Monday Mixtape, Vol. 175

Another indie star is in blossom! I recently listened to Samia’s debut album, The Baby, and I’m smitten. It’s pop music, but it also could be inserted into any hipsters playlist where people would be “Hey, who’s this?”

Kid Cudi released a new album, and I still need to spend some time digesting. But “Tequila Shots” and “She Knows This” are standouts for me so far.

A famous rap producer, Statik Selektah, is clearly influenced by DJ Premier, Q-Tip. It’s a nice homage to those jazz-sampled beats. He released a great album with all sorts of great rappers, and the more I heard Jack Harlow’s track, the more I came to like it.

Bartees Strange is every critic’s favorite new artist. His debut album is all over the place, but he does it well. I like him, but I need to spend a lot more time with the album.

Next week or two I’ll be posting my favorite 100 songs and 25 albums of 2020! Get pumped!!

READ THIS BOOK - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

I became unemployed in June 2020, and I was determined to use my free time to learn from great minds of the past and present. I wanted to understand psychology, the hard sciences, decision-making, and myself. As Charlie Munger emphasizes, I want to become a multi-disciplinary thinker. I want to be unbiased, informed, and open to change. I want to understand myself and others better. It is a lifelong quest.

This year, some books have substantially changed me. These books have empowered my mind and self, and I hope to guide you a bit to take the reins yourself in your quest for knowledge and whatever else you’re looking for!

First up, Naval.

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Summary of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

I was introduced to Naval (Na-vahl) Ravikant (Rahv-ah-kahnt) on Twitter (@naval), but I didn’t think too much of the tweets I read as so many on Twitter want to be philosophers yet they just copy and paste others. So I lumped him in with that crowd of Twitter.

Then I read his “How To Get Rich” tweet thread, and I realized this guy was an original. His way of approaching topics and connecting ideas is brilliant.

Eric Jorgensen’s recently edited a book, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, (which can be downloaded for FREE! or purchased for $2.99 on Kindle), which compiles many of Naval’s tweets, podcasts, and interviews into three main subjects: Wealth, Judgment, and Happiness.

Naval writes efficiently. No wasted words. To the point.

I’ve never highlighted a book more. Half the book is highlighted! Naval thinks deeply yet speaks simply. You can read this book in a day. You will reread it over and over again. Your brain will ruminate on the ways he thinks for days. He will make you want to improve. And you will.

One of the great aspects of a book like this is the trust that it engenders between the reader and author. The people Naval cites (like Wim Hof, Nassim Taleb, Will & Ariel Durant, Matt Ridley, Charlie Munger, and so many more) are people I want to dig in further. This creates a web of connection for resources to read and learn. I will be reviewing the books of many of these authors.

I thank Naval (and Blas Moros for creating The Latticework and Charlie Munger, whose Almanack will be my next reviewed book) for being the jet fuel for my exploration into my mind and life.

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My “Notes and Quotes” part of this “book review” highlights the many passages that resonated. Everything in “Notes and Quotes” is verbatim or close to verbatim from the book unless otherwise specified. I hope this will give you a good feeling for the book, and I cannot recommend getting a copy yourself!

Notes & Quotes

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Wealth

1. How To Get Rich (Without Getting Lucky)

   • Seek wealth, not money or status

   • Ignore people playing status games

   • You must own equity to gain financial freedom

   • Give society what it wants but doesn’t know how to get it. At scale.

   • All returns in life come from compound interest

   • Don’t partner with cynics or pessimists. Their beliefs are self-fulfilling

   • Need specific knowledge - Cannot be trained and must be found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion

   • Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers.

   • Escape competition through authenticity.

2. Difference between Wealth and Money - Money is how we transfer wealth. Money is social credits. Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep. 

3. The most important skill for getting rich is being a perpetual learner

4. Four Kinds of Luck

   • Blind luck.

   • Luck through persistence, hard work, hustle, and motion.

   • You become very good about spotting luck.

   • You build a unique character, unique brand, a unique mindset, which causes luck to find you.

Judgment 

1. The direction you’re headed in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage.

   • Picking the direction you’re moving in is far, far more important than how much force you apply.

   • Any belief you took in a package (Catholic, Democrat, American) is suspect and should be re-evaluated from base principles. Ideologies can be dangerous.

