Sunday Mixtape #4

Here is the track list for 26 Absolutions, Volume 1, completed by Jay Thompson in August of 2009:

Side A:

1. Beyonce, Halo

2. School of Seven Bells, Connjur

3. Bat For Lashes, Daniel

4. Julie Doiron, Heavy Snow

5. The Jesus & Mary Chain, April Skies

6. The La’s, There She Goes

7. Talk Talk, Living In Another World

8. Headless Heroes, Here Before

9. Larkin Grimm, Ride That Cyclone

10. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Jesus of the Moon

11. The Magnetic Fields, Jeremy

12. Bon Iver, Brackett, WI

Side B

1. The Stone Roses, Elephant Stone

2. Passion Pit, Folds In Your Hands

3. AU, rr vs. d

4. Florence + The Machine, Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)

5. The Breeders, Safari

6. Yo La Tengo, Today Is the Day (EP Version)

7. Guided By Voices, Queen of Cans and Jars

8. Robyn Hitchcock, I Often Dream of Trains

9. St. Vincent + The National, Sleep All Summer

10. Crowded House, Don’t Dream It’s Over

11. Beat Happening, Knick Knack

12. The Clean, Anything Could Happen

13. Comet Gain, Brothers Off the Block

14. Husker Du, No Reservations

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But damn, it’s a different thing to receive a mixtape than it is to make one and send it to your friend. To state the obvious: it’s the difference between giving and receiving, between making and encountering. As a person who loves to make and give, it’s taken effort throughout my life to feel the same kind of joy when encountering and receiving. I’ve got plenty of inner conflict about that imbalance, and it isn’t always easy to feel good about it. I wonder if there are people with a balanced desire for giving and receiving, and what that feels like if there are.

What feels great all the time, though, is being involved in a relationship of any kind that balances reciprocal needs. I said in an earlier post that I “met my aesthetic match and life partner in mixtape making” when I met Jay Thompson. That meeting was less about the aesthetic match and more about the balancing of reciprocal needs around sharing and receiving music, and curating and creating art encounters. This was approximately the fiftieth mix Jay had made for me over six years, and by the time it arrived I had learned how much I stood to love anytime an envelope arrived.

Like here: is it really true that this is where I first heard Beyonce’s “Halo” and “There She Goes” by The La’s? And Talk Talk, and “Jesus of the Moon”? On the same side of the same mix? That, and a more expansive vision of what could count as indie rock, or indie pop, or things of that sort, than I had ever imagined myself. That’s a lot to receive on an afternoon.

That’s what it’s been like to exchange mixtapes with Jay Thompson: a mutual exchange in which both of us can give, receive, make and encounter in equal and equally meaningful ways. I wish something like it for everyone, and it feels great to share the artifacts of it here.