Sophie Weil
Dove Cove’s Halloween Mix
A mix focusing on artists who have characters they slip into, something that is awakened on stage, something that can’t be helped. These aren’t shiny pre-fab costumes you can buy from “Spirit Halloween” — something more inspired, lived in, found on the side of the road, repurposed, stitched together and transformed. I may have a more poignant view on what it means to reflect and dig a little deeper this time of year than others (my birthday happens to be 10/31) but I can’t help but think that the autumnal transformation is felt universally, even if it’s just picking out a costume to celebrate a hidden persona just for one night.
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Track #2 Savage Young Taterbug - Charles Free is The Savage Young Taterbug, my favorite jack o lantern personified, a bewitching missing tooth smile, the best scary, and not so scary, storyteller. The sounds of true back woods Americana, it’s the sound of someone wearing a sheet with two holes cut out for eyes.
Track #4 Clay Camero - Clay Camero (AKA Caethua, Sports, Clare) is a master of characters, seamlessly embodying them between musical projects, whatever serves the message best. It is never clownish or unbelievable, I hesitate to even say there is a costume, because it is presented as something experienced. Whether she is referencing the landscape she lives in or quoting a calamitous tale of war-torn lovers in the desert (which she does in “Left for Dead”) there is a level of authenticity and transformation happening in the music and lyrics.
Track #8 Everly Brothers “Down in the Willow Garden” - A traditional Appalachian folk song that is sung from the perspective of a man who has planned to murder his lover, the intentions are not explicit. Not until he poisons and then stabs her does he tap into his consciousness and realize what he has done. A spooky fave
Track #14 Deux Filles - A tragic story of two teenage girls, Gemini Forque and Claudine Coule, in France bonded over the death of their families to start an ambient music group in 1982, channeling their sadness into two full length records until in 1984, when they completely disappeared. This troublesome story is the lore that reignited attention for this project. Deux Filles is not Gemini or Claudine, but Simon Fisher Turner and Chris Lloyd, an idea that came to Fisher in a dream.
Track #24 Shizuka - Shizuka Miura one of my absolute guitar heroes, her persona is haunting, poetic and beautiful, her story is mysterious and tragic. Shizuka’s only studio record Heavenly Persona has been a perennial fall time soundtrack for me and a perfect Halloween conjurer. I highly recommend all live performance videos and recordings that can be found on YouTube.
Track #26 Kendra Smith - I wouldn’t say Kendra Smith’s music is scary or creepy, but maybe the thing that starts to touch on what reminds me of Halloween is the mystery that surrounds her persona. Her mysteriousness does not seem cultivated out of nowhere, it is grown, uncomfortable and beautiful in a way that can’t be made up, this has drawn me further into her music. She has lived in the woods of Northern California, off the land, without power or running water and hasn’t shared recorded music since 1995, except for a track on her former band, The Dream Syndicate’s, reunion record in 2017.
1. Clown Car Cassette Playback - lil cyutie
2. Savage Young Tater Bug - Well Done Honey and the Speaker Tan
3. Rosa Yemen - Nina Con un Tercer Ojo
4. Clay Camero - Left for Dead
5. Young Thug - Die Slow
6. Susan Alcorn, Leila Bordreuil, Ingrid Laubrock - Bird Meets Wire
7. Sarah Davachi - Play The Ghost
8. Everly Brothers - Down in The Willow Garden
9. Body/Dilloway/Head - Goin’ Down
10. American Friend - Back to Reality
11. Joanne Robertson & Dean Blunt - Viper
12. Lucrecia Dalt - Ser Boca
13. Itasca - Bess’s Dance
14. Deux Filles - You Must Sleep Now
15. LSD March - Bisyonure No Kimi
16. Pink Trash Can - Really Hot
17. Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes - Sirba
18. This Fluid - Burden
19. White Magic - Katie Cruel
20. Behavior & Mayako XO - 1997
21. Leonie - Lennon
22. Heather Leigh - Take Just A Little
23. HTRK - Sunlight Feels like Bee Stings
24. Shizuka - Heavenly Persona
25. Billy Fay - Camille
26. Kendra Smith - Valley of the Morning Sun
27. Daisies - Missed Connection
28. The Sugar Cubes - Birthday
29. Pendulum Floors - Sick Kitty
Sophie Weil is a Los Angeles based musician (Syko Friend, Olgaa, Pink Trash Can) and poet. Sophie also runs Dove Cove Records, an imprint that acts as a curatorial umbrella for small batches of cassettes, music events, poetry readings, podcast interviews and playlists. Find it all on instagram @sophie_syko_dovecove_olgaa_ptc