Ego

1. Our egos are constructed in our first two decades. They get constructed by our environment, parents, society. Then we spend the rest of our life trying to make our ego happy...We accumulate all these habits as part of our ego and get attached to them.

2. When we're older, we’re a collection of thousands of habits constantly running subconsciously. We have a little bit of extra brain power in our neocortex for solving new problems. You become your habits.

   • It’s really important to uncondition yourself and take your habits apart and ask, “Does it still serve me? Does it make me happier? Healthier? Does it make me accomplish whatever I set out to accomplish? 

     1. My Note: Exercise To Do: What are my habits that I can change / improve?

3. To see the truth you have to get your ego out of the way

4. The smaller you can make your ego, the less conditioned you can make your reactions, the less desires you can have about the outcomes you want, the easier it will be to see reality.

5. What you feel tells you nothing about the facts - it merely tells you something about your estimate of the facts

6. Suffering helps make your ego change in an extremely hard way.

7. What % of your thoughts are fear-based? What % are desire-based?

   • My Note: Exercise To Do: Make a journal each night that guesstimates these %s to get a feel for how your monkey mind is functioning 

Happiness

1. Happiness is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.

2. We are trapped in a web of desires (“I need this / I need that”). Happiness is the state when nothing is missing. 

   • When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops running into the past or future to regret something or to plan something.

   • Happiness is about the absence of desire, especially external things, because then you accept the current state of things, the less your mind moves towards the future or back to the past. 

3. The world reflects your own feelings back at you. Reality is neutral. Reality has no judgments. There are no external forces affecting your emotions. 

4. The neutral state is the existence little children live. Children are immersed in the environment and the moment without any thought of how it should be. 

5. A rational person can find peace by cultivating indifference to things outside of their control.

6. We spend so much time and effort trying to change the external world, other people, and our own bodies - all while accepting ourselves the way we are programmed in our youths.

7. Happiness requires presence. You can literally destroy your happiness if you spend all of your time living in delusions of the future.

8. A lot of our unhappiness comes from comparing things from the past to the present.

9. When I say happiness, I mean peace.

10. Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion. 

11. Today the way we think you get peace is by resolving all your external problems. But there are unlimited external problems. The only way to actually get a piece on the inside is by giving up this idea of problems. 

12. The enemy of peace of mind is expectations drilled into you by society and other people.

13. I think the most common mistake for humanity is believing you're going to be made happy because of some external circumstance. 

14. Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.

15. Happiness is being satisfied with what you have.

16. Many distinctions between people who get happier as they get older and people who don't can be explained by what habits they have developed. Are they habits that will increase your long-term happiness rather than your short-term happiness? 

17. The most important trick to being happy is to realize happiness is a skill you develop and a choice you make. 

18. If you fully acknowledge the futility of what you're doing, then I think I can bring great happiness and peace because you realize this is a game. But it's a fun game.

19. Happiness habits: 

    • Being very aware in every moment. If I catch myself judging somebody, I can stop myself and say, "what's the positive interpretation of this?”

    • Every time you catch yourself desiring something, say, "is it so important to me I'll be unhappy unless this goes my way?”

    • The more you judge, the more you separate yourself. You'll feel good for an instant, because you feel good about yourself, thinking you're better than someone. Later, you're going to feel lonely. Then, you see negativity everywhere. The world just reflects your own feelings back at you. 

    • Tell your friends you're a happy person. Then you'll be forced to conform to it. You'll have a consistency bias.

    • Positive-sum games create positive people. 

20. Confucius says you have two lives, and the second one begins when you realize you only have one. When and how did you second life begin?

21. Acceptance is being OK with whatever the outcome is. It's to be balanced and centered. It's a step back and to see the grander scheme of things. Achieving acceptance is very difficult.

22. The ability to singularly focus is related to the ability to lose yourself and be present, happy, and (ironically) more effective.
    

Freedom 

1. From expectations: If you hurt other people because they have expectations of you, that's their problem. If they have an agreement with you, it's your problem.

2. Don't spend your time making other people happy. Other people being happy is their problem. It's not your problem. If you were happy, it makes other people happy.

