Ho ho... huh?

Well, we did it! We were such good boys and girls this year that Santa Claus brought us the president we wanted (and in California the trains we wanted!). Hip-hip-freekin'-hooray - it's about time already! In fact I'm so dang happy I'm gonna put on my OWN Santa hat and give you deserving spacerockers not ONE, but TWO full playlists this month!

But wait a minute, it looks like some of you HAVE been misbehaving... and apparently Santa Claus is bringing gay people lumps of coal this year:



I must say I am truly ashamed of 52% of my fellow Californians, who are nothing but hateful BIGOTS, especially the other minorities who've long known identical discrimination but let their churches and their fear guide them instead of their hearts and minds. The rest of us sane, loving people will repeal Prop 8 eventually because you cannot mandate HATE, or discriminate via popular vote, and we'll move on with the evolution of the human species, while the bigots can go the way of the dodo.

Meanwhile, some more thanksgiving:



Now on to the playlists!

Playlist #1 begins with a smirkingly-titled track from contemporary (and half-German) duo Cloudland Canyon, who are in direct lineage with the O.G. krautrockers, Brit practitioners of said art The Early Years, and the inventor of the motorik style himself and founder of Neu!, Michael Rother. We then sidestep into some quintessential space rock with Seattle's Voyager One and one half of Spacemen 3, the inimitable Spectrum (aka Sonic Boom aka Pete Kember), and modern psychedelic with Sacramento's Low Flying Owls and Brooklyn's White Hills. A brief foray into intricate instrumental (post)rock with Souvaris and it's off to exotica with a sitar-drenched Echo & The Bunnymen classic, an homage to Cambodian psych with Dengue Fever, and an abrasive and arty track from Pram in their earlier more experimental phase (before they followed their brethren Stereolab into lighter-weight Space-age Bachelor Pad themes). Continuing we dive into herky-jerky art skronk with the one and only Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits sideman Marc Ribot and the illustrious Mr. Tom Jenkinson, aka drill 'n' bass jazzmonster Squarepusher, before tripping headlong into deep, deep psychedelia with early kraut kollectives Amon Düül and Tangerine Dream, as well as acid-saturated pioneers The Pink Floyd. And we wrap up with British shoegazers Loop and their stellar cover of Can's drone classic "Mother Sky".

But hold on to your hats and glasses folks, we're not done yet! We're only halfway to infinity! The SECOND two hours features some serious head-clobbering from the likes of Mogwai (from their latest and best album in years The Hawk Is Howling), some nightmarish prog-metal from Neurosis, a classic Butthole Surfers nugget, and some transcendent psych from Norway's Serena-Maneesh, Philly's Bardo Pond and San Francisco's Ulaan Khol. After an expansive interlude from old school krautrockers Neu! the mindfuck continues with the nearly unclassifiable acts Growing, Holy Fuck and Neptune until we again sandwich the aforementioned Dengue Fever and Pram together... not that they have anything in common, it just seems to work (see previous playlist). Clattering out of dim basements in Belgium and Austria come dEUS, Ignatz and Pumice before we're bludgeoned between the ears with the "repetition and nonsense" of Shit & Shine before being left battered and bleeding from the ears by the classic acid-kraut trio Ash Ra Tempel.

And THAT, my sugarplum dreamers, should satisfy even the most hardcore spacerockers until we return next year with an installation featuring the very BEST of 2008. Have a great holiday season, and while you're spacing out on the couch with the headphones on, keep an eye out for those devious little elves... Santa's helpers? Or Satan's? You decide.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Krautwerk - Cloudland Canyon - Lie In Light
So Far Gone - The Early Years - s/t
Feuerland - Michael Rother - Flammende Herzen
Ocean Grey - Voyager One - After Hours In The After Life
How You Satisfy Me - Spectrum - Soul Kiss (Glide Divine)
Glad To Be Alive - Low Flying Owls - Elixer Vitae
Under Skin Or By Name - White Hills - Glitter Glamour Atrocity
Quit Touching My Ass - Souvaris - A Hat
Heads Will Roll - Echo & The Bunnymen - Porcupine
One Thousand Tears Of A Tarantula - Dengue Fever - Escape From Dragon House
I'm A War - Pram - Gash
Electricity - Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Safe As Milk
Digital Handshake - Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog - Party Intellectuals
Planet Gear - Squarepusher - Just A Souvenir
Dem Guten, Schönen, Wahren - Amon Düül II - Phallus Dei
Interstellar Overdrive - Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Journey Through A Burning Brain - Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation
Mother Sky - Loop - Fade Out



And the next player will feature these tracks:

Batcat - Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling
Water is Not Enough - Neurosis - Given To The Rising
Something - Butthole Surfers - PCPP EP (Live)
Blues Like Beehive II - Serena-Maneesh - S-M Backwards
Yellow Turban - Bardo Pond - Amanita
Untitled #2 - Ulaan Khol - 1
Weissensee - Neu! - s/t
Innit - Growing - All The Way
Super Innuit - Holy Fuck - s/t
Blue Glass - Neptune - Gong Lake
Space Siren - Pram - Telemetric Melodies
Seeing Hands - Dengue Fever - Venus On Earth
Fell Off The Floor, Man - dEUS - In A Bar Under The Sea
Rebound Off The Cliff - Ignatz - s/t
Heavy Punter - Pumice - Quo
The Rabbit Song - Shit & Shine - Cherry
Freak 'n' Roll - Ash Ra Tempel - Join Inn