Mux406: Deez Nuts? Deez Mux! (Jan. 2025) / Muxmania Week 4

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox. (Note: Those links expire in a handful of months, so if you're from the future, the link might be dead.)

We're back to 2024, which seems like such a quaint, pleasant time compared to... well... Only a random Fleet Foxes song breaks the clean sweep, but I suppose I felt like getting a little rustic between the sweet, sweet shoegaze revival of Julie and Wishy. It's also a bit weird (or, as Hovvdy would spell it, vveird) that there's a track here by the band Been Stellar, which I assume is a deliberately play on Ben Stiller, co-showrunner of my current favorite show Severance.

1. Yard Act - We Make Hits (Where's My Utopia? / 2024)
2. Good Looks - Can You See Me Tonight (Lived Here For A While / 2024)
3. Fake Fruit - Too Soon (Macho Mistrust / 2024)
4. Illuminati Hotties - Throw (Life Raft) (Power / 2024)
5. This Is Lorelei - An Extra Beat For You And Me (Box For Buddy, Box For Star / 2024)
6. Julie - Clairbourne Practice (My Anti-Aircraft Friend / 2024)
7. Fleet Foxes - Featherweight (Shore / 2020)
8. Wishy - Honey (Triple Seven / 2024)
9. Oso Oso - Application (Life Till Bones / 2024)
10. Fontaines D.C. - Horseness Is The Whatness (Romance / 2024)
11. Been Stellar - Sweet (Scream From New York, NY / 2024)
12. Los Campesinos! - Feast of Tongues (All Hell / 2024)

Rookies: Julie, Yard Act

TRT 43:51

Spotify playlist of individual tracks. Note that free accounts can only listen via shuffle, thus defeating the whole point of the Muxes. They also cram 3 random, extra songs on it because, I assume, they have a personal vendetta against me.

The Rules of the Muxes.

Mux419: Weapons Grade Mux (June 2025)

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox.

I finally realized that Wishy's 2024 album, Triple Seven is one of my favorites from last year. Down on the long-ass sidebar I added them alongside Fake Fruit's Mucho Mistrust.

Another mishmash spanning a few decades. New music from TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe and Quickly, Quickly sit alongside past-blasts like Grizzly Bear's "Ready, Able" and The Hold Steady's "Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night." Realizing that Separation Sunday is now 20 years old makes me feel kinda funny, like when we had to climb the rope in gym class. And just for yucks I decided to add the seven-minute Boards of Canada track from their obscure Hi Scores collection. I guess I wanted something for the cool kids to do their homework to those chill beats.

1. Tunde Adebimpe - Ate The Moon (Thee Black Boltz / 2025)
2. Ratboys - Look To (Printer's Devil / 2020)
3. Wishy - Persuasion (Triple Seven / 2024)
4. Quickly, Quickly - Enything (I Heard That Noise / 2025)
5. The Hold Steady - Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night (Separation Sunday / 2005)
6. The Thermals - Returning To The Fold (The Body, The Blood, The Machine / 2006)
7. Yard Act - Rich (The Overload / 2022)
8. Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime (Remain In Light / 1980)
9. Grizzly Bear - Ready, Able (Veckatimest / 2009)
10. Boards of Canada - Everything You Do Is A Balloon (Hi Scores / 1996)
11. Car Seat Headrest - True/False Lover (The Scholaras / 2025)
12. The Hotelier - You In This Light (Goodness / 2016)

Rookies: Tunde Adebimpe

TRT 46:18

Spotify playlist of individual tracks.

The Rules of the Muxes.

Muxmania! / Mux403: America, Mux Yeah! (Jan. 2025)

I have a confession.

I've been making Muxes at a breakneck speed. Sometimes I just put together a playlist and it's done without excess fupping. And instead of waiting for their normal deadline, I mixed them down and made another... and another... and another... until the current Mux-in-progress is scheduled for...

June.

So yes, I am five months ahead in Muxes. Instead of waiting for time to catch up, I realized that I'd rather be current and feature those hot new 2025 tracks on a Mux without banishing them to the far future.

