By Jenn Sussman aka DJ Belladonna

1. Supreme Beings Of Leisure “Last Girl On Earth” – We’re sending your eardrums into orbit on this week’s playlist, starting with a super chill track from one of my favorite down-tempo albums. Supreme Beings Of Leisure’s 2000 self-titled debut album was released at the end of a decade that saw the birth of acid house, trip-hop, jungle and drum-n-bass, as well as the meteoric rise of techno and rave culture, when almost every foray into radio, music television and nightclubs required an extreme desire to dance. And while SBOL’s debut certainly contains elements of that aesthetic, it does it in a much more chill fashion, with lush orchestration, funky grooves, laid-back lounge and even the occasional sitar. “Last Girl On Earth” is easily the most chill track on the album, a dreamy, expansive, post-apocalyptic tale that puts Geri Soriano-Lightwood’s unique vocal style to very effective use; one can imagine her wandering the planet in search of love after some cosmic disaster has reduced it to rubble. This is a headphones album for down-tempo fans.

2. Dave Navarro “Venus In Furs” – Let me say this right off the bat: I am not a fan of the Velvet Underground. Blasphemous? Perhaps, but I don’t care – none of their music has ever spoken to me. However, some of the Velvets’ music does translate pretty well in the hands of others. As a major Jane’s Addiction fan, naturally I made a beeline for Dave Navarro’s first solo effort, 2001’s Trust No One. The result was sadly uninteresting, save for post-grunge radio rocker “Rexall” and his cover of “Venus In Furs”, probably the most widely known Velvet Underground song. Navarro’s arrangement takes a song that feels inaccessible, monotonous and utterly without melody, and gives it structure, darkness, depth, and a musical soul. For me, it made the uninteresting very interesting indeed…something I wish could be said about the rest of Trust No One.

3. El-P “Deep Space 9mm” – I remember chilling in some great underground dive bar (the name of which, sadly, I can’t recall) in Philadelphia in 2002, somewhere off the beaten trail, catching up with an old friend that I hadn’t seen in awhile, when suddenly I heard what sounded like the sonic equivalent of droids going to war in outer space while a chaos theoretician sat back and rapped about it. “Bartender,” I said, “who is this we’re listening to?” “It’s El-P”, he replied. “Yes, but whose LP is it,” I asked him, confused. The bartender just shook his head and handed me a copy of El-P’s just-released Fantastic Damage album. The following day I went to every record shop in Philly looking for it, finally finding it in one of those shops where you can listen to vinyl in the back of the store, and discovered the song I had heard was “Deep Space 9mm”. On the whole, Fantastic Damage is a complex and not easily accessible listen, a bit harsh in places with an almost industrial feel (which seems to be the case for many Definitive Jux recording artists, Aesop Rock among them), but the purchase was made more than worthwhile by “Deep Space 9mm”, “Blood”, “Truancy” and “Delorean”.

4. Thievery Corporation “Shaolin Satellite” – I’ve given love to Thievery Corporation on the playlist before, but their style varies so much from album to album that it’s easy to fit them into the various different sonic vibes that I strive to create. I first heard “Shaolin Satellite” in a Starbucks, of all places, and ordered the name of the song from the barista along with my iced grande skim chai latte. I’m a big fan of the new school of artistic Chinese martial arts films in the vein of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, such as Hero, House Of Flying Daggers and Curse Of The Golden Flower, and maybe it’s the suggestion made by the word “Shaolin” in the title of this song, but every time I hear it I wish for a montage of some of the fight scenes from those movies set to this song. Anyone down for some Chinese chillout?