3. Freedom from uncontrolled thinking: a big habit I'm working on is trying to turn off my "monkey mind." When we're children, we're pretty blank slates. We live very much in the moment. We essentially just react to our environment through our instincts. We live in what I would call the "real world." Puberty is the onset of desire - the first time you really, really want something and you start long-range planning. You start thinking a lot, building an identity and an ego to get what you want…If you walk down the street and there are 1000 people in the street, all thousand or talking to themselves in their head at any given point. They're just pulled out of base reality… I think it's actually very bad for your happiness. To me, the mind should be a servant and a tool not a master. My monkey mind should not control and drive me 24/7…I want to break the habit of uncontrolled thinking, which is hard.
   

Mental Models - Compact ways for you to recall your own knowledge

1. Evolution

2. Game theory

3. Munger

4. Nassim Taleb - Probability, Risk / Skin in the game 

5. Ben Franklin
   

Definitions

1. Wisdom - knowing the long-term consequences of your actions

2. Judgment - making the right decisions to capitalize on wisdom

3. Contrarian - Reasons independently from the ground up and resists pressure from the ground up.

   • Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed.

4. Charisma - The ability to project confidence and love at the same time. (It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive).

5. Principal-agent problem: If you want it done right, go do it yourself. The more closely you can tie someone’s compensation to the exact value they’re creating, the more you turn them into a principal. 

6. Happiness - Peace in motion

7. Peace - Happiness at rest

8. Science - The study of truth. The only true discipline because it makes falsifiable predictions.

9. Mathematics - The language of science and nature. 

10. Anger - The way to signal as strongly as you can that you’re capable of violence. 

Quotes by Naval

1. To be honest, speak without identity. 

2. Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. 

3. For important decisions, discard memory and identity, and focus on the problem.

4. Praise specifically, criticize generally.

5. I think the meaning of life is to do things for their own sakes.

6. Most of the gains in life come from suffering in the short term so you can get paid in the long term.

7. Avoid status games in your life. They make you into an angry, combative person.

8. Money is not the root of all evil; But the lust for money is bad.

9. Be patient. If you’re counting, you’ll run out of patience before success arrives. Everyone wants to get rich immediately, but the world is an efficient place; immediate doesn’t work. 

10. “Clear thinker” is a better compliment than “smart”

11. Your real resume is just a catalog of all your suffering. 

12. Amazing how people confuse wealth and wisdom

13. Health, love, and your mission, in that order. Nothing else matters.

14. Most of the gains in life come from suffering in the short term so you can get paid in the long term. 

15. Put truth above social approval

16. A calm mind, a fit body, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought. They must be earned.

17. Impatience with actions, patience with results. 

18. The returns in life are being out of the herd. Social approval is inside the herd.

19. The hardest thing is not doing what you want - it’s knowing what you want.

20. Health, love, and your mission, in that order. Nothing else matters.   
    

Quotes by Others

1. All of man's troubles arise because he cannot sit in a room quietly by himself. - Blaise Pascal

2. Stop asking why and start saying wow. - Friend of Naval’s.

3. Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life. - Jerzy Gregorek, Naval’s trainer.

4. Anger is a hot coal you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at somebody. - Buddhist saying

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 174

In my writeup last week on BENEE, her sound had influences of the xx. Sure enough, one member of the xx, Romy, starts this week’s mixtape! “Lifetime” is a hell of an upbeat electro track. You’ll be nodding your head in no time.

Last week, you may have also noticed the name Gus Dapperton featured on the infectious “Supalonely” by BENEE (so much BENEE!!), and it just so happens Ol’ Gus released a new album in November as well. The bass line to “Bluebird” gets me every time.

PUP had my #1 album of 2019, and they’ve followed that amazeballsness with a lackluster EP (insert Price Is Right horn…), but “Nothing Changes” is certainly worth a listen. You know what? No. I’m not putting it on the mixtape. It didn’t make the cut. Sorry pooch!

I've listened to Chris Stapleton’s album a number of times, and I’m disappointed. It’s inconsistent. There are no bad songs per se, but for a guy with SO much talent, and one of the greatest voices of his generation (don’t you dare say no), I keep waiting for an oh my god this is a classic album. Some may argue his debut, Traveller, is a classic, but I think it’s a notch or two below that.

We still gifted beautiful songs (like “Joy Of My Life”) and kick-ass ones (like “Arkansas”).

I hadn’t heard of Marlowe until I asked a guy on Twitter what his fave albums this year were. Marlowe’s recent album - he also listed RTJ4, Aesop Rock’s new one, Alfredo (Freddie Gibbs and Alchemist), unlocked (Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats) Jay Electronica, Clams Casino’s instrumental, and Westside Gunn’s Pray for Paris - Marlowe 2, is very unique, in your face in a punkish way, and a blast to listen to. So far, my fave track is “Small Business,” so listen up!