The solution? I considered dumping the nine unpublished Muxes all at once, but I don't want to saturate my own market. Instead, I'll drop a new Mux once per week instead of twice per month. Thus, we can all sip that sweet Mux flavor like a fancy IPA instead of shotgunning it like a Natty Light during this Mux celebration I've dubbed...

Muxmania!

One week early, here's what would've been the second Mux of January*. And so next week will be the previously-planned-for-February Mux, and so on. We'll get back to the regular order of things by March, and hopefully by then, I'll be adding a track from a surprise Radiohead release or, more likely, a songs from a band that doesn't even exist yet.

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox. (Note: Those links expire in a handful of months, so if you're from the future, the link might be dead.)

We've got a bit of a retro throwback with tracks by XTC, Blondie, and Belle and Sebastian. And Art Brut, since I have to realize that 2005 was - gak - 20 years ago. I'm still very much in a 2024 listening mode, which will probably last well into summer. Another reminder that I should stop finding new podcasts and instead listen to music while I'm (still) playing Balatro.

1. Been Stellar - Pumpkin (Scream From New York, NY / 2024)
2. Wishy - Triple Seven (Triple Seven / 2024)
3. XTC - Earn Enough For Us (Skylarking / 1986)
4. Blondie - Atomic (Eat To The Beat / 1979)
5. Art Brut - Formed A Band (Bang Bang Rock & Roll / 2005)
6. This Is Lorelei - Dancing In The Club (Box For Buddy, Box For Star / 2024)
7. Belle and Sebastian - Judy and the Dream of Horses (If You're Feeling Sinister / 1996)
8. Flock of Dimes - Semaphor (If You See Me, Say Yes / 2016)
9. Oso Oso - Fly On The Wall (Sore Thumb / 2022)
10. Dehd - Magician (Poetry / 2024)
11. Mannequin Pussy - Split Me Open (I Got Heaven / 2024)
12. Pissed Jeans - Everywhere Is Bad (Half Divorced / 2024)

Rookies: Blondie, Wishy

TRT 42:02

Spotify playlist of individual tracks. Note that free accounts can only listen via shuffle, thus defeating the whole point of the Muxes. They also cram 3 random, extra songs on it because, apparently, playlists shorter than 15 songs aren't legitimate.

*Unfortunately, since I made this one before the election, the title was supposed to reflect an incoming Harris administration. Hopefully these extra Muxes can slightly offset all the upcoming bullshittery.

Mux448: Cheddar Mux Biscuits (Aug. 2026)

With the inclusion of "Game," Triple Seven by Wishy has now entered the Mux Hall of Fame! That means that every single track off their excellent shoegaze-y Triple Seven has been muxed.

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox.

1. The Waterboys - Medicine Bow (This Is The Sea / 1985)
2. Jack White - Thick As Thieves (Frozen Charlotte / 2026)
3. Oso Oso - All of My Love (Life Till Bones / 2024)
4. The Smile - Eyes & Mouth (Cutouts / 2024)
5. Courtney Barnett - Dead Fox (Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit / 2015)
6. Momma - No Stage (Household Name / 2022)
7. Wishy - Game (Triple Seven / 2024)
8. Snooper - Pod (Super Snõõper / 2023)
9. Bully - Wonderful Life (Lucky For You / 2023)
10. Jessica Ware - Pearls (That! Feels Good! / 2023)
11. Grave Ives - Back In LA (Janky Star / 2022)
12. Winter - Just Like A Flower (Adult Romantix / 2025)

TRT 37:23

Spotify playlist of individual tracks.

The Rules of the Muxes.

Mux410: A Steaming Hot Cup of Mux (Feb. 2025 / Muxmania Week 8)

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox.

It's another grab bag with 2024 tracks and a smattering of others from 2000 onward. The notable exception is Built To Spill's noodly 1994 classic "Car," which is one of those songs everyone erroneously thinks is called "Movies of My Dreams." There's also the laid-back jam "Mama" by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks off their 2005 album Face The Truth, another shoegaze blast with Wishy's "Little While," plus a bit of UMO funk with "Meshuggah." To cap it off is "Framed By The Comet's Trail" by Metz, which I rediscovered when I invariably put some Metz on my giant to-play playlist that usually runs several days long. It's usually compiled by iTunes stats, Last.fm stats, Last.fm stats from the dead accounts of friends, sheer randomness, a random song I hear on The Current, or something a real hip music supervisor drops into a TV show.

