Monday Mixtape, Vol. 154

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Morning, it’s the Monday Mixtape, version one hundred fifty four fed directly into your ears.

I will start with an utterly gorgeous LIVE song by Sohn with an orchestra. Words don’t do this justice, just listen.

One of my front runners for album of the year (so far!) is The Districts’ You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere, their fourth album. This album exemplifies that the sum is greater than its parts. It’s meant to be ingested whole.

The first track (and second track on this mixtape) is a warmup lap, warning those who have listened to The Districts before that the violin, trippy bubbly echoes, and reverb signify this will be a different experience. “Cheap Regrets” (track three on the mixtape) is likely my favorite song on the album, a buildup of a banger.

Which effortlessly glides into the electro magicians, Disclosure. These guys make songs that you nod your head to and want to dance. I remember seeing them at Treasure Island Festival in 2013. People LOST THEIR MINDS when they came on, just dancing like only Disclosure was looking. It’s contagious.

“OK” by Wallows is a great track by a band I know nothing about, and “People, I’ve been sad” by Christine and the Queens is another.

You all know how much I love Mac Miller. I’ve now listened to his 2020 posthumous album, Circles, probably 30 times or so. It grows and grows and grows on me. His vocals are akin to Bob Dylan. He doesn’t have a good voice, but it’s his voice that makes the songs.

Miller was becoming so comfortable wading between musical styles and confident in his abilities (and love from his peers), it’s a loss to music that he’s gone.

The Mac Miller track I put to end this week’s mixtape, “Woods,” is a song, like the album, that kept getting better with time. A slow paced beat with only sustaining keys and Miller’s vocals, it’s a song to get lost in or zone out in your work while it plays in the background.

Miller starts the song ominously, “Things like this ain’t built to last / I might just fade like those before me.” Too soon.