Winter 2025//page of swords

A view of the dojo on a Saturday in January. It's pretty wild to be entering year five of the Seasonal Mixtape Series with Winter 2025//page of swords. This series began in the waning crescent of the previous Trump administration, and in many ways, this mixtape harkens back to it in the swiftly waxing fascism… Continue reading Winter 2025//page of swords

Summer 2024//I Scream for Cleveland

The roots of the I Scream for Cleveland mixtape go back a couple years at least, back to when Twitter was still a somewhat valuable place for writers to be. My friend Maria Barrios, who received my fall 2023 tape, tweeted something about me screaming for Cleveland. I responded in the rhythm of the last… Continue reading Summer 2024//I Scream for Cleveland

Winter 2024//as above, so below

I am very pleased to share the first seasonal mixtape of 2024. This tape is for my best friend, Oz, and I hope it keeps me with them through this winter, since I cannot visit them in LA, as I had planned to. Oz was the first person to point out to me that mixtapes… Continue reading Winter 2024//as above, so below

Winter 2023//forces at work

The seed for this winter 2023 mixtape was an earlier tape that I made for my colleague in music journalism and supreme sound selection, John Morrison, during the earliest days of fall last year. Within a day of my Lifetime Achievement article on David Thomas dropping on Bandcamp, news of Anton Fier's death became publicly… Continue reading Winter 2023//forces at work

Mike Weis Takes the Long Road to Pure Sound

Honestly, I think I should conduct more interviews on a hike through black oak savannas at dusk in late September. This was the most pleasure I've ever had listening back to an interview. Mike Weis is possibly the most inspiring person I know, in addition to being my favorite living percussionist. Writing this article changed… Continue reading Mike Weis Takes the Long Road to Pure Sound

Spring 2022//the sputtering chariot of the vernal equinox

Like every seasonal mixtape, Lucy Parsons II has listened to it all the way through many times, been patient while I re-recorded it probably more than any other tape I have made so far (sputtering being a key word for this season), and it has at long last received the lick of approval. It feels… Continue reading Spring 2022//the sputtering chariot of the vernal equinox

Winter 2022//recorded syntax

This mixtape was crafted for my friend and elder whom I am very grateful for in the field of music journalism, Marc Masters. It was interesting to make a winter mixtape for Marc, because he had just officially graduated from winter and moved to Arizona. I was really excited to make a tape for him,… Continue reading Winter 2022//recorded syntax

Winter 2021//on my hill, I wait for wind

This mix was crafted for my friend, Glenna Jean Fitch, who I have not seen in years. This is a mixtape for a pandemic winter! It contains themes about the new year, windows, play with ideas of inside and outside, loss, loneliness, isolation, grief, death, civilization being at a crossroads, nature, seeing people you haven't… Continue reading Winter 2021//on my hill, I wait for wind