1. Foals - Mountain At My Gates (What Went Down / 2015)
2. Los Campesinos! - To Hell In A Handjob (All Hell / 2024)
3. Jack White - Underground (No Name / 2024)
4. Cola - Pallor Tricks (The Gloss / 2024)
5. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Mama (Face The Truth / 2005)
6. The Thermals - Back To Grey (More Parts Per Million / 2003)
7. Built To Spill - Car (There's Nothing Wrong With Love / 1994)
8. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Meshuggah (V / 2023)
9. Oso Oso - That's What Time Does (Life Till Bones / 2024)
10. Wye Oak - Better (For Esther) (Tween / 2016)
11. Wishy - Little While (Triple Seven / 2024)
12. Metz - Framed By The Comet's Tail (Atlas Vending / 2020)

TRT 45:05

Spotify playlist of individual tracks.

The Rules of the Muxes.

Mux424: Raindrops Keep Falling On My Mux (Aug. 2025)

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox.

1. Wet Leg - Catch These Fists (Moisturizer / 2025)
2. Momma - I Want You (Fever) (Welcome To My Blue Sky / 2025)
3. For Tracy Hyde - Undulate (Hotel Insomnia / 2022)
4. Star 99 - Esta (Gaman / 2025)
5. Pavement - Grave Architecture (Wowee Zowee / 1995)
6. Tunde Adebimpe - God Knows (Thee Black Boltz / 2025)
7. Japanese Breakfast - Honey Water (For Melancholy Brunette [& sad women] / 2025)
8. Horsegirl - Frontrunner (Phoenetics On And On / 2025)
9. Venturing - Believe (Ghostholding / 2025)
10. Wild Pink - Disintegrate (Dulling The Horns / 2024)
11. Quickly, Quickly - Take It From Me (I Heard That Noise / 2025)
12. Wishy - Just Like Sunday (Triple Seven / 2024)

Rookies: Horsegirl, Star 99, Venturing

TRT 41:27

Spotify playlist of individual tracks.

The Rules of the Muxes.

JDK's 2024 Favorite Songs (In Mix Form)

Since it feels slightly wrong making this mix and hoarding it all to myself, consider it a Christmas Eve Eve gift or something! And this isn't a ranked order, just a good flow.

Download or stream for however long it stays in my Dropbox.

Or you can ruin the carefully-curated experience and put more money in Joe Rogan's filthy pockets by checking it out on Spotify.

1. Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven (I Got Heaven)*
2. Yard Act - We Make Hits (Where's My Utopia?)
3. This Is Lorelei - I'm All Fucked Up (Box For Buddy, Box For Star)
4. Dehd - Dog Days (Poetry)
5. Church Chords - Sweet Magnet (Elvis, He Was Schlager)
6. The Smile - Bending Hectic (Wall of Eyes)
7. Hovvdy - Jean (Hovvdy)
8. Fake Fruit - Mucho Mistrust (Mucho Mistrust)
9. Wishy - Triple Seven (Triple Seven)
10. Hurray For The Riff Raff - Vetiver (The Past Is Still Alive)
11. Fontaines D.C. - Favourite (Romance)**
12. Pissed Jeans - Everywhere Is Bad (Half Divorced)

TRT 46:28

*Yes, I am breaking the Track 1 rule, but this isn't a mux. Nice try.

**Hey Barack Obama, we've both have this on our lists! We should hang out sometime.

Mux408: The Mux At The End of The Tunnel (Feb. 2025) / Muxmania Week 6

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox.

