playing Santa Claus to a crowd of children, followed up by another japanese monster (I believe that's Hedorah, the Smog Monster) fixing up his lonely little Christmas tree.
