Monday Mixtape, Vol. 128

Oh mercy! I’ve been gone for at least three weeks, I sincerely apologize. You’ve had such a glut of music in your stomach and soul missing! I blame my “real” job, which has been getting a lot busier and very interesting. There have been a few points where I’ve felt the business is about to really turn a corner and some real momentum is gaining. The first two times were a bit of false starts, and I have no idea where the biz may go from here, but it’s another good feeling. You have to feel this every once in a while to keep everything loose and fun, and keep hope alive, so that’s a good thing. 

ANYWAYS. This week’s mixtape is going to mimic my mood, so it shall be an upbeat slew of jams.

Friendly Fires released a single, one of my favorite songs I’ve heard from them in years  it seems just yesterday that their amazing 2008 debut album was playing on repeat on my speakers.

The Japanese House released what is easily one of my favorite albums this year so far. This is certainly my fave jam on the album.

Foals continue to make really good music. I’d say I’m a tad disappointed overall in their new album since their quality control album to album has been so damn consistent, and this year’s album sounds to be one of their weaker entries, but this track and “Sunday” are still great tracks, standouts on the album. 

I’m excited to hear Foster the People’s new album. If this single is any indication, it should be a good one. Speaking of quality control, these guys only have three albums, the last two of which I thought were wildly underrated (their second album was so weird and different, akin to MGMT’s wild left turn with their awesome, crazy, and orbital second album, Congratulations) thereby making the band seem underrated and under appreciated. Yet they were headlining the festival circuit on their last album. They’re a bit of a conundrum to me, I never feel like I meet too many huge fans of theirs or hear too much about them from critics, but they’re still making great music.

Enjoy the rest of the jams and the whole of the week! I’ll see you next one.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 73

Oh man, oh man. Kendrick. Let's start off with the fact that he released one of my favorite songs of the year, The Heart Part 4:

A song with three different beats that Kendrick destroys with a confidence and abandon that no other rapper alive could think of doing. This man KNOWS he is the greatest rapper alive. "Don't tell a lie on me, I won't tell the truth bout you," he threatens to all the shit talking rappers with little to back up against Lamar. 

This track was released prior to Lamar's album, DAMN. released on Friday. Because of the quality of The Heart Part 4, I was amazed by its absence on his new album. I thought, "Ruhroh. Either's he gone mad to not include something this good or his new album is so great he doesn't even need this track." 

So yeah, it's the latter. 

DAMN. is the astonishment of everyone hearing this album for the first time. DAMN. is the thought when Lamar announces on the first real track, DNA, aside the bass rattling, "I got loyalty, got royalty inside my DNA. Cocaine quarter piece, War and Peace inside my DNA." DAMN. is the realization that Lamar is now one of the best rappers of all time. There are too many damns that you almost stop giving a damn. But, really, DAMN!

I'm going to try to do an album review sometime soon of DAMN. because it's an astonishing piece of art. It's already getting crazy love on the interwebs, and as I am typing this, I am counting down the minutes until Kendrick headlines Coachella which can be watched (and almost all of Coachella, for that matter) for free on YouTube (God Bless America)! 

There's so much other great stuff going on in music right now, some of it included on this mixtape. Little Dragon released a pretty great album, Spoon released a quality album (they just don't make bad records - I don't like this one as much as They Want My Soul - probably because it doesn't have a track like Inside Out, but it's still a damn good listed), John Mayer released his best album since Continuum (more on this next week though I've written a ton about most of the songs on the album already since they were released in EPs before the whole album - this is some new gimmick thanks to Spotify and all the other streaming companies), Joey Bada$$ released a damn good sophomore album, and Father John Misty released an album which starts great but quickly falls off a boring ass cliff of regurgitated songs from his last two (great) albums. 

So this is a good one. Enjoy! 

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 62

Greetings! It's been a while, my apologies. As it has tended to do, life has been quite busy. Lots of really fun events in the past few weeks coupled with business travels and a brutal cold. But it's been far too long since a Monday Mixtape!