1. Wishy - Love On The Outside (Triple Seven / 2024)
2. Los Campesinos! - Holy Smoke (2005) (All Hell / 2024)
3. This Is Lorelei - A Song That Sings About You (Box For Buddy, Box For Star / 2024)
4. Hovvdy - Bad News (Hovvdy / 2024)
5. Dehd - Shake (Poetry / 2024)
6. Font - Natalie's Song (Strange Burden / 2024)
7. Les Savy Fav - Somebody Needs A Hug (OUI, LSF / 2024)
8. Asher White - Theme From Leaving Philadelphia (Home Constellation Study / 2024)
9. The Magnetic Fields - I Wish I Had An Evil Twin (i / 2004)
10. Horse Jumper of Love - Snow Angel (Disaster Trick / 2024)
11. Fontaines D.C. - Favourite (Romance / 2024)
12. Wild Pink - Eating The Egg Whole (Dulling The Horns / 2024)

Rookies: Horse Jumper of Love

TRT 40:52

Spotify playlist of individual tracks.

The Rules of the Muxes.

Mux414: Mr. Mux Heads Down To The Severed Floor (Mar. 2025 / Muxmania Week 12)

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox.

I make no promises, but I think this might be the penultimate Muxmania. And after next week's Mux? Back to the ol' twice-a-month grind. I considered switching to weekly, but I think that would be taxing for both myself and you, dear listener. Because, obviously, you'd become far too dependent on my expertly-curated content that all other playlists pale in comparison. Not that that hasn't already happened.

Which reminds me: If you ever find a Mux in the archive that you'd like to hear, leave a comment on the post and I can reupload it. Just for you.

1. Dirty Projectors - Dance For You (Swing Lo Magellan / 2012)
2. Wishy - Sick Sweet (Triple Seven / 2024)
3. Black Lips - Dandelion Dust (Underneath The Rainbow / 2014)
4. Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory - Somethin' Ain't Right (Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory / 2025)
5. DIIV - Taker (Deceiver / 2019)
6. Mitski - Bug Like An Angel (The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We / 2023)
7. Been Stellar - Shimmer (Scream From New York, NY / 2024)
8. Grizzly Bear - Yet Again (Shields / 2012)
9. Guided By Voices - Motor Away (Alien Lanes / 1995)
10. Foals - Snake Oil (What Went Down / 2015)
11. Fake Fruit - Ponies (Mucho Mistrust / 2024)
12. The Who - Eminence Front (It's Hard / 1982)

Rookies: Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory

TRT 45:55

Spotify playlist of individual tracks.

The Rules of the Muxes.

Favorite Songs and Albums of 2024

I haven't yet decided on my favorite album of the year. Invariably I make the pick sometime around March. But as of now, I highly enjoyed the following from 2024:

• Asher White - Home Constellation Study
• Been Stellar - Scream From New York, NY
• Church Chords - Elvis, He Was Schlager
• Dehd - Poetry
• Fake Fruit - Mucho Mistrust
• Friko - Where We've Been, Where We Go From Here
• Hovvdy - Hovvdy
• Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Past Is Still Alive
• Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven
• Mount Kimbie - The Sunset Violent
• Jazz Radiohead The Smile - Wall of Eyes / Cutouts
• This Is Lorelei - Box For Buddy, Box For Star

And while I'm at it, here are some of my favorite songs of the year:

• Church Chords - Sweet Magnet (Elvis, He Was Schlager)
• Dehd - Dog Days (Poetry)
• Fake Fruit - Mucho Mistrust (Mucho Mistrust)
• Fontaines D.C. - Favourite (Romance)
• Hovvdy - Jean (Hovvdy)
• Hurray For The Riff Raff - Vetiver (The Past Is Still Alive)
• Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven (I Got Heaven)
• Pissed Jeans - Everywhere Is Bad (Half Divorced)
• The Smile - Bending Hectic (Wall of Eyes)
• This Is Lorelei - I'm All Fucked Up (Box For Buddy, Box For Star)
• Wishy - Triple Seven (Triple Seven)
• Yard Act - We Make Hits (Where's My Utopia?)

Mux421: You Can See This Mux From Space (July 2025)

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox.

