A psychedelic mix just in time for Christmas! There's not much I need to say about this that the title doesn't already tell you. All I will say is, on playing it through, I noticed it's kind of an odd blend of cheerful and sinister – but hey, that seems apt for Christmas! It's named for a song by The Smoking Trees from the superb Active Listener Christmas Album from 2012. (A name-your-price download on Bandcamp, it's well worth grabbing). Oddly, I only noticed after compiling this that there are quite a few tracks from 2012, for some reason. Apparently that year was a fine vintage for Christmas psych!

Hello all! Been absent from the blog for much longer than intended, I'm sorry to say. But I hate to miss another Halloween, especially since my blog is named for a Halloween urban legend. So I've managed to squeak in a mix just in time!

'A Curse On You' is in a similar vein to my last couple of mixes: more of a haunting atmosphere than strictly horror-themed selections, though there are a few of those as well. I like to make my mixes a bit of an emotional journey through different moods and sonic textures, especially when fairly long like this one, which comes in at two hours and eight minutes.

This mix is packed with vintage European soundtracks, moody experimental pop, electronic forays, an abundance of 60s psych rock, and more. There's some of the sensual, affecting vibe of my previous mixes, but with more of a gritty, dirty punch - at least that was the aim!

Please enjoy this trippy spookfest! Here are the artists and songs featured in this mix (click 'Hide details' to see a simplified tracklist):

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Here's an all-France Gall mix, featuring some of my favourite songs of hers from 1963 to 1972. I say some of because, well, I love pretty much all her stuff from that era - it took some restraint to only choose 38 songs! You'll find some of her absolute classics here, as well as some lesser-known songs that are equally wonderful. After making the mix, I realised I drew a lot from my favourite album of hers, the 1967 psych-pop classic, 1968. I also seem to have included every song where she does her adorable version of scatting, which is really just the best thing ever. As well as her French songs, I've included a few of her German tracks, the Japanese version of 'Un prince charmant' and the Italian version of 'La Quatrième Chose'.

I've already gone into what I love about France Gall's music, so I'm not going to get descriptive here, but just let the music speak for itself. My hope is these selections would make someone new to her music fall in love with it as much as I did. And perhaps there are a few things here that are not so readily familiar to established French pop fans. 

Here are twenty-four photos of the lovely France Gall, spanning 1964 to 1971, from my collection of vintage magazines, photos, and publicity cards. It's hard to pick from the many beautiful photos of this lovable lady, but I chose some favourites here, along with some pictures that fans may not have seen before. Click on a photo to see the full version. Credits can be found below the gallery. This is the first post in a series where I'll be paying tribute to my favourite yé-yé girl by sharing some of my most treasured France Gall-related things, so stay tuned!

I'm excited to share my second mix for Christmas this year, which features seasonal tunes from international female pop singers of the 1960s. This was harder to put together than I thought! Being a big fan of both sixties girl pop from around the world and Christmas music, I figured this would be a piece of cake. But I soon realised I only had songs that fit the bill from a limited number of countries. Branching out more broadly was quite a fun adventure, and I really adore some of the songs on this mix that are new to me, like the stunning tracks from Monna Bell and Maria Dolores Pradera. I know some Rita Pavone but her 'White Christmas' cover, 'Bianco natale', had escaped me, and it's just gorgeous. It was also interesting to get a sense of which places went for Christmas pop singles, and which didn't. Italy, for example, had a booming young beat music scene but I found very little in the way of yuletide pop tunes. Most of the Italian stuff I found was very traditional, even, surprisingly, from some rock bands. Perhaps in some more religious countries, too contemporary an approach to Christmas songs was deemed too irreverant. I lucked out with some countries altogether – some places did not produce enough girl pop for their singers to also dabble in Christmas singles, others I don't really know where to begin exploring. If you know of any sixties holiday songs from female pop singers from countries I'm missing here, I'd love to hear your recommendatons. 

The gorgeous illustration of Sylvie Vartan accompanying the mix is by the very talented Olivier C. You can check out and support his amazing work here.

The name of this mix was inspired by the delightful titles of Japanese retro comps like Japanese Pop Cuties in Swingin' 60s or Japanese Pop Christmas In Dreamy '60s. I'm not intending to make fun of Japanglish at all; in fact, I found the syntax (or my attempt at it, which lacks the Japanglish flair) made more sense to me in trying to convey what this mix was about than conventional English structure would allow. 

Image via Discogs

I love a good depressing seasonal tune, and it doesn't much bleaker than one set in a desolate, post-apocalyptic world!

'Juste quelques flocons qui tombent' ("Just a few flakes falling") isn't really a Christmas song, but is apparently associated enough with this time of year to be included on Christmas compilations. This is curious, because the lyrics don't reference anything related to Noël, and from what I can find, the track seems to have been released not around Christmas time but in February, 1967. Perhaps the association comes from its snowy imagery, or the chiming bells that unusually punctuate its psych-folk-pop sound, or perhaps it's because of the story of how Antoine came to write the song.