There's been a ton of music released in the past month or so, none bigger than A Tribe Called Quest's final album, We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your service. And what an unbelievable final album. You know that Tribe would never dishonor the late great Phife Dawg (who might have seen mortality knocking on the door) by making an album after this, and it's an honor to get something as well done as this album.

I would put this album on par with Beats, Rhymes, and Life. Both Midnight Marauders and The Low End Theory are hip-hop classics located in the upper echelon of rap, so it's silly and impossible to try to compare this to those. But DAMN this first track! My favorite part is when Q-Tip comes back in ("Reputation ain't glowing / Reparations ain't flowing...") in the middle of Jarobi's bars - so sick. Q-tip absolutely annihilates this track, one of my favorites of the year.

Q-Tip produced the entire album himself, pasting one last stamp on his legacy, a man at the highest of heights amongst titans of rap. This man produced some of the best hip-hop albums of all time and was part of the greatest hip-hop group of all time, had one of the most iconic voices, and his influence on rap is monumental.

With all this adoration, I have to include my Best of Tribe playlist which I made when Phife passed away.  

Jim James new solo album is a must hear for any fans of his. "Here in Spirit" is my favorite track on the album, a precious song with James' patented vocals bellowing and bouncing through his mansions of melodies. He bleeds what he sings, I believe it all. 

If you like this track from Horse Thief, 2014's Worst Band Name (says a very well known blog, Layers & Sounds), please check out their debut album from 2014, particularly "Human Geographer" and "Come On."

WHO THE HELL do you compare these guys to?? They sound a little bit like another bit of an unknown band (that I saw open for Radiohead years back) that's also pretty out there, Other Lives. I always like to compare weird and unique bands to Radiohead, but I just don't hear it here. Anyways, I'm excited for a new album as their new track "Another Youth" is pretty badass.

Jai Wolf is some sort of DJ I heard about years ago from my buddy who had a really interesting mixtape. I hadn't really heard from him since (I wasn't really looking around though), but this is a pretty catchy tracks, one consistently on repeat for me. 

And we end with Tribe's "Lost Somebody," a tribute to the Phife, the five foot assassin with the roughneck business. For all that Tribe was and all the success bestowed upon Q-Tip as the mastermind, Tribe would NEVER have been what it was without Phife. RIP 

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 10

There are very, very few artists who are able to jump around genres and sounds, whirling different tunes that sound nothing like its predecessors. This is why we love Beck and why musicians respect the hell out of him (well, except for Kanye). This is why he can make an album as chill as Morning Phase (my sixth favorite album of 2014), and then follow that up with a song that sounds NOTHING like that album, a total change of direction into an instantly likable song like "Dreams." I just respect the hell out of this guy.  

Meg Mac's "Roll Up Your Sleeves" is your classic piano ballad. A few slow chords sustain throughout as the claps and faint bass drum keep the beat alive. The song hits its climax at 1:28 as the snare and another piano come rolling in as Ms. Mac shows some range. It's definitely got a bit of an Adele feel that I'm digging.

"Indian Summer" reminds me of most tracks from Odesza with the high pitched sample vocal repeating over all sorts of synths and other electronic elements. 

I love weird songs. There's an originality to them because they're so strange and don't particularly sound like anything else. With that said, Kero Kero Bonito is a British pop artist specializing in the J-pop (Japanese Pop) sound who slices in both English and Japanese words as a ridiculous production (or, a sick beat some may say) upgrades the song. The first time I heard this song, it felt like the Super Mario 3 soundtrack just visited Albuquerque for a quick fix. This song is out there!

To pour one out for the artist formerly known as Rick Ross (as he has lost something like 100 pounds!), I wanted to include this slow jam with Drake. Not sure he can call himself "the Don" anymore since he's under 250, but glad to see the man's taking his health seriously! 

I spoke about Seoul in my last mixtape, and this track has been playing on repeat for me. Laid back groove, laid back voice. Just sit back and relax.

Have a good week!