5. Black Star “Re:Definition” – The majority of the sole album ever released by Black Star (1994’s Black Star) was largely forgettable, which is surprising considering that the group is made up of Mos Def and Talib Kweli – two of the most prolific rappers of the last two decades. Fortunately, it only took one track for the short-lived duo to make a lasting impact on hip-hop. “Re:Definition” became an instant hip-hop classic; the beats are tight, the flows are on point, the lyrics are intelligent. I can’t help but nod my head to it every time I hear it, and the track just never gets old for me. Fortunately, both emcees went on to record much better albums on their own; Mos Def’s 2004 solo release The New Danger and almost all of Talib Kweli’s work with Reflection Eternal (in partnership with DJ Hi-Tek) are some of the best hip-hop recordings released in many years.

6. Space “Female Of The Species” – This quirky, cabaret-style track has been a favorite of mine since I first heard it in 1997, the first single from Space’s debut record Spiders. Space is one of those groups with their own unique and eclectic sound, almost completely ignored by the mainstream but enjoying a cult-like adoration by their fans. You can hear the influences of early ‘90s Britpop, but Space transcends the genre by adding their own touches like weird audio samples and off-kilter lyrics. I tend to pair “Female Of The Species”, Spacehog’s “In The Meantime” and White Town’s “Your Woman” into my own little quirky ‘90s Brit pop-rock trilogy.

7. Florence + the Machine “Cosmic Love” – Florence Welch is a force of nature, with soaring vocals that carry you higher and higher as you listen in awe to the magical, glorious, euphoric whirlwind created by her music. There is no possible way to put a label on her style; there are just too many factors, influences, images – she is a musical sorcerer in the tradition of Nick Cave, Bjork and Kate Bush. “Cosmic Love” is my favorite track from Lungs, Florence + The Machine’s 2009 debut LP. The song is a lament over the loss of a deep love told via metaphors of extreme celestial activity, and the vocal performance is breathtaking. If you haven’t heard this one before, you’d better hold onto something.

8. The Creatures “Pluto Drive” – In 1981, Siouxsie Sioux and then husband, Banshees percussionist Budgie, formed The Creatures as a side project from Siouxsie and the Banshees, but in truth it’s hard to distinguish a lot of The Creatures’ music from the band that spawned it. In many cases, the songs were more dance-oriented and had harder and more prominent percussion than the typical Siouxsie and the Banshee offerings, but tracks like “Pluto Drive” from The Creatures’ 1989 Boomerang album are reminiscent of classic sultry and sensous SATB tracks like “Red Light” from 1980’s Kaleidescope album and “Into The Light” from their 1981 follow up, Juju. “Pluto Drive” is a sexy song and a great listen.

9. Cocteau Twins “Heaven Or Las Vegas” – There aren’t too many people who could tell you what the lyrics are to most Cocteau Twins songs; vocalist Liz Fraser literally has her own language. It doesn’t really matter what she’s saying, because invariably this New Romantic group’s songs are so darkly beautiful and ethereal that it’s just a pleasure to listen. “Heaven Or Las Vegas” is the title track from Cocteau Twins’ 1990 4AD release, known mostly for this track and for “Cherry-Coloured Funk”. Cocteau Twins were certainly never a mainstream radio staple, but their reach in the alternative music scenes of the ‘80s and ‘90s was vast, and they were always in heavy rotation on MTV’s beloved 120 Minutes program. In recent years, Liz Fraser has done a few guest vocal spots, most notably and beautifully on Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” from their 1998 landmark album, Mezzanine.

10. David Bowie “Space Oddity” – Our trip through the cosmos ends with the original alternative space song, Bowie’s brilliant “Space Oddity” from his 1969 album of the same name. Everyone knows the story of Major Tom, sent triumphantly into space to explore, stranded in the void for eternity due to equipment failure. Recorded in the early days of NASA’s space exploration program, the song mirrors American fears at the time about sending their men into the unknown frontier; the song would prove to be scarily prescient when, the year after its release, the US nearly lost three astronauts in the Apollo 13 disaster. Bowie continued the Major Tom saga years later on my favorite Bowie tune, “Ashes To Ashes”, from his 1980 Scary Monsters record, on which Major Tom has become a junkie while trapped for eternity and unable to return to life on Earth.