The idea for the song came to Antoine on Christmas Eve, 1965, according to Anthologie des tubes rock: Soixante ans de musique pour les kids (François Grimpet & Daniel Lesueur, Camion Blanc, 2016), This was shortly before he would score a huge hit with 'Les Élucubrations d'Antoine' early the following year, becoming not only an overnight pop superstar, but a major force in reshaping the French pop scene in the post-yé-yé years. At this point however, he had a debut EP under his belt that hadn't made much of a splash, and was still a struggling musician. Having performed that evening for a modest fee, Antoine had just enough to dine out with his girlfriend but nothing left over for transport, so they footed it home. Walking toward the Marais district, the couple looked back to see a snow-covered Paris, nothing visible except their footprints in the snow, leaving them with the feeling of being the only two people in the world. With his songwriter's imagination and having keenly absorbed the pacifist themes of the likes of Bob Dylan, Antoine soon turned this image into a song about a world decimated by nuclear war, where he and his lover are the only survivors.  

If I'm understanding the lyrics correctly, the final verse sees Antoine comparing himself and his girlfriend to Adam and Eve, but cautioning they must avoid repopulating the world – since the last world was such a flop! What a sentiment to hear in a track that gets billed as one of "Les plus belles chansons de Noël"!

Who needs the same old sappy Christmas tunes when there's a whole world of weird and wonderful festive music to explore? I love digging into the many fascinating, original takes on holiday music that countless artists have recorded over the years. And sometimes, the more bizarre, the better. My first Christmas mix this year is a collection of some of the most enjoyably unconventional seasonal tunes that I've come across. Some are simply delightfully eccentric, while others get genuinely weird... and even a little creepy. If you need an antidote to the cliches and suffocating sentimentality that can be hard to escape at this time of year, hopefully you'll enjoy this mix of freakish festive goodness!

Photo: Mademoiselle Age Tendre, November 1969.

Johnny Hallyday
15 June 1943 – 5 December 2017

French pop has lost its long-reigning king. It feels inconceivable – both because the young, beautiful Johnny of fifty years ago lives perpetually in iconic images and sounds, seeming forever 'L'idole des jeunes', and because today's Johnny seemed indefatiguable, still full of a zest for music and life. I really have no words for now that would do an even adequate job of capturing who Johnny was or the immensity of this loss. So I thought I'd just share a collection of few favourite things: photos from those gorgeous, seemingly endless pictorials in the pages of Salut les copains and Mademoiselle Age Tendre (I sometimes wonder how much of their lives the idoles spent in front of the camera!), some of his best songs, and a few videos that showcase what a charismatic performer he was.

Click on any of the photos for a larger version.

Salut les copains, December 1963.

Beware of my Halloween mix this year: it will magically seduce you, take you to heights of beauty and pleasure... before you soon find unsettling and downright terrifying things start to happen. Erotica and horror combine in this blend of vintage soundtracks, dark folk-pop and other sensual, yet deadly, delights.

Please note that this sorcery gets very saucy indeed so you probably won't want to play this at work or around children – unless you're prepared to answer a lot of questions.

Tracklist

1. Jirí Bažant & Jirí Malásek - Erotica 2 (1975. From the Barry 7's Connectors compilation, 2002)
2. Anna Biller - Fairy Lady Harp Music (The Love Witch soundtrack, 2016)
3. Paul Giovanni and Magnet - Willow's Song (The Wicker Man soundtrack, 1973)
4. Manfred Hübler & Siegfried Schwab - Peoples Playground (Version B) (Vampyros Lesbos soundtrack, 1971)
5. Cocteau Twins - Beatrix (Treasure,1984)
6. Goblin - Witch (Suspiria soundtrack, 1977)
7. Midnight Movies - Oh Twilight (Midnight Movies, 2004)
8. Piero Umiliani - Fotomodelle (Svezia, inferno e paradiso soundtrack, 1968)
9. François de Roubaix - Les Dunes d'Ostende (Les Lèvres Rouges soundtrack, 1971)
10. Neal Gardner - The Case of the Bloody Iris (Giallo, 2013)
11. Adrian Younge Presents Venice Dawn - Midnight Blue (Something About April, 2011)
12. Ennio Morricone - Sottintesi (Il gatto a nove code soundtrack, 1971)
13. Bat for Lashes - The Wizard (Fur and Gold, 2007)
14. The Sirens - Femmes (1976. From the Mondo Erotico compilation, 2002)
15. Delired Cameleon Family - Weird Ceremony (Visa de censure n° X soundtrack, 1976)
16. Piero Umiliani - Streghe e convegno (Riunione, sarabanda, purificazione) (Angeli bianchi... angeli neri soundtrack, 1969)
17. Pierre Raph - Crotch Batterie (Requiem pour un vampire soundtrack, 1971)
18. Zdenek Liška - Witches Firewall (Malá morská víla soundtrack, 1976)
19. Isobel Campbell - Lady Of Snakes (O Love Is Teasin' EP, 2006)
20. Cat's Eyes - Door No. 2 (The Duke of Burgundy soundtrack, 2014)
21. White Noise - My Game of Loving (An Electric Storm, 1969)
22. Norbert Glanzberg - The Blonde Witch (The Blonde Witch soundtrack, 1956)
23. Prudence Rees-Lee - After the Moon (After the Moon single, 2017)
24. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Into the Trees (Until The Hunter, 2016)
25. Richard Hayman and The Manhattan Pops Orchestra- Love, Your Magic Spell Is Everywhere (Tender Moments, 1961)

Credits: Mix illustratiion from the cover of the 1967 gothic romance novel, Strangers In The Night, via My Love-Haunted Heart.