I had the prior Mux mixed before Brian Wilson's death, so here's the obligatory tribute. My own experience with The Beach Boys started with general distaste. Every 4th of July my family would drive the Toyota Previa minivan to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit my grandma in her small town. I always dreaded the ridiculous amounts of boredom that accompanied such visits, with only a Game Boy Color - which wasn't even backlit! - as a balm. It was made worse by the 8-hour drive in which my dad's Best of The Beach Boys cassette was played multiple times. By association, I thus did not like The Beach Boys. (He could've played any of my now-favorite albums and I would've learned to hate them.)

So I never really delved into the strange dichotomy of the band, where the all the California-girl, fun-in-the-sun, surf's-up stuff was countered by the conflicted genius of Brian Wilson. "Good Vibrations" was always just a popular song permanently lodged in my brain, and it wasn't until recent years that I really dove into Pet Sounds, Wilson's multiple attempts at nailing Smile, and the famed "wall of sound" production. If nothing else, it's madness that the core of "Good Vibrations" is a cello and theremin. It's astounding that, despite his struggles with mental health, Brian Wilson made it to the age of 82, and he lived long enough to see the completion of Smile.

1. Dehd - Hard To Love (Poetry / 2024)
2. Ratboys - Alien With A Sleep Mask On (Printer's Devil / 2020)
3. Fake Fruit - Cause of Death (Mucho Mistrust / 2024)
4. Elias Rønnenfelt - Another Round (Heavy Glory / 2024)
5. The Hard Quartet - Chrome Mess (The Hard Quartet / 2024)
6. Font - Sentence I (Strange Burden / 2024)
7. The Clientele - Garden Eye Mantra (I Am Not There Anymore / 2023)
8. The Hotelier - Settle The Scar (Goodness / 2016)
9. Wishy - Busted (Triple Seven / 2024)
10. Momma - Last Kiss (Welcome To My Blue Sky / 2025)
11. Fontaines D.C. - In The Modern World (Romance / 2024)
12. The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations (Single / 1966)

Rookie: The Hard Quartet

TRT 44:53

Spotify playlist of individual tracks.

The Rules of the Muxes.

Mux412: Great Muxpectations (Mar. 2025 / Muxmania Week 10)

Download or stream a continuous MP3 mix via my Dropbox.

It's another mixture of mostly-2000s music, with cuts like "Walk Away" off Franz Ferdinand's underrated second album and "Victim of The Crime" from Phoenix's barely-remembered Alphabetical. I also finally managed to put The Go! Team's "Everyone's A V.I.P. To Someone" on a Mux, and on the MP3 it's the "illegal" UK version that I vastly prefer. The band had to basically re-record the entire album because of sampling rights, and I find the US version's cleaned-up production somehow offputting compared to the ragged charm of the original. (See also the transformation of Black Kids' Wizard of Ahhhs EP versus the slick, sanitized Partie Traumatic.)

And re: Muxmania - I still have three mixed Muxes ready to go, and I've basically ground all Mux operations to a halt. I'm sure I'll put something together in the next three weeks, so the madness should probably be over by mid-April. Probably.

1. X - Sweet Til The Bitter End (Smoke & Fiction / 2024)
2. Marnie Stern - Prime (This Is It... / 2008)
3. Black Lips - Dorner Party (Underneath The Rainbow / 2014)
4. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Gardenia (Real Emotional Trash / 2008)
5. Au Pairs - You (Playing With A Different Sex / 1981)
6. Franz Ferdinand - Walk Away (You Could Have It So Much Better... / 2005)
7. Phoenix - Victim of the Crime (Alphabetical / 2004)
8. Air - Mike Mills (Talkie Walkie / 2004)
9. Chai - Fashionista (PUNK / 2019)
10. Wishy - Spit (Triple Seven / 2024)
11. The Go! Team - Everyone's A V.I.P. To Someone (Thunder, Lightning, Strike! [UK Version] / 2004)*
12. For Tracy Hyde - Estuary (Hotel Insomnia / 2022)

Rookie: Chai

TRT 42:03

*Spotify playlist of individual tracks. The Go! Team track is from the US version. Boo-urns.

The Rules of the Muxes.