Mixtape #4: Sasquatch

SIDE A

Broken Social Scene - "Meet Me In The Basement"

Mumford & Sons - "Little Lion Man"

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes - "Home (RAC mix)"

The Very Best - "Warm Heart of Africa" Ft. Ezra Koenig

My Morning Jacket - "Highly Suspicious"

The New Pornographers - "Crash Years"

The Fruit Bats - "The Ruminant Band"

Dawes - "When My Time Comes"

Dr. Dog - "Mirror, Mirror"

YACHT - "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

SIDE B

Portugal. The Man - "When The War Ends"

Fool's Gold - "Surprise Hotel"

Neon Indian - "Terminally Chill"

Vetiver - "More of This (Neighbors RMX)"

The Tallest Man On Earth - "King of Spain"

The National - "Anyone's Ghost"

Passion Pit - "I've Got Your Number"

Dirty Projectors - "No Intention"

Drive-By Truckers - "Marry Me"

Ween - "Booze Me Up and Get Me High"

Sasquatch mixtape.zip

To retain track order, drag the folder (after it's unzipped) into an iTunes playlist.

The Official Sasquatch! Festival Schedule

Video: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes - "Home"

One of the best songs of 2009 finally gets a video and it's fittingly sunburnt, blissful and nostalgic.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes - "Home" (RAC mix)
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes - "Home" (Daytrotter)

RAC: Where Remixes Go To Not Suck

I don't much like remixes, but in the era of Pro Tools and Garageband they are unavoidable and usually pretty bad. Fortunately, RAC—along with their booty-shake-inducing neighbors the Twelves—can make twisting knobs and dropping beats over your favorite tunes a surprisingly fun and artistic experience. RAC, which stands for the Remix Artist Collective, recently released two especially great overhauls: a dreamy and beautiful take on "Home" and the irresistibly dancey conversion of "Too Fake."

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes - "Home" (RAC mix)

Hockey - "Too Fake" (RAC mix)

Note: RAC does not support nor deny the use of laser boobs in their music.

The Perfect Holiday Gift for a Music Fan

If you need an affordable holiday gift for the music lover in your life (or yourself), artist Nate Duval has a pretty amazing collection of posters, prints, and t-shirts. My current favorite is this Edward Sharpe piece, but not far behind is his poster for the Fleet Foxes—a jarring onslaught of color that's easy to get lost in.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - "Home" (Daytrotter session)

Review: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Up From Below

The song "40 Day Dream" is about a dream so good that narrator Alex Ebert refuses to wake up—"the magical mystery kind," he sings. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros—a Los Angeles-based group comprised of Ebert and nine other musicians—make music along those same lines: it's so infectious you won't be able to turn it off. Seeped in soulful Stax-style melodies and orchestra-caliber percussion, the group's debut Up From Below is a collection of hip-swinging and psychedelic-tinged folk tunes epic in size and classic in quality: a modern day masterpiece that beckons to be heard over and over until you're dizzy with delight.

Up From Below opens with an uplifting assault of soaring strings and choruses in "40 Day Dream" and "Janglin" and proceeds to unfold into an eclectic tapestry of sun-drenched ballads, Laurel Canyon-inspired jams and one Spanish march. "Carries On," with Ebert singing in a more bruised and sombre tone, builds slowly from the sparse pairing of a bass line and snare drum into a Zombies-esque polyphony of voices that seemingly lift the song into a different era.

"Home," a duet with Ebert and girlfriend/band member Jade Castrinos, might be the album's centerpiece: a song based around a catchy and oft-whistled melody that reappears in the repeated phrase: "Home, let me come home/Home is wherever I'm with you." Lyrically it's simple and straightforward, but here, that's a formula for success: a sincere and sweet—but never over the top—celebration of love.

The bearded and lanky Ebert, formerly of dance-rock group Ima Robot, recorded Up From Below with his cast of band mates over the course of a year and a half on an analog 24-track tape machine dated from 1979. The record, like the equipment used to produce it, has a timeless quality that recalls everyone from the Beatles to the Mamas and Papas and Eddie Floyd. In our current over-saturated musical climate, this is that rare feat: one not worth missing.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - "40 Day Dream" (from Up From Below)