XXXV

Thanks to all the artists, labels and listeners who continue to make the Glow’s podcast the one that discovers Japan and Australia’s future music hero geniuses.

In order to get the most out of your podcast listening experience, please refer to the track-by-track music listening instructions below. (Please note: It’s essential that you move back in with your parents, at least for the podcast’s duration.)

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[69:31]

1. Von Südenfed: “Rhinohead”

• (0:01 – 4:12)
• from Tromatic Reflexxions (Domino; 2007)

Connect a garden hose to an outside tap, and tape it along the perimeter of the bedroom ceiling. As the sample of a count in counts in, begin to cover all of the windows in your room with black construction paper, making sure to completely affix the length of the paper’s borders to the window frame with a non-translucent tape. (The electrical variety is recommended.) Atmosphere is important: absolutely no light must be permitted into the room. Roll up a beach towel and cram it into the space beneath the door, such as one would to ensure asphyxiation by carbon monoxide leak. Push the heaviest piece of furniture available against the primary exit. Seal your MP3 player or computer in a Ziploc bag or series of taped together Ziploc bags.

2. The Budos Band: “Chicago Falcon”

• (4:13 – 6:59)
• from The Budos Band II (Daptone; 2007)

Remove all of your clothes. If there are any mirrors present in the room, be sure that the top half is covered with a sheet (or, alternately, more electrical tape) so that only your genitals are visible. Remove and destroy any light bulbs.

3. Leyode: “Irene”

• (7:00 – 10:59)
• from Fascinating Tininess (Eastern Developments ; 2007)

Did you remember to purchase the three cartons of extra strong Canadian cigarettes and pillowcase of tea candles that, it should now be obvious, are mandatory for CMG podcast listening? Good. Light the candles and spread them liberally throughout the room, being careful to place at least one as precariously close to curtains as possible without prematurely burning down your house. (We’re only on the third song, for Christ’s sake.)

4. Animal Collective: “Fireworks”

• (11:00 – 17:48)
• from Strawberry Jam (Domino; 2007)

Light a cigarette. Take from your bookshelf your sophomore high school yearbook and turn the page to your most intense crush. Stare at it until their dead smile begins to turn absurd with dread. If you’ve performed steps one through three properly, you should now be in a state of arousal.

You are ready to begin. (Be sure to light another cigarette if you’ve finished your first.) Stretch your extremities as far away from your torso as you can, and hold this position for the duration of the song. If there are any Celestine Prophecy readers in your neighborhood, their energy should swirl towards you at this point, which is as exactly as Avary Tare designed. Feel free to sing along with the ‘heee-heeeeeee’ chorus which is, scientifically speaking, unsingable if you’re using human vocal chords.

5. The Acorn: “Low Gravity”

• (17:49 – 21:23)
• from Glory Hope Mountain (Paper Bag; 2007)

I’ve contacted your friend and instructed her to wait outside by the tap connected to the garden hose that lines your room. When she hears the tinkling intro of this song, she will turn on the water. Using something sharp, like a kebab skewer or some teeth, poke holes randomly in the skin of the garden hose. Your friend has been instructed to increase water pressure as the song ascends; the room is being transformed into a Honduran paradise. Most of your tea lights should be out by song’s end. DO NOT RELIGHT THEM.

6. Mabuses: “Mirth”

• (21:24 – 24:39)
• from Mabused< (Magpie; 2007)

With your body now lubricated and your lungs reeling from the strength of Canada’s second greatest export (after, apparently, Metric?), you should be at your most mentally susceptible to Mabuses’ slowly filling glass case of bourgeois pseudo-psychedelica. Lick the tips of your pointer and middle fingers on one hand and proceed to slap the forearm of your other arm in a snapping motion for the duration of the song.

7. Fog: “I Have Been Wronged”

• (24:40 – 27:47)
• from Ditherer (Lex; 2007)

Return to the yearbook. Display your welted forearm to your graduating class with a look of told-you-so vindication. During the choruses, bob your arm for phonetic emphasis.

8. Deer Tick: “Art Isn’t Real (City of Sin)”

• (27:48 – 30:33<)
• from War Elephant (Feow!; 2007)

Feeling destitute and alienated, tear your yearbook in half LENGTHWISE. This is important. If you’re unable to do it for lack of strength, promptly abort your podcast listening. Better luck next month, pantywaist.

