Category: Mixtapes

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Teen Idle – In The Morning

Teen Idle

Sara Abdelbarry is a 23 year-old music artist of Egyptian heritage who greg up in the suburbs of New Jersey. The boredom of suburban life and everything she went through growing up led her to start writing songs in 2018 as a mean to emotional catharsis, giving birth eventually to Teen Idle, her musical project.

Back in June, Teen Idle released her first EP, Insomniac Dreams, which consists of 6 tracks of what could be categorised as indie/dream-pop, with my favourite one being In The Morning. What I like about this song is that Sara’s ethereal vocals and pop flavour get infused with hints of alternative rock from the 90’s. I think Sara will inevitably get compared to Hope Sandoval/Mazzy Star and I can certainly see why, but I also think that she injects enough of her own identity to Teen Idle’s music to be able to stand on her own.

Listen to this rising star below and let me know if you disagree.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative
  • Folk/Indie

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Holly Jones – Believe

Few instruments are as capable of giving you calm and peace as a piano, and when it comes to piano compositions, I favor heavily the melody over everything else. This is why I like Holly Jones‘ latest piece, Believe, so much. The song’s beautiful melody takes you on a journey to the Sea of Tranquility and back, which is very much in line with what Holly had in mind when she composed the song. Her aim was to bring relief, reassurance and comfort during these uncertain times.

This contemporary classical pianist and composer is originally from Kentucky but now lives in Oklahoma. Her debut piano album was released in 2003 but it wasn’t until 2016 when she released her sophomore record. Since then, Holly has been getting new music out regularly, including Believe just this week.

Check her work out on your favorite streaming platform. In the meantime, you can relax on this Sunday afternoon listening to Believe here.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Relax

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Gib – Daylight

Some artists are so passionate about their art that they have to be constantly creating something. Otherwise, they feel empty. Lost.

When it comes to music, these artists can take inspiration from anything and cannot be restrained by any single genre or style. When they receive inspiration from a muse goddess, they just need to work on it. They don’t dream about massive stardom. Just being able to do what they love for a living would be enough.

Gib is such an artist. After playing bass in several projects for a good while, he decided to give it a try on his own, following his imagination without worrying about bandmates or genres. It’s a hard task to count how many tracks he has published on Spotify since 2018 but it wasn’t until recently that he decided to start promoting himself. He doesn’t have a website or even a Facebook page yet. Just a Twitter account (he’s pretty active there) as far as social media goes (of course, he got Bandcamp and Soundcloud accounts). His total focus has been on creating music, not on the business side of that.

And here’s the thing: Gib‘s music is actually pretty good. Even though it is mostly instrumental music, the styles are very diverse. His bio on Spotify lists the following genres: rock, indie, soundtrack, chill, pop, and dance. In other words, pretty much everything. The song I’m recommending today is an ambient track from his latest EP, Lights, and it was an automatic add to the Chill Out mixtape. I strongly suggest you check it out and then listen to other tracks from this UK-based multi-instrumentalist. With so many genres, you’re guaranteed to find more songs you’ll like.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Chill Out

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Neck Deep – What Took You So Long?

Neck Deep

Last month, Welsh punk-rock band Neck Deep released their fourth studio album, All Distortions Are Intentional, and even though I didn’t find it ground-breaking, I thought it was a solid effort with several good tracks and a few gems. What Took You So Long? is my favourite one despite not being released as one of the singles yet. Hardcore fans might not like it because it’s not a “pure” punk-rock track, but that’s precisely the reason why I think it is the best song in the album. The band dared to take some chances without changing its essence and it worked out. The sweet lyrics don’t hurt either.

If you follow this genre at all, you probably know Neck Deep already, as their previous album, The Peace and the Panic, debuted at #4 in both the UK and the US (at least according to Wikipedia) and they opened several concerts for Blink-182 in 2019. And If you don’t know them, definitely check them out. That previous record was outstanding and the new one is a worthy follow-up. In the meantime, listen to What Took You So Long below.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Punk-rock

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Eagle-Eye Cherry – Falling In Love Again

Eagle-Eye Cherry

As mentioned on last Saturday’s entry, Eagle-Eye Cherry deserves his own Throwback Thursday post and here it is. He had two successful hits in the late 90’s: Save Tonight and Falling In Love Again, both really good but with the former being the bigger one. However, I always liked the latter a bit more. I can’t really explain why. I just did.

Unless you are constantly listening to alternative music from the 90’s, chances are that you forgot about these songs or never heard of them, but even if you still remember them, you might not know that Eagle-Eye was actually a Swedish artist, not American, despite being of Choctaw descent. His actual full name is Eagle-Eye Lanoo Cherry and another interesting tidbit is that he went to acting school with Jennifer Aniston. However, he ended up focusing on music only. He was pretty productive as a musician until 2003, and then he had a long-hiatus until 2012, when he became active again. His last full album, Streets of You, was released in 2018.

Let’s reminisce here about this interesting artist by listening to one of his best songs, an old musical crush. Enjoy!

