Mazzy Star: B-Sides, Rarities, and Live Stuff

Do you remember how wonderful Mazzy Star was? Hope Sandoval could be in my top trifecta of female voices with her sultry, lazy, laconic sound. I wrote about her a good while back on the Monday Music Roundup and I said of that song, "I picture a voice coming out of a black, black room - like you are sitting somewhere in the dark and suddenly you hear this lolling voice, like a slowly swirling river, out of nowhere." A sound like no one else, a distinctive voice which I didn't realize I missed until I came across this great collection.

You need to populate your newfangled iPod with the seductive mid-'90s sounds of Hope Sandoval & David Roback, and this fan-produced assemblage of live cuts, b-sides, and other rarities is a superb and painless way to do it.

01. Fade Into You (live)
02. Ride It On (live acoustic)
03. Sometimes Always (live)
04. I'm Gonna Bake My Biscuit (originally by "Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe," b-side to "Fade Into You" single)
05. Under My Car (another b-side to "Fade Into You")
06. Tell Me Now (from the Batman Forever soundtrack, b-side to U2's "Hold Me, Thrill Me...")
07. Hair and Skin (originally by Green on Red, b-side to "Flowers in December")
08. Tell Your Honey (b-side to "Flowers in December")
09. Had a Thought (b-side to "Flowers in December")
10. Flowers in December (radio edit)
11. Sometimes Always (I'm pretty sure this is just the studio version with Jim Reid from Jesus & Mary Chain's Stoned and Dethroned. Still gorgeous.)
12. Ride It On (live)
13. Ghost Highway (live)
14. Blue Light (live)
15. Into Dust (live)
16. Bells Ring (acoustic)

DOWNLOAD ALL THE MAZZY STAR GOODNESS AS A ZIP FILE, for the love of all things good & holy.


By the way, according to the Hope Sandoval website, Capitol will release The Mazzy Star Anthology and a deluxe CD/DVD in 2006. Wasn't this supposed to be released in April 2005?

And this was VERY interesting, from an article in Los Angeles CityBeat about Massive Attack: "Perhaps the band’s next album, Weather Underground, due early next year, will break through. Marshall says the crew has already recorded 15 tracks, with TV on the Radio and Albarn contributing, and the possibility that David Bowie and Hope Sandoval will step in later." I would think that would be a smashing collaboration.

Also highly worth checking out is the track she collaborated with The Chemical Brothers on, "Asleep From Day," plus she contributed the vocals to a version of Air's "Cherry Blossom Girl," but I can't find it. Can anyone send it to me? Got it now! Thanks!

PS - Everytime I talk about Air, I am compelled to say "AirFrenchBand" (all one word) like my dear friend Jenn always does. Just to clarify.