Jonah Yano is this weird dude I stumbled upon, one of those Andrew Bird or Patrick Watson “out there” types whose music just sounds smart and ephemeral. “Anywhere” is a beautiful track, and you might get Jeff Buckley vibes.

Threw in a little more REASON for the rap heads out there.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 173 - Introducing the World's Next Pop Star - BENEE

All I can say is BENEE enraptured my attention from the the first note of the first track I heard, the first track of this week’s Monday Mixtape, “Happen to Me.”

Every once in a while, a song really catches my attention, but when it’s a new artist I’ve never heard, I’m usually skeptical. It’s probably a one-off, I think to myself. But I have to look into the album where the song came from when I hear a track like this. And so begins my love of BENEE.

BENEE is of the Lorde / Billie Eilish / Grimes / SZA mold, I guess, simply because she’s a young (20 years old!) female with a sound that resonates with the times. Like Lorde, she’s from Auckland, New Zealand. Like SZA, she’s got more soul, R&B, and funk in her songs than any of the others could even try.

More importantly, the others got massively popular with the release of one album, and I think the same is going to happen to BENEE. She’s got six or seven big hits on her just-released album, Hey u x.

She’s got a great voice, a sweet wispy, almost husky serenade. Her vocals really shine when she’s performing on bare tracks like “C U,” “Want Me Back,” or when she shows up as a feature like Joji’s “Afterthought.” (which isn’t on this playlist!)

She’s got a better voice than Lorde, Grimes, and Eilish, but her lyrics are pretty usual, at least in Lorde standards. She’s not the creative solo genius that Grimes brings to the table, but almost every one of her songs is catchy, and there aren’t bad tracks. They all have great drum beats, lay on the synths and spacey effects when needed, and her vocals and intonations always make the song stronger. Her album sounds like a team that’s been playing together for years, seamlessly in sync at every bridge, chorus, intro, and outro.

I also hear influence from other bands I love, like the xx (if you don’t hear the xx on “Happen To Me” than you crazy!) and Beach House. Her songs, like theirs, can be very subtle: a guitar lick (the one on “Monsta” is so sick), a drum beat, her vocals, and occasionally bits of keyboards and synths too add some memorable spice. She makes subtle sweet and powerful.

On Spotify, she’s currently 343rd in the world. Not bad (seriously)! I’m going to go on a limb and guarantee she’ll be in the Top 50 by the end of 2021.

This is your year, BENEE!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 172 - A Declaration of Celebration and Relief

This is a special Monday Mixtape, and I hope you can rejoice with me in the news that we have a new leader, president-elect.

So it’s only appropriate that we start the mixtape with Queen’s anthem, the same song that blared through all of DC when the Washington Capitals hoisted their first Stanley Cup as they paraded around the city in ecstasy. As much of a Caps fan as I am, our recent election results is probably a bigger deal.

While these mixtapes usually feature new music, exceptions must be made. Queen is one of them. Bill Withers another, Hall & Oates for sure, Radiohead a must.

Foo Fighters is another. They were the musical guest on SNL this past weekend, and appropriately they closed the show with “Times Like These,” an acknowledgement of times like these when we can learn to live again, to give and give again, and it’s times like these you learn to love again. Somehow I hope there’s a middle ground that can be found. But it’s times like these where’s there’s at least hope.

And what a performance by the Foos.

Many of the other tracks are a feeling, a message, a declaration of celebration and relief.

Hallelujah.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 171

Lots of great music blasting - or should I say serenading? This is an especially mellow mixtape - through the headphones this week. So many artists I love are releasing singles in anticipation of albums or fill albums in the past couple weeks: The Staves, Chris Stapleton, Mac Demarco, Jeff Tweedy, Local Natives, and more.

We’ll start with Omar Apollo, a crooner oozing sensuality and sultriness. You may get some Frank Ocean vibes from this guy who just released a new album that’s worth checking out if you like this jam that starts the mixtape.

Joji is a pop act but an original talent as he produced and arranged all the songs on his album Nectar. “Daylight” reminds me of Borns, one of my favorite pop artists in the past few years, and “Afterthought” has some James Blake influence. His album is all over the place in a good way.

