Billy Coté (Madder Rose): Things You (Just) Can’t Let Go Of Mixtape

Having recently brought us the first Madder Rose LP in twenty years, Billy Coté serves-up an equally reflective and deep-sounds-mining mixtape

Madder Rose’s Billy Coté pieces together some disparate yet cohesively-assembled fragments from the likes of Yo La Tengo, Jonathan Richman, Lou Reed, Moondog, East River Pipe, Max Richter and many others into this mesmeric mosaic of melody and moodscapes.

Liner notes by Billy Coté:

When Concrete Islands asked me to do a mix for them, editor Stewart Gardiner suggested “something to do with the passage of time, reunions.” I ended up expanded this to “Things You (Just) Can’t Let Go Of.” These songs, to me, show the longing and confusion that can come from desire taking precedents over common sense, something that defines a lot of people’s youths, and most certainly describes a lot of people’s bands, earlier incarnations of Madder Rose included. The songs also define the headspace I was in as we put together To Be Beautiful, and perhaps, some of the atmosphere we were trying to create. Thank you to Adrian at Concrete Islands for getting this particular ball rolling.

Bio:

Over the best part of the 1990s Billy Coté co-directed the operations of New York-birthed quartet Madder Rose, over four albums and innumerable short-form releases of steadily evolving songcraft. Now reunited some two decades on, Madder Rose have recently released their redemptive fifth long-player, in the gorgeous and unashamedly-matured form of To Be Beautiful (via Todmorden’s Trome Records).

In the interim years, Coté has also occasionally traded solo (as The Jazz Cannon and under his own name), continued to collaborate with Madder Rose bandmate Mary Lorson (on TV/film scores, as an instrumental duo, as part of her Saint Low ensemble and with Kathy Ziegler as The Piano Creeps trio) and recorded with fellow Ithaca-resident Johnny Dowd.

www.madderroseband.com

Tracklist:

A warning to the curious: the Things You (Just) Can’t Let Go Of tracklist follows, but it may be advisable to leave and return after you’ve listened to the mixtape. Look away now!

Never Let Me Go – John Fox and Louis Gordon

Ecstasy – Lou Reed

Freshman Year – Nikita Quasim

Sione – Masakatsu Takagi

Limerence – Yves Tumor

Both Sides Now – Davey Graham

Aamuauringon Tuntuinen (snippet) – Paavoharju

High on a Rocky Ledge – Moondog

Alyda – Yo La Tengo

Harmonium – Max Richter

(Nana) – Unreleased

Aamuauringon Tuntuinen (snippet) – Paavoharju

Lover – Peggy Lee

Make a Deal with the City – East River Pipe

Tell her safe (snippet) – James Blake

Diary of a Lover (snippet) – Johnny Thunders

Thoughts on a Grey Day – Fleetwood Mac

Violet – Helen

Cold Steel – Psychic TV

Tell Her Safe – James Blake

Luzes da Ribalta – Egberto Gizmonti

Without Her – Harry Nillson

O Moon, Queen of Night on Earth – Jonathan Richman