Mixtape Reflections: Nightwalk

            “In my age, as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. I realize that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the race – never quite sane in the night.” – Mark Twain

I think about this quote from Mark Twain’s autobiography quite often. I first came to hear it in the claymation film The Adventures of Mark Twain, which everyone should see, by the way. None of us are quite sane in the night. You’re not the same person at 10am that you are at 10pm. You’re not of the same mind. Not quite.

Nightwalk is my most recent mixtape to date, made in mid-November 2019 at the beginning of the month of Տրե (Tre) on the ancient Armenian calendar. I’ll be making some new ones soon. I do these bimonthly, except on special occasions. I made this mixtape shortly before starting this blog. For context as to what was going on in my life when I recorded this (because that always influences my mixtapes, even if only subtly), the seasons were changing, the world darkening, the depression catching up to me and causing me insomnia. I was between jobs again. I felt lost. A couple weeks later that would motivate me to start blogging; to write and do what I want. It has helped.

I made this mix during a restless night, on a 90-minute tape. It is very conceptual. There’s a story behind this tape. Picture being unable to sleep, being kept up by dark and unhappy thoughts, regrets from the day that just passed, and deciding to just get up, go out the front door and go for a walk in the middle of the night, just to clear your head. The moon and stars are overhead, the only light shining down in this dark world. The starlight traveled hundreds of lightyears to reach this speck of a planet, and your eyes. There is beauty in the darkness. A kind of comfort. You breathe the cold night air, pick a direction, and just walk through the abandoned neighborhood, no cars on the roads, everyone’s asleep, leaving you alone with your thoughts. Each song is another set of thoughts that occupy your mind for a period. The songs on Side A kind of start you the journey into the night. The two songs bridging Side A and Side B are instrumentals that make me think of staring up at the night sky into the stars, and contemplating your place in the universe. If it had a music video, it should be a series of photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope. After that we have songs about dark thoughts, and then restlessness (Silent Em’s “No Rest” being the fastest song on the tape). The last song, Fornicata’s “Daylight”, symbolizes dawn; that moment when you’ve had insomnia for so long you start to see light through the curtains or blinds on your window, and you realize you now have to get through the day on very little sleep. The nightwalk is over, time to return home.

This is the part of the blog where I usually share my playlist and at least attempt to recreate the mixtape on Spotify. A lot of these songs are not only fairly new, but obscure too. Even though I actually found the likes of Mindless Faith and Lovataraxx on Spotify, they didn’t have their newest releases. I wasn’t able to even find the title track for the tape, ”Nightwalk” by Frail. Alas, Spotify has failed me in trying to put together a playlist based on this tape. I’ll probably always have an easier time replicating my old mixtapes on there from back when I listened to more popular music off the radio. These new ones are going to be difficult. Sigh. They had 14 out of 22 songs though. I’ll link to the missing tracks on YouTube.

 And by the way, I could no longer find “In Every Face” by Brigade Rosse even on YouTube. Me and my niche tastes. Just go support them on Bandcamp (support all the artists if you can), if anyone is really serious about recreating this mix. I doubt anybody is, but ah well.

Nightwalk– Spotify Playlist

Side A

Frail –Nightwalk

Mindless Faith – Moth Without a Moon

Lovataraxx– Rekon

Buzz Kull – Avoiding the Light

SYZYGYX – Velvet lips

Silent EM – Machine

Wonder Dark – Mirror of Life

Antipole – Closer

Diary of Dreams – The Plague

Assemblage 23 – Binary

CMD094 – Phase I

Side B

Arel –No Way

Drab Majesty – 39 By Design

Minuit Machine – Black is my Anger

SYZYGYX – Ultra Doll

Silent EM – No Rest

Lebanon Hanover – Du Scrollst

Twin Tribes – Fantasmas

Brigade Rosse – In Every Face

Tearful Moon – Anxiety

Hørd – No Eyes For

Fornicata- Daylight