Jeff Tweedy released a new solo album. God I love this guy. I still think Wilco is one of the most under appreciated bands alive right now (Spoon is probably up there too. You know who’s NOT up there? THE NATIONAL. The most OVERRATED band alive. Though I will admit I like High Violet but I’m so very tired of listening to their lead singer fumble through his songs like he’s on his 17th glass of red wine).

ANYWAYS, any music released by Jeff Tweedy is a must listen for me. I’ve included a couple of my current faves from his recent album, Love Is the King.

Another underrated band: The Staves. Their new single “Good Woman” is released in anticipation of their third album (of the same title) to be released in February 2021. Can’t wait!

My man Mac Demarco releasd a bunch of b-sides from his last album, and I have yet to listen to them all, but “Out Of My Head” got my head bobbing. He’s so awesome.

Finally, some nostalgic love for Local Natives. I may have mentioned I recently purchased their 10th Anniversary vinyl of their debut classic, Gorilla Manor, an album that has so much emotional heft for me, memories of a specific time in my life that Gorilla Manor WAS the soundtrack.

I’ve added one of my favorite tracks (though who am I kidding, I think I love every single song) which is a bit less known as it’s buried in the back of the album.

Enjoy the tunes.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 170

This week’s mixtape is a mix of rock, rap, folk, and whatever you want to call Kurt Vile’s laidback tunes.

I’ll start with the last, first: REASON. He’s the newest member of the infamous music label Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), which includes SZA, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, and oh yeah, that other rapper, Kendrick Lamar. Reason is the only one of all of them to drop an album in 2020, so the pressure is on!

Word on TDE is Kendrick might leave TDE for Dave Free’s label (one of Kendrick’s this high-school friends). I would assume he got screwed or massively underpaid for providing the biggest platform for TDE while the TDE owners soaked in all the money. Just a guess.

Anyways, I enjoyed REASON’s album a lot because he’s a good lyricist (see Verse 2 below) and is passionate. A lot of artists either don’t give a shit what they’re saying or sound like they don’t, and it’s refreshing to hear someone that sounds like their soul is on fire and they need to extinguish something. Or as REASON says, “I gotta say it wit’ my chest.”

What’s wild for a debut album on a major label is that REASON is already showing doubts of his relationship with TDE. More abnormal, he’s being open and honest about it on this mixtape’s last track, “Windows Cry.” Verse 2 is phenomenal:

Prayed to be gifted and got it from rappin', ain't that ironic?
Discussin' deals with white women and vodka tonics, uh
Like who are you, nigga? Oh, you different, different
Oh, you gifted, gifted, then let's go back to your contract
Nigga, listen, listen, paranoia lifted
Look, you so fuckin' clueless, let's break it down?
You signed a paper to get rid of your niggas, now you got strangers
At the worst fuckin' moment you could 'cause your life is changin'
You heard the stories of labels puttin' artists in danger
Use 'em up for hits, never pay 'em and then replace 'em
And now you're steppin' into unfamilar situations
Of a label that's like family but adopted you for paper
While you tryna be the greatest and pursue your vison
You call and get the voicemail, nigga, who gon' listen?
They only care about the money, nigga, screw your vision
This shit's so fuckin' screwed up, now you screwed up in it
They got you sittin' on the bench, you gon' lose your listens
You gon' hurt your fans, you gon' lose your mentions
You tryna grow as big as Dot, tryna move your image
Now you got Dave pushin' buttons and he grew up with him
What's his motive, nigga? Can't never trust him
They make Ali mix your vocals, nigga, without discussion
This shit crazy, you so hopeless, nigga
You got Top's son as one of your managers
And you barely even know this nigga
If you and Top get in some shit, who he ridin' for?
Who he slidin' for? Wait, wait, they comin', shh, shh
Let's keep it quiet, low, can't let 'em know you doubtin'
They'll take offense and say you're spoiled, "REASON always poutin'"
You gotta trust the process, days slowly countin'
Where your music at? Where you been, nigga?
I'm just hopin' all these thoughts don't turn reality
Hope September 12th don't turn into my casualty
Windows cry

Speaking of rappers, I think the best rapper right now is JID. He’s everywhere right now doing features with all sorts of rappers, and he’s always got the best verse. Need proof? Check his verse against one of my fave rappers, Isaiah Rashad, and Reason in “Extinct” or his verse on “Shiva” with EARTHGANG. He’s just on another level right now, and his name is getting a ton of love. He just needs to release a classic album. We’re all waiting. If anyone can take the crown from Kendrick, it’s JID. But I ain’t betting against K Dot!

