So my hard drive failed a few days ago. Fortunately, almost everything was backed up, but one of the few things wasn’t was the working session for the follow-up mixtape to “Scholastics is the Mark of the Beats”. It was about 90% done; I needed to make a few slight modifications to timing and levels, MIA sounds a bit flat one song, etc. There is one song, in retrospect, that I was going to drop entirely – I tried very hard to make it work, but I ended up not being very pleased with the results. On the whole, though, I thought the mix was solid enough to post in rough draft form; what I’ve uploaded for your listening pleasure was basically my evaluation copy for the car, before I finished the final mix.

I tried to make the sound of this mixtape a lot more organic than the synth-driven “Mark of the Beats”. I also tried to make it a bit more fun – Mark of the Beats, at times, felt like a polemic about the state of pop music, and as well as I think it turned out, I didn’t want to go that direction again. Anyway, I don’t want to get pretentious about the whole thing – it’s only a mixtape, after all. Without further ado:

Scholastics – The End Is Already Here

(There is about 1 minute silence at the beginning… I forgot to edit that out before uploading, and I feel like changing it and uploading again. Also, thinking of making a tracklist like the one I made last time would take longer than it would be worth, so instead, I’ve just listed songs/instrumentals/acapellas in order of when you first hear them. )

1.Beyonce ft. Jay-Z – Crazy in Love
2. MIA – Galang (acapella)
3. Jennifer Lopez – Get Right
4. Beyonce – Single Ladies (acapella)
5. The Roots – Don’t Say Nuthin’ (acapella)
6. Common ft. Chantay Savage – Reminding Me (Of Sef) (acapella)
7. Koushik – Be With (instrumental)
8. Mos Def ft. Ghostface – Ms. Fat Booty 2 (acapella)
9. RJD2 – Up To No Good Again (instrumental)
10. Cannibal Ox – A B-Boy’s Alpha (acapella)
11. Lifesavas ft. Camp Lo – Gutterfly
12.  Kanye West ft. Lupe Fiasco – Touch the Sky
13. Dizzee Rascal – Fix Up, Look Sharp (acapella)
14. Joe Budden –  Pump It Up (instrumental)
15. Christina Aguilera ft. Redman – Dirrty (acapella)
16. Lyrics Born ft. Evidence of Dilated Peoples, KRS-One – Pack Up (remix)
17.  MIA – Paper Planes
18. Aesop Rock ft. Camp Lo – Limelighters (acapella)
19. Clipse ft. Slim Thug – Wamp Wamp (acapella)
20. Talib Kweli – Get By

Moon Cities – U Still Rock

1. Alton Ellis - Rocksteady
2. Cornershop - Sleep On The Left Side
3. Amanaz - Khala My Friend
4. No Doubt - Rock Steady
5. Dirty Projectors - Stillness is the Move
6. Mulatu Astatke / The Heliocentrics - Masenqo (Radio Edit)
7. Gorillaz - 19-2000
8. Janet Jackson - Miss You Much
9. Bat For Lashes - Pearl’s Dream
10. Prince - Take Me With U
11. Basement Jaxx - Raindrops
12. Mariah Carey - Emotions (DJ Copy Remix)
13. Major Lazer - Hold The Line (DJ Edit)
14. Mark Ronson - Pretty Green (Ft. Santigold)
15. Noonday Underground - You Keep Me Holding On
16. MeWithoutYou - Every Thought a Thought of You

Full write-up and stream over at prestigeformat.com

 Scholastics – Dear Summer,

1. Dirty Projectors – Stillness is the Move
2. Fleet Foxes – Blue Ridge Mountains
3. Taken By Trees – Too Young (remix by The Tough Alliance)
4. Boards of Canada – Dayvan Cowboy
5. Caribou – Melody Day
6. Tim Hecker – A Stop at the Chord Cascades
7. AIR – Universal Traveler
8. Apparat – Not a Number
9. Phoenix – 1901
10. David Byrne and Brian Eno – Strange Overtones
11. Dirty Projectors and David Byrne – Knotty Pine
12. Cancelling Stamps at the University Of Ghana Post Office (field recording)
13. The Very Best – Kamphopo
14. MIA – Amazon