Monday Mixtape, Vol. 38

A few very quick blurbs about this week’s music:

If you haven’t gotten into The Staves - and this track wets your whistle - please listen to their gorgeous album from 2014, If I Was

I’ve been following Dizzy Wright for a bit, and he seems to be making some serious traction as he’s showing up on tracks with a bunch of bigger rappers. This track, from his new EP, is instantaneously likable. 

Nap Eyes is a little bit Belle & Sebastian (ok, a lot), and I just dug this track (and not as much the album)

I had Sunflower Bean on a previous mixtape, but this track rocks. I’m enjoying their debut album.

Static Selektah is basically DJ Premier 2.0. Premier is one of my favorite producers ever. Selektah’s beats are very 90s and all pretty great. This one has a very ATCQ-like rhythm. And one of my faves, Ab-Soul, is on it. 

Bibio has always interested me. He has music to play in the morning or to wake up to after a nap. Chill. 

Have a good week! I’m off to Denver and LA this week. 

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!

I Listened to 100,000 Minutes of Music in 2015!!

Spotify's "Year in Music" analysis is pretty cool: In 2015, I listened to 1,457 different artists and 6,426 different songs!!

The proof is in the pudding:

By no surprise, I listed to Tame Impala the most, to the tune of 928 streams!

And apparently my biggest addiction was "Atlantic Postcard," which I listened to 17 times in one day! I thought I'd share the

I don't think I'll ever be able to come close to listening to this much music again. I have a new job and a much busier life these days, but over two years, I listened to 203,000 minutes of music. 

I will look back on these times with a lot of happiness for my devotion and love of one of the biggest things in my life. It will always continue, but the minutes may start coming back to earth!