Speaking of great rappers, I stumbled upon Che Noir, a female rapper whose album As God Intended is awesome. The whole album flows and she’s a hell of a rapper.

On a totally different spectrum, we got some Fleet Foxes, Kurt Vile & John Prine, and Doves, all three of which are completely different from each other! Still thinking this new Fleet Foxes album is very good but ranks #3 of 4 on their discography.

Kurt Vile continues to make music in his own meandering ways, and this time he brought along old timer John Prine to make a beautiful duet.

Finally, Doves. A band I loved almost two decades ago. They’ve come back with an impressively great rock album, their first in 11 years! Definitely, definitely worth a listen if you like these guys. And if you’ve never heard of them, please listen to 2011’s The Last Broadcast.

Have a good week all!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 169

If this first track isn’t the party rap anthem off the year, I don’t know what is. This song is amazing, and it’s got some rappers I love like Big K.R.I.T and Curren$y and a new one I’ve gotten into recently, Smoke DZA (who appears again on this mixtape with Joey Bada$$ in “The Mood”).

Really digging this new The Neighbourhood album. I will continue to put tracks from their album on upcoming mixtapes. Their sound shifts a bunch, so it’s hard to even tell it’s the same artist. See if you can spot it next week!

Shout out to Sean C. for letting me know Roosevelt released some new stuff. Hopefully, that means an album is around the corner!

If you haven’t heard of or heard IDLES before, be prepared. They are raucous. Their live shows are raucous. It’s a rowdy bunch, and their lead singer REALLY gives it his all in live shows, you should just check them out on YouTube if you’re digging what they’re spinning.

Fleet Foxes released their fourth album a week ago!! I have been digesting it constantly. On first blush, it is a really, really good album. It’s not as good as Helplessness Blues, my favorite of theirs, and it probably can’t overtake their debut album, but it’s still a really solid album. Robin Pecknold’s vocals are in the stratosphere, I think he’s such a talent, a dark soul trying to come to some light through his music. Couldn’t imagine any other voice of Fleet Foxes (though spoiler, he lets someone he met from his time at school in Oxford sing the beginning of the first track).

I’ll be putting much more from this album on future mixtapes.

Happy Monday. Go make something of yourself.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 168 - Sufjan Stevens' The Ascension Meets Radiohead's Kid A

I’ve got an interesting mixtape for this week thanks to Sufjan Stevens blowing my mind with his latest album, Ascension. I immediately got vibes of (one of) Radiohead’s masterpieces, Kid A.

The influence is uncanny, and I’ve never heard a better album that maintains an artist’s own brilliance (listen to the intense and otherworldly“Death Star”) while also paying tribute (knowingly or unknowingly) to Radiohead’s classic from twenty years ago.

This week’s mixtape features my favorite songs from Stevens’ new album followed or preceded by the song from Kid A that I believe influenced the sound.

Kid A was WAY ahead of its time, and Stevens’ album sounds part of the time. The album can be chaotic and pulsating, lonely as the single star shining in the night, holy and ethereal, or all the above in one track.

The album is purely electronic, and the result puts Stevens’ talents in a rare stratosphere. This album is HEADPHONE/VINYL MUSIC: you have to hear it purely to get every strand and syllable, each whisper, every key collaborating into a galactic explosion of electronics and beauty. I’m just blown away.

The Ascension is a long album (1 hour 20 mins). It’s heavy (“a season of pain and hopelessness,” as Stevens says in “The Ascension”) and deals with dark and hopeless thoughts. Musically, it’s the complete opposite of his last album, the amazing “Carrie and Lowell,” but thematically, it has a lot of parallels.

I still haven't tackled Stevens’ earlier stuff, which is highly beloved and acclaimed, particularly 2003’s Michigan and 2005’ Illinois. I will get to it shortly.

But in the meantime, I hope this mixtape strikes a chord with those who love Stevens., Radiohead, or are just discovering one of them!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 167

Don’t have a lot to say on this Monday, but this is a great playlist to smoothly transition into the start of the week. Let’s work on stopping the fear mongering that the media and politics and WHAT FEELS LIKE EVERYTHING AROUND US is spewing. People can’t take away your positivity or hopefulness.