9. Sunset Rubdown: “Up On Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days”

• (30:34 – 35:22)
• from Random Spirit Lover (Jagjaguwar; 2007)

Catharsis! Prance, attaining the maximum possible height with each stride. Your arms should be bent at the elbow, wrists limp, but elevated to shoulder height so as to make you appear a badly sneaking nighttime monster. Check the mirror; how are those genitals?

During the song’s understandably much, much better second half, mock triumph’s tyrannical reign by converting your prance into a huddled, shivering ball of defeat. Then THRUST those arms into the air, and windmill as your friend once again turns on the garden hose! You are being filmed.

10. Georgie James: “Need Your Needs”

• (35:23 – 38:48)
• from Places (Saddle Creek; 2007)

Have you been smoking constantly? You should be. If you haven’t, return to step four.

*11. John Vanderslice: “White Dove”

• (38:49 – 47:46)
• from Emerald City (Barsuk; 2007)

The objects in your room are an insult to your liberal education, both in the way they were assembled by too young workers taken advantage of and how they reassert your materialistic core. Disassemble them, beginning with any Ikea Billy™ bookshelves, and, in the throes of this destruction, see yourself reborn like a phoenix returning from an incomprehensible event horizon. (You may require an Allen key.)

12. Strategy: “Future Rock”

• (42:47 – 51:47)
• from Future Rock (Kranky; 2007)

There may be some spillover from the previous steps because each of the songs’ lengths are most likely outstripped by the amount of time required to perform each of the tasks you’ve been assigned. This is your chance to catch up: light another cigarette, welt your arm, or prance as required. If you are on schedule, use this time to collect yourself and recharge those batteries or, to maintain the collapsed space/time that is forming in bubbles across your cerebellum due to oxygen deprivation, disassemble another piece of furniture. (Recommended: Dalselv™ or Leksvik™. Remember to exclude the furniture blocking your door.)

13. e-Jugend: “What We Call Entertainment”

• (51:48 – 55:33)
• from Last Exit Wedding (Tapingdesk-O-Phon; 2007)

Your room should be well on its way to destroyed at this point, and if your parents have returned from visiting nanna they may or may not have called the fire department. If this is the case, you may need to accelerate your plans: E-Jugend’s “What We Call Entertainment” is about to scare the shit out of them.

Using your fingernails, carve cryptic messages into the wall. Scholars and armchair paranormalists will wonder how you did it!

*14. Thundrah: “Capilliaries”

• (55:34 – 63:02)
• from La City Swallows the Sparrow (Blue Skies Turn Black; 2007)

You are astride a precipice of Spartan triumph; survey what you have wrought, and your terrifying visage on the mirror, which is, coincidentally, the next piece of furniture you should break. Smash the mirror. (Careful: don’t step on the glass. Ouch!) Smear nearby personal hygiene products over your body while randomly and periodically lashing out with a limb until they’ve each cancelled each other out and made with their combined smells a putrid amalgamation, a horrible, bubbly coat of foam and seaweed extract. You are again transformed.

*15. Crush Buildings: “Glowed”

• (62:03 – 66:37)
• from Surrender Sleep (Self-released; 2007)

The inevitable comedown: you learned the instant, heartless kung fu of growing up. Your thoughts inevitably turn to garnering a more authoritarian knowledge of wines and property ownership, the undeniable autobiographical themes of your new life. Log on to Facebook and update your interests accordingly.

16. Will Stratton: “Lost the Fear”

• (66:38 – 69:31)
• from What the Night Said (Stunning Models on Display; 2007)

Call the last three people to have kissed you. The first two will remember you, but their feelings will have remained unchanged. However, the third has had a change of heart. If you’ve performed all of the steps outlined above, and if you are sure to have begun the third phone call during the two minutes and fifty-two seconds of this acoustic ballad, this third, and most recent to have kissed you, will abruptly, but not unkindly, hang up. They are on their way over. Go put on your robe: he or she’ll be over in a few minutes and you look ridiculous.

This formula for pure love will work only once, so be sure to have selected the right person. To reverse the effects, the partner must be exterminated and thoroughly disposed of for, if they bite human flesh, they will only infect others and make them like themselves.