The Thousands

Compiling the right mix for a dinner party is a delicate art. You want music that’s hip but unobtrusive. You want it to be either mellow-yet-upbeat, or energetic-yet-understated. You don’t want anything overtly sexy (eww!) or dryly intellectual (party killer). Phew! Who knew it would be so hard?

TwoThousand is participating in this weekend’s Creative Sydney Session #6. There will be awesome bands playing and food-related mayhem; we even made up a zine called EATIT with participating band member’s recipes. Woo-hoo! Take that, Master Chef…

We also got our music mastermind Wilfred Brandt to make a mix of dinner party music. WB explains, "for this mix, I picked a bunch of cool new and unusual stuff that’s mellow and fun to listen to but still easy enough to talk over. Because sharing food and great conversation is way better than overwhelming your guests with your extremely cool extreme musical taste (Wolf Eyes and Xiu Xiu? You’re to stay up in your room, all night!)". Dig in.

What makes a great Mixtape?
For me, its all about segues; where one song ends and moves smoothly into the next song. It can be mood-matching (track 1 ends mellow, track 2 stars mellow), aesthetic (track 5 ends with crackling static, track 6 starts with feedback), or melodic (track 3 ends with a G chord, and track 4 starts with G).

What’s your favorite song on the mix?
My Bloody Valentine has always been, and will always be, one of my favorite bands. ‘To Here Knows When’ is so dense and intricate and it pulses in a way unlike any other recorded song I’ve heard.

Three dream dinner party guests, alive or dead?
John Waters, Bruce LaBruce, and Dennis Cooper. I’ve interviewed Mr. Waters and Mr. Cooper before; Waters is endlessly interesting and funny and could regale us with great stories and fantastic research he’s uncovered. Author Dennis Cooper is my all time favorite artist, who’s into great music and art and literature and porn. He’s also incredibly nice and down to earth. Bruce LaBruce I’m sure would be super entertaining and bring great drugs.

Favorite moment in your years at TwoThousand?
Nadia and her brother drunk at the ThreeThousand birthday party, dressed as a panda and a video game character (respectively), trying to figure out how to run the karaoke machine for like, 45 minutes.

Favorite Sunday Morning album?
I like The Velvet Underground & Nico because it starts with the song, ‘Sunday Morning’ which is like the perfect vibe for Sunday Morning and, duh, it’s CALLED ‘Sunday Morning’. From there the album gets more rocked-out and unpredictable which is how a Sunday morning / afternoon should progress.