Monday Mixtape, Vol. 37

A short writeup as I’m about to run to catch a flight on Super Bowl Sunday (boo!). 

I’ve been listening to the new DIIV album on repeat since it was released. The two tracks on here are my favorites, especially “Bent (Roi’s Song)” which has been echoing in my ears for days. 

Lanu is the side project of an Australian musician whose main band is The Bamboos (who I have never heard of, but I’ll check them out). I loved Lanu’s last album, and this album is on par. It’s great background music. 

That’s all I got, have a great week!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 36

Anderson Paak’s Malibu was the first album I listened to in 2016. It immediately became a Top 25 Album of the year for me. There’s no way this album will fall off the list. The real question is how high can it go? Paak’s influences are varied and his nasal rapping and sweet singing may bring comparison’s to other double-threat rappers, but his sound is his own. What a cool album. If “Celebrate” doesn’t get you feeling great, I don’t know what song will.

Lola Marsh is a new band I know very little about save for their four song EP. “You’re Mine” is my favorite of the four songs. 

If you like either of the Allan Kingdom tracks I’ve put on the last two mixtapes, check out his album.

I just started listening to Bryson Tiller, the musical man-child of Drake and Future with Miguel as an older brother. “Rambo” is one of my favorite songs from his debut album, but I love his plodding beats and auto-tuned but still human vocals. 

Abi Reimold is for all my rock fans. She kicks some ass. 

I read about the young Sunflower Bean in the recent Rolling Stone. Their debut album is coming out soon, and I thought “Human Ceremony” was a trippy track.

My (work) life has been crazy busy for the past three months, and I have not been able to provide a ton of content on here outside of the mixtape, so I apologize for what has become the new normal, but thank you for reading and listening!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 35

As my fellow east-coasters have been deluged in a sea if snow, I have been swamped in an avalanche of new music and albums. There were so many songs I wanted to put on this mix, but I will just have some great material for next week as well.

Let’s start with Diiv. I heard their new album in a buddy’s car, it’s like a 90s grunge concert underwater, washed out and covered in reverb. Their albums swim together in a beautiful unison. 

Chairlift is just making some unabashed catchy tunes. Both songs on this mixtape I liked from the minute I heard em!

PUSHA T. I’ve been blasting his new album on repeat. It’s under 30 minutes of raw, bass-rattling tracks with a ton of room for Pusha to menace and mean mug his vocals all around. This is a killer album (released right at the end of 2015), and Push is releasing another one this year.  

Hinds is a group of chicks from Spain just killing it. Love em.

Really digging Allan Kingdom’s album, Northern Lights. It’s been on repeat all week. He’s got a bit of Kid Cudi in him (not the new Kid Cudi, DEAR GOD, please listen to his new album, just do it, it’s like watching Gigli. No, I’m serious, you need to listen to it and envision someone actually trying to make that) and a whole lot of potential. 

I still am unsure whether I like Savages or not. They’re one of those super serious bands that does not fuck around. Their sound proves the point. They just released their sophomore album, and “Adore” has stuck with me. What a buildup.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 34

Music is like so many other things in life - it’s cyclical. Sometimes we have a decade or more of great music, and other times it’s a stagnant regurgitation of better music.

Rap right now is on the upswing. Everyone will always be nostalgic of 90s rap, and I can thank A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie, Nas, Dr. Dre, Snoop, Tupac, Wu-Tang Clan, Mos Def and Taleb Kweli, Big L, Naughty by Nature, Big Pun, OutKast, Eminem, DMX, Little Brother, The Pharcyde, Jurassic 5, Gang Starr, and many, many more I’ve failed to mention.

But in the past five years we have had Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, Drake’s Nothing Was The Same, Kanye’s Yeezus, Run the Jewels Run The Jewels 2, and then in 2015 alone: Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, Lupe Fiasco’s Tetsuo & Youth, Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, and Future’s DS2.

The last time I was listening to this much rap was back in college when I completely immersed myself in the world of 90s rap (since I spent most of my life in the 90s as a chubby kid rocking out to grunge music wearing No Fear t-shirts with a bowl cut).

I’m immersed now and as a byproduct, I’m immersing you.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 33

Welcome to the year 2016. I hope for it to be another fantastic year of music, and one that I will happliy curate for the few of you willing to listen. 