P.S: The music video is so 90’s!

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative

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Shy Martin – Are You Happy?

Sara Hjellström, aka Shy Martin, is a young artist who looks even younger. That could mislead you into thinking she’s new to the music industry when, in fact, she’s an established songwriter. She’s written or co-written successful tracks for the likes of Kygo (featuring Ellie Goulding), Bebe Rexha and Jess Glynne. And if all that wasn’t enough, she can sing too. This Swedish singer/songwriter even signed a record deal with EMI when she was 17 but ultimately decided to go the independent route, which eventually brought her here, to the release of her sophomore EP, Sad Songs, which consists of five very nice indie pop tracks, including today’s entry to The Alternative Mixtapes.

Are You Happy? is a delicate but catchy song with a melancholic theme: appreciating failed past relationships. The gorgeous melody goes hand in hand with Shy’s vocals, resulting in this nice tune that got all the elements to get a lot of airplay and streams. Pairing it with a lovely music video, which you can watch below, helps too. Could this song become your next musical crush?

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Pop

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Evaride – What’s It All For?

I feel like I should have known about American band Evaride for a while now. Formed by the former guitar player on Glee and one of the stars in Billy Joe Armstrong’s Broadway musical “American Idiot”, their debut single got over 4 million streams on Spotify and then the band got songs featured in video games and some tv shows. Their debut EP Vol. 1 got several heavyweight producers and sound-mixers involved such as Chris Lord-Alge. I mean, there was certainly some buzz about them. That being said, I only know about Evaride because they liked one of my posts on Instagram and it caught my attention because they had the verified badge.

What’s It All For? was the first song from Evaride that I played and it blew me away how well it sounded. The top-notch production made sense once I saw who had been involved, but besides that, it was a high-energy, catchy and fun pop-rock song like those from yesteryear that are not common anymore. Even better, the lyrics had a deeper meaning than what you would expect from such a fun song (and music video, see below), basically talking about all those little stupid things we tend to do or give importance to that are essentially meaningless, like people doing whatever it takes to get more likes on social media. What could be better than songs with great melodies and good lyrics?

It will be interesting to see how far Evaride will go in the next few years.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative
  • Pop

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Everything In Waves – Colors Return

New York-based Everything In Waves is a band with indie, emo, folk, and electronic influences. In fact, they have come up with their own genre, ‘emotronic‘, which is a mix of all those influences. The band, which is signed to Deep Elm Records (just as Lights & Motion and U137, among others), recently released a new single, Colours Return, which aims to provide some comfort to those deeply affected by the pandemic.

It is a nice and soothing track with different layers that add depth to it. Unfortunately, it is not available on Youtube yet, so you will have to visit one of the mixtapes below to hear this message of hope. I don’t have an emotronic mixtape but I think Colors Return will fit in nicely with the other songs in the Indie Mixtape. Hope you like it!

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Folk/Indie

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The Echelon Effect – Your Memory Feels Like Home To Me

There are plenty of musicians out there who have been studying and playing music for decades and can play and compose the most challenging pieces, which usually sound every bit as complicated as they are supposed to be. I dislike that type of music. I think the true musical geniuses, like The Beatles, are those who are able to make even intricate compositions sound simple. Do you know what’s hard? Making music that sounds beautiful and original using the same four chords everybody have been using for ages. Yet, it happens from time to time, and when it does, you wonder why no one was able to come up with that idea before. Well, that’s because it isn’t easy.

All this preamble is just to say that I think David Walters, the man behind The Echelon Effect, got that talent. His songs, which dance on the border between ambient music and cinematic/post rock, are beautiful yet sound incredibly simple, until you start noticing all the different layers and textures revealing just a wonderful entanglement. The Echelon Effect started in 2009 and I fell in love with its 2019 track, Goodbye My Friend (a really emotional song despite having no lyrics). Now, David is back with a new single, Your Memory Feels Like Home To Me, that is just as good. What could be a better song to “chillax” to on a Sunday afternoon?

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Relax

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Thomas Gold feat. Eagle-Eye Cherry – Get Up

Thomas Gold feat. Eagle-Eye Cherry

Remember Eagle-Eye Cherry? He had a couple of massive hits circa 1997/98 with Save Tonight and Falling In Love Again (in fact, he deserves his own Throwback Thursday entry), but wasn’t able to replicate that level of success with his subsequent singles. If you thought he had retired just because you hadn’t heard from him again, that would have been a perfectly logical conclusion. It would also have been wrong because Eagle-Eye (his actual name but I’ll leave that for another post) has actually remained pretty active all these years except for the period of time between 2003 and 2010. Recently (2019), he collaborated with German DJ Thomas Gold on the extremely catchy tune: Get Up.

It is an EDM track, which is not my forte, but this one is really good, with a nice melody and a great chorus. Eagle-Eye‘s vocals blend gorgeously with Thomas Gold‘s production style. The result is a great tune that is perfect for a party, a long drive or just improving your mood when you need a pick-me-up. The positive lyrics don’t hurt either. Enjoy!

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Electronic