Category: Mixtapes

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The Illness – Phrases Redacted

Phrases Redacted

I have to say, Phrases Redacted is a weird song. It is basically Bob Nastanovich (from an old school indie rock band called Pavement) speaking over a stream of groovy sounds. Yet, I really dig it, because the music somehow perfectly complements Bob’s words in a hypnotic way. You can certainly tell that the musicians who form The Illness not only know each other well but also have been making music for a long time.

The band is a UK collective of members from different bands on Sea Records, who had been jamming together at times but procrastinating the formal release of new music until –of all years– 2020, when it finally happened. Phrases Redacted is one of two songs the band has dropped, and it got a similar vibe to “Let Forever Be” from The Chemical Brothers.

You have to listen to this unconventional track by yourself to see what I mean (or watch the video below). Good luck getting it out of your head afterwards.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative

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Fan Theories – Next Great Holiday

Fan Theories - Next Great Holiday

Next Great Holiday is the debut single of Fan Theories, a band from Helsinki, Finland, founded by two friends who met while they were playing for different bands. Now a 5-piece, the band was lucky to record a few songs just before the world got into lockdown mode due to the pandemic. This allowed them to released their first song this month, which comes accompanied by a very-well-done music video.

Even though they wrote the song last year, its lyrics strike a chord nowadays when we all dream about going on holidays without knowing when we will be able to (proper holidays without that many restrictions). What I really like about this track is its catchy chorus, which really elevates the whole song to another level. If they keep producing songs like Next Great Holiday, Fan Theories is going to be around for a long time.

Listen to this fine piece of Indie rock from Finland here:

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative
  • Folk/Indie

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Linney – Cool

Linney - Cool

Caitlin Linney is an American singer and songwriter who is known simply as Linney. After starting her career in 2011 on Kickstarter, she has consistently written and released multiple songs, collaborated artist such as Gareth Emery, and even won some songwriting awards. Her style revolves mostly around electronic music, but it could go from indie pop all the way to trance music. While I don’t think she has had her big break yet, she’s certainly on the brink of it. She got more than 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Cool is basically an earworm she released earlier this year that I simply haven’t been able to get out of my mind since I heard it for the first time a few days ago. There is something between the soft electronic background and the ethereal way in which Linney sings this song that keeps me coming back for more. Listen to this magnetic song below at your own risk.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Pop

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The Goo Goo Dolls – Tonight, Together

The Goo Goo Dolls - Tonight, Together

Iris is one of the best alternative rock songs ever written, but The Goo Goo Dolls are much more than that single song. In fact, they have been one of the most consistent bands in the genre, releasing solid-to-great albums every three or four years pretty much since it all started in 1987. I have liked some of them more than others but I can’t recall having disliked any. It can’t get any more consistent than that. In addition to that, they sound really great live.

Just this week, the Goos –who have been pretty active on their social networks during the lockdown– released a deluxe edition of their 2019 album Miracle Pill featuring three previously unreleased songs. Tonight, Together is, in my humble opinion, the best of the bunch and it does sound great, which is why I decided to make an extra entry to the mixtapes today (luckily for me, I got more songs to recommend at the moment than time to write the posts). Do not expect a new Iris (or Slide or Acoustic #3), just enjoy this new track by the band from Buffalo, NY, for what it is: a pretty great rock song!

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative

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Floating In Space – Eclipse

Floating In Space - Eclipse

From Spain to the world, Floating In Space is yet another great cinematic rock band in Deep Elm Records‘ lineup, which includes Lights & Motion and U137. And just as those bands, Floating In Space is really the one-man show of multi-instrumentalist Ruben Caballero, which is frankly incredible. Earlier this year, the “band” released its third full-length album: A New Dawn, which is a great collection of emotional soundscapes, such as Eclipse, the epilogue of the record.

Eclipse is a beautiful song that evokes new beginnings, featuring a magical clarinet that sets it apart from other cinematic songs. It is really a beautiful track and album. Enjoy!