As for the year 2015, hopefully you've been jamming to my Top 100 Songs of 2015, a list that took a while to whittle down but has a ton of great jams. One thing I really enjoy is listening to all other publications' Year End lists. I've recently been listening to Pitchfork's 100 Best Songs, and I've included some of these in today's mixtape. 

I also had a good friend here in SF, a crazy music nut who goes to 2-3 shows a week (though shame on him, he hates hip-hop), who created his own Top 100 Songs and Top 25 Albums. His #1 album was Carly Rae Jepsen's Emotion! At first, I was blown away since she's just the pop singer from "Call Me Maybe," but upon listening to her album, I understand why he loved it so much (though for the record,  it being #1 is still crazy). 

I’ve had Raury on the mixtape before because he has his own blend of hip-hop and alternative vibes, but “Friends” is just a feel good song to make you smile. 

Logic is a rapper from Rockville, MD, who I’ve heard about since his Young Sinatra mixtape. The guy has serious talent and is coming into his own. His latest album has some great tracks, “Fade Away,” being one of them

I have no idea how I stumbled upon Good Morning, but these guys are super duper chill.

Ricky Rozay!

This track by Ought is masterful. If you can get over the “spoken word” vocals (and then maybe start appreciating the oddness of it all which is a little bit like Parquet Courts these days and a little bit like David Byrne in his days) and focus on the arrangement of the music and the lyrics, you’re in for a treat. Wish I had this one on my Top 100!

Closing it out with a ballad by Carly. 

Happy New Year!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 32

I can't in good conscience start a playlist this close to Christmas without a little Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas, easily my favorite Christmas album ever. Also in consideration: Home Alone Soundtrack, Boyz II Men A Christmas Collection, and Bing Crosby's Christmas Classics.

Anyways, we’re nearing the end of another wild year in music, so I’m still hard at work on my Top 100 Songs and Top 25 Albums playlists. These are hard as hell to slim down! I’m still at 200 songs after running through and deleting over 60.

As I continue to get through this, you can listen to the Monday Mixtape. I’ve included a few new jams, including hometown DC rapper, Goldlink, the spacey Mild High Cub, and the poppy but infectious Lissie. 

And of course, Christmas Time is Here. Well, almost. 

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 31

The year is closing out, and that means I've been hard at work narrowing down all the albums I listened to this year to my favorite 25 as well as my favorite 100 songs! 

It's been quite the process since there were over 200 albums to begin with as well as thousands of songs to hear to make to the songs playlist. 

Anyways, those two playlists will be coming shortly, but in the meantime, here are some tunes I've been jamming to lately.

I found The New Basement Tapes randomly, but it's a supergroup of artists (Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Marcus Mumford, Elvis Costello, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, and an unknown to me, Rhiannon Giddens) who were all assembled to take Bob Dylan lyrics from 1967 to record. It's a very cool album which begins with this track, "Down On The Bottom," which Jim James just crushes. 

G-Eazy is an Oakland rapper who has slowly but surely gained quite a following. He had a huge slot at Outside Lands here in SF, and "Random" shows his abilities. Check him out. 

Bully is a raw rock band with screeching vocals and a taste for distortion. Their sound is for those who like music without perfect edges.

I wrote about C. Duncan last week, but this album is sticking with me for its dreamy sound. “Say” is the opening track of Architect and sets the stage for the rest of the album. I’m still debating whether it makes it into the Top 25, but it’s close!   

Half Moon Run’s debut album last year made it into my Top 25 as they were one of the few rock bands that I heard with a bit of Radiohead in them. Their new album this year isn’t at the level of their debut, but “Turn Your Love” showcases their mix of electronics and more standard rock with barr chords and loud choruses. 

Prhyme is a collaboration of rapper Royce da 5’9 and legendary producer DJ Premier (outside of Q-Tip, no one exemplifies 90s rap beats more than Premier). I just started listening to this album from 2014, and I’m amazed I hadn’t heard about ti earlier. The album features Jay Electronica, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, Mac Miller, and more and is a great listen. 

Finally, I wrote a short piece about Scott Weiland’s passing a few days ago (along with a Best of Stone Temple Pilots playlist!), and I thought it would only be fitting to end with an acoustic version of their most famous song. RIP.