52 Weeks of Mixtapes
Week 4
Welcome back to 52 Weeks of Mixtapes, my second music series for The Low Major.
Every Sunday, I’ll publish a mixtape of music centered around something - a feeling, a time, a person, a place. We’re running on vibes here. Each playlist cover will be a photo or an edit that’s my own work. This shit’s organic.
Two (self-imposed) rules for this project:
Each mixtape will never be more than an hour - usually in that 45-60 minute space, long enough to run with it, but I’m not gonna brute-force any level of length. Quality over quantity, as they say.
I’m also going to try to avoid reusing artists within the same mixtape and tracks within the same month. Sometimes songs are good enough that it’d be silly to not touch on them again, so you might see some old friends.
I’ll link to the playlist, talk a little bit (like, one sentence) about each track, their ordering and why they were included, and that’ll be all. Pretty simple, and hopefully enjoyable for you.
somewhere west of paradise
missing a place i never really called home, anyways
—
1 | A Brand New Life | Panama Wedding | 3:34
Perfectly sets the stage, upbeat electronica that carries all the excitement of new things forward under lyrics that carve through a little of that persistent anxiety.
2 | Cool | The Electric Sons | 3:41
Classically surf-influenced, this song takes electronic rock and drenches it in oceanic feel.
3 | Dancing on Quicksand | Bad Suns | 3:46
One of the genres that I really love that I don’t explore nearly enough is this sort of vocal-driven indie rock - but this is a great sample platter to introduce the through-vein to this playlist.
4 | Waves | Magic Man | 3:44
I played this song a lot when I was out by the ocean driving the Pacific Coast Highway. Had to make it into this tape.
5 | Halo | The Pass | 3:50
Could have just as easily been COIN or CRUISR featuring here, but the echoey backing harmony here really does a lot of fantastic creation, one of those songs I can so easily scream along to in the car.
6 | Ready For You | Hunter Hunted | 3:26
Takes a second to get going but that wall of synths really adds so much beautiful flavor and fills out a bit of what I wanted in this playlist, giving it depth to accommodate the array of melodies and fills already present.
7 | Honest | The Band CAMINO | 3:21
Back to surf rock, a song that feels about as anthemic as Californian surf rock can get.
8 | Dancing On Glass | St. Lucia | 4:06
My entire life out west felt like the most fragile of balances. This songs echoes that sentiment perfectly.
9 | Somewhere | Wild Cub | 3:40
Little glamour rock, little bit glitzy, all indie pop, a bit of a revelation recently. Felt right.
10 | Stuck | One11Twenty | 3:42
Happened to get this song recommended to me in 2021 by a friend, and it has never left my head since. Perfect track.
11 | Preacher Man | THE DRIVER ERA | 3:39
One of those songs that popped up in a daily mix and just grabbed me by the ears - that keyboard loop is impossible to shake in the most complimentary way possible.
12 | Autopilot | Sports | 4:00
Slowing it down for a second after a really energetic song to hit on that stasis that I rued a lot when I was out in California but often look back on fondly these days.
13 | Don’t Tell Me How It Ends | Penguin Prison | 3:44
Opening with Panama Wedding and closing with Penguin Prison ties two of my favorite artists from this phase of my life together with a pretty little bow.
Enjoy the list! I’ll see y’all next week.