Mixtapes
I have always dreamed of being a DJ, so I am just gonna start making mixes. In the spirit of the short story about Hiroya in Michiko Aoyama's book "What You are looking for is in the Library," I want to just do the thing that lights me up and not really be concerned with how many people care about it. Throughout Hiroya's story, they finally realize that they have caused themselves so much suffering by holding themselves to unrealistic standards for the effect their illustration has on the world. In the end, Hiroya realizes that if their work can touch one person then they will have succeeded. Not surprisingly, I love this. I think it takes the pressure off of creating by just encouraging us to share that special spark in our soul with the people around us. We don't have to get all twisty about it and become a zombie that believes every effort needs to have some weird economic payoff. Nah, FLOCK IT, Let's dance. If a mix I make can make one person feel something (e.g., joy, sadness, inspiration, etc.), then my creative efforts have succeeded. The funny thing is that success viewed through this lens is an inside job, because I had so much fun making the first mix that I have already succeeded.
So kick your feet up, light a candle, and enjoy the tunes spun up by DJ High Plains Wizard.
Mixtape 1: Dark, Enchanting Moments: An Enya Mixtape
Side A
Tracklisting:
- Weaving my Way into Enchantment (A Field Recording)
- The Celts
- Aldebaran
- Deireadh An Tuath
- Boadicea
- Bard Dance
- To Go Beyond (ii)
- The Sun in the Stream
- Dan Y Dwr
- Na Laetha Geal M'oige
- Miss Clare Remembers
- Exile
- Cursum Perficio
- Lorthlorien
- Evacuee
- Shepard Moons
- How Can I Keep from Singing
- Angeles
Side B
Tracklisting:
- Pax Deorum
- Athair Ar Neamh
- From Where I am
- The Memory of Trees // On My Way Home Mash up
- High Plans Rain Storm Blessings (A Field Recording)
- Tempus Vernum
- A Day Without Rain
- Pilgrim
- Fallen Embers
- Only Time
- Even in the Shadows
- Echoes in Rain
- I Could Never Say Goodbye
- Organ Improvisation on Crux Fidelis (Gregorian Chant of the Monks of Glenstal Abbey)
- High Plains Light Rail (A Field Recording)
This mix is being recorded to ten 90 minute UR1 Maxwell cassettes that will accompany my next free sticker giveaway ("Enya Makes Everything Better") and then sent in the mail to the first ten people who ask for it. I will create custom jewel case art for this whole production and mail them with love for free to those who want them. I would be glad to also indulge trades for those that are interested.
I have been working on this mix for years. It started as an old youtube playlist that my daughter Juniper and I would listen to all the time. We would be in the cargo bike and she would yell out, "ENYA!" To this day when an Enya song comes on one of her cartoons, I can hear her gently singing along to it. The original goal with this mix was to just surround my family in the dark, enchanting atmospheres that Enya conjures with her music. Her hits aren't on here. We are not sailing away. We are letting the dark veil of Enya's dungeon synth wash over us. Light a candle and allow Enya's dark, enchantment carry you into a land of magical possibility.