Note: some­times (and mostly because of me) Girl­pants gets down­right inces­tual. For instance, there’s a Pink Panzer show coming up on May 5^th, and I’ll prob­ably do a more exten­sive post about that sooner or later. I don’t think it’s wrong to post about the band, even though two of its mem­bers are writers for this site. Jour­nal­istic objec­tivity, at least in that regard, is some­thing that’s pretty flex­ible when your read­er­ship is in the low hun­dreds at best. And I’m not shy about ref­er­encing where I get my music, or who’s rec­om­mended it to me, and I think that’s alright. Credit where credit’s due, and all that. So, that said, take my rec­om­men­da­tion of at least the first of these comps with a small grain of salt. (I really do think it’s good, but my alle­giance to its cre­ators might play a role.)

First comes Sleep of the Banned, a com­pi­la­tion of ambient loops and drones (think: 1 Mile North, Ekke­hard Ehlers, Elu­vium, early Aphex Twin, etc) from the forums of anti-hipster (mostly anti-PFM) hip­ster web­site Hipinion.com. It’s the third in a spo­radic series of board com­pi­la­tions, fol­lowing on the heels of the Snakes on a Plane OST flash-comp (“are there metaphor­ical snakes inside you?”) and a col­lec­tion of Bowie covers. This is dis­counting, of course, the board’s three com­pi­la­tions of mem­bers’ bands’ mate­rial and boarder Gonzo’s epic two-disc con­cept album about the board, all of which are sur­pris­ingly good.

Sleep of the Banned is either a tes­ta­ment to the latent talent present on the board or to how unfath­omably easy it is to DSP good songs. (Warning: there’s a sub­stan­tial argu­ment in the project’s forum thread as to whether Geologist’s track is likely to blow out your speakers. It sounded fine on my [backup] head­phones, but you might want to play it safe.) Check it:

1. Cud Nylon — “Unti­tled 4″
2. Robert — “One Chord Nord”
3. Cur­tain — “It Was Not Obvious”
4. Moses — “Untitled”
5. Dig­i­tal­Brad (Awk­ward Moments) — “An Evening With Boxed Wine”
6. Canned Kitty (Wind­fucker) — “I Read That Black Holes Eat Stars”
7. Harry Lime — “Untitled”
8. Geol­o­gist — “Echoes”
9. Kristopolis — “Sooner or Later”
10. Crisp Arson — “Proteus”
11. Percy Dove­ton­sils — “Heather Moves and Eyes”
12. Paul (Rad­ical of Genius) — “Nofunswick”
13. Totally Not — “The Sally Jessy Raphael Show”
14. Don’t Think — “Kings”
15. Killd0zer (Abominog) — “Water Bored (Bored is Life rmx)”
16. Queen Vic­toria — “Dance of the Mid­night Monsters”
17. Shermer High (Soft Dis­aster) — “Drone and Stutter”
18. Kevin McCal­lister (w/Slang King) — “Ham­bur­glar: Mixing Busi­ness with Pleasure”
19. Crispin (Hadley) — “I Had an Arrow”
20. Webb Bored (Catalpa Catalpa) — “Debbie Drone”
21. 1 Mile North vs. The Grace Period — “Water­ship Dub”
22. Cud Nylon — “Unti­tled 5″
23. [“secret” track]

Second (and also from the dark realms of Hip­inion) comes a double-disc mix of songs from 1969, com­piled by boarder Hey Look (aka Andy). The entire mix is avail­able from his site, along with an exten­sive and enthu­si­astic if poorly copy-edited set of blurbs. It’s got some obvious choices right along­side a bunch of stuff I’ll bet you’ve never heard before, and all of it is excel­lent. Here’s the tracklist:

Disc 1:

1. The MC5 — “Kick Out The Jams (Uncen­sored)“
2. The Stooges — “1969”
3. Thunder and Roses — “White Lace and Strange“
4. Led Zep­pelin — “Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Break­down“
5. Can — “Out­side The Door“
6. White Noise — “Fire­bird“
7. The Soft Machine — “Pig“
8. Jef­ferson Air­plane — “Vol­un­teers“
9. Nina Simone — “Rev­o­lu­tion (Part 1)“
10. Os Mutantes — “Nao Va Se Perder Por Ai“
11. Dr. Strangely Strange — “A Tale Of Two Orphan­ages“
12. Arzachel — “Garden of Earthly Delights“
13. Sonny Sharock — “Bailero“
14. Dusty Spring­field — “I Can’t Make It Alone“
15. Sly & The Family Stone — “Somebody’s Watching You“
16. David Axelrod — “London“
17. Nick Drake — “The Thoughts Of Mary Jane“
18. Alexander “Skip” Spence — “Broken Heart“
19. Scott Walker — “The Old Man’s Back Again“
20. Fair­port Con­ven­tion — “Farewell, Farewell“
21. Amon Duul II — “Flower of the Orient“
22. Buffy Sainte-Marie — “The Vam­pire“
23. Bob Dylan — “Lay Lady Lay“
24. Neil Young — “Cow­girl in the Sand”

Disc 2:

1. King Crimson — “I Talk To The Wind“
2. David Bowie — “Space Oddity“
3. The Who — “Amazing Journey“
4. Charlie Haden — “Inter­lude (Drinking Song)“
5. Serge Gains­bourg — “L’ Anan­mour“
6. Johnny Cash — “A Boy Named Sue“
7. Judy Henske & Jerry Yester — “Horse On A Stick“
8. Sun­forest — “Light­house Keeper“
9. The Holy Modal Rounders — “Bird­land“
10. The Summer Sounds — “Gimmie Some Lovin’”
11. The Kinks — “Vic­toria“
12. Don Cherry — “Psycho Drama (Excerpt)“
13. Quick­silver Mes­senger Ser­vice — “Who Do You Love, Pt. 1″
14. The Rolling Stones — “Love In Vain“
15. The Open Mind — “Magic Potion“
16. The Allman Brothers Band — “Whip­ping Post“
17. The Common People — “Soon There’ll Be Thunder“
18. The Flying Bur­rito Brothers — “Sin City“
19. Crosby, Stills, & Nash — “Help­lessly Hoping“
20. John Fahey — “View (East from the Top of the Riggs Road-Bando Trestle)“
21. Cap­tain Beef­heart & The Magic Band — “Well“
22. Pharoah Sanders — “The Cre­ator Has A Master Plan (Excerpt)“
23. Isaac Hayes — “One Woman“
24. The Bea­tles — “Some­thing“
25. The Velvet Under­ground — “Candy Says”