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Relax

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Michael FK – Towards The Dawn

Michael FK - Towards The Dawn

Michael FK is a Moldovan musician who creates hypnotic chillout tracks with a mixture of ambient and atmospheric sounds. What I like about his songs is that he tries to transmit something to you, rather than simply repeating sound patterns in a robotic way. In the case of his latest single, Towards The Dawn, Michael wanted to convey a feeling of optimism and hope. I think he accomplished just that.

You can listen to this gorgeous track below. It will become a staple of your chilling afternoons.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Chill Out
  • Relax

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Polar States – 2020

Polar States - 2020

Polar States is a four-piece guitar band from Liverpool, UK (seriously, is there something in the water over there? Is it the Mersey?) that in all likelihood will become the next big British band to take the world by storm. The group got already a cult following despite releasing their first EP less than 3 years ago. They describe themselves as a ‘dark pop’ band but I think their genre is spot on alternative rock.

The band released just last week a new single, 2020, which is extremely catchy and already a musical crush of mine. It has huge potential to become a big hit and if you hadn’t listented to it before, this is your opportunity to do so before it does!

I can’t believe it was recorded in their own houses…

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative

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Mélanie Laurent – Début

Mélanie Laurent - Début

You probably know Mélanie Laurent for her famous role in Quentin Tarantino‘s film Inglorious Basterds or from any of her many other films (with my favourite one being this one), but it is a lesser-known fact that she’s also a musician. In fact, back in 2011 she released her first and only (so far) album, En t’attendant, to moderate success. It was basically a French pop album, with many of those pop songs co-written with Damien Rice. However, the reason why I decided to highlight Mélanie’s album for this week’s Throwback Thursday, is because of the two wonderful piano solos that open and close the record: Début and Fin.

I decided to feature here Début, but I might just as well have chosen Fin. Both songs are incredibly beautiful and delicate, the type of tracks you can listen on repeat without getting tired of them. Unfortunately, there is no “official” video on Youtube, but you can listen to Début on the mixtapes below (or the one on the sidebar here). Enjoy!

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Relax

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Angels & Airwaves – All That’s Left Is Love

Angels & Airwaves - All That's Left Is Love

I think Tom DeLonge is the type of person who gets easily bored by routine and repetition. One of the reasons he got into arguments with Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker, was that he wanted to experiment with a more “atmospheric” sound while his friends wanted to keep doing what had been successful for them so far. The bad news is that this is what eventually caused him to leave Blink-182, but –luckily for us– that is also what prompted him to form Angels & Airwaves (stylized AVA). The group is basically a cinematic rock band with a punk-rock flavour, and there is nothing wrong with that.

AVA had been relatively quiet since 2017, partly because DeLonge had been busy looking for UFOs (for real, he co-founded this company), but they are now back on track to drop a new album soon, having released three new singles already since December. All That’s Left is Love is the latest one of them and is also the one that resembles the most the band’s previous work (this is not a complaint, I liked the other two singles as well, especially Rebel Girl). All the proceeds the band makes from this single will be donated to the charity Feeding America to help with the economic impact of COVID-19.

All in all, it is a great song from one of the most curious minds in the music business today.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative
  • Punk Rock
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Lizzy & the Fanatics – Les fleurs mortes

Lizzy & the Fanatics

Lizzy & the Fanatics is a dream pop band from Montreal, Canada, that after playing shows around the region for three years, released last month a bilingual EP with 6 indie pop tracks that taste like candy from your childhood. You can sense some 80s and 90s vibe on the record as well with its nostalgic synths and pastel color melodies.

Even though I don’t speak French (I know barely enough to understand that the name of the song featured here means “dead flowers”), I didn’t have to in order to connect with the song being highlighted here: Les fleur mortes. Music is universal, after all. However, rest assured, the EP has also 4 tracks in English that are just as good. Obviously, it is a matter of personal taste, but if you like dreamy 80s flavored indie pop, Lizzy & the Fanatics will be right up your alley.

‘‘I wrote Les fleurs mortes while riding my bike in

the dead of November last year, while missing the

summer. The song is about nostalgia; how it can

simultaneously make you feel the sad feelings of

losing something from the past, at the same time

as feeling content of remembering something

that was good. I find that this ambivalence of

feeling is a bit like drying dead flowers, preserving

the memory of something nice.’’

Lysanne Picard (Lizzy)

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Pop