Mixtape: “In the City” by Ian Patrick Corrigan

Ian Corrigan is a musician, writer, and educator located in Olympia, WA. He currently plays in Gen Pop which has a debut 7” out on Upset the Rhythm (England) and Lumpy Records (US). He previously played music with Vexx and has an affinity with moving bodies of water.

What an applaudable wealth of conscious energy”, the city whispers in the space between the door and floor, enveloping its purveyors with overwhelming data. Inhabitants run circular in hip high water, generating a whirlpool. The whirlpool is then a source of entertainment, danger, normalcy, and disinterest. Time suspends while investing in novel anonymity, party here, conversation there, job here, labor there. Some root down and stick it out, imparting their conscious intent into the city. Sculpting its its atmosphere with their static presence. Cities function as points of trans-shipment multiplicity. Cities function as points of multiple identity. Authenticity made pliable, implicitly, not by intention. City culture is about market logic, the 21st century has seen that the dream of the city become deja-vu. Cities will never change, millions of heartaches, triumphs, disasters, tragedies, miracles, follies captured. Cities are constantly changing, being sliced like deli meat and scanned. Each slice thrown back changes instantly. Cities change and never change, are filled with people and nobody at the same time. Never once contradicting itself, letting people pass, telling people to get the fuck out of your way, roof sitting with the love of your life, fucking your phone, working on your passion, passionately hating your work. A-B, ying yang, whatever the city is sets the precedent for information, data filters for the fringe population.

I tried to create a mix that imploded and generated itself again and again. Hopefully making it as diverse in content and song length as I could. Mirroring the multiplicity of identities and emotions that cities create in their citizens. Frantic anger, deep compassion, to dance crazed bliss, I wanted to try to capture as much as I could. Starting out with Bobby Charles’s, songwriter for artists from Neil Young to Fats Domino, meditation’s on society’s most vulnerable or laid back whichever way you want to cut it. Moving past The Kinks and The Tights knocking out some simple ideas about love and heartbreak moving into Gina-X-perfomance’s song about sleep paralysis and queerness. Can’s mother sky roof sits right next to Joe Henderson and Alice Coltrain’s Earth, both of them laying the architecture plans for what the future of music could have been. The UV Race and Kate Fagan spin some stories about the people you’re surrounded by and the Kinks again, but this time letting you know who you’re not surrounded by. Susumu Yokota’s Genshi is lifted from his “Sakura” record, entrancing in its bus ride to the denser regions of urban sprawl. Rival Mob and Hoodrich Paublo Juan help push through the crowd, asserting priority, power through presence. Lady Bug by Bumblebee unlimited is about having a good time, okay? Jesus Christ give me a break, Another Girl, Another Planet is some junkies singing a great song about someone they love or heroin, who knows. Billy Boyo sets your energy straight, a dose of reality before the deutsche amerikanische freundschaft and Brian Eno pull you back in to look at their drawings, which are…. pretty cool. Kleenex’s Ain’t You has probably been done to death, but its reminder that they are present. Sun Ra, Horace Silver, and Robert Hood complete a journey from one side of the city to another, from psych jazz pioneership, to hard bop, to computer coded holy minimalism. GBH shouts at you and then the Underground freaks you out. Enjoy, sorry for this essay, the mix is better.

This Mixtape is part of COLLECTION #01: “IN THE CITY”