Robot Music

Download Podcast. The mixtape is an enduring cultural icon.  It is a gift, a diary, a love letter, a newsletter, a critique, and the soundtrack to parties, road-trips and life in general.  And it’s amazing how it has evolved over the years of my life.  My first mixtapes were crude affairs.  Not having money to buy the latest singles (45’s, kiddies), I would hold a portable cassette recorder up to my transistor radio when my favorite songs came on, often waiting for hours to get them.  Artifacts of my childhood, you could hear family voices, footsteps and other familiar sounds behind the songs.

Of course, I moved on to properly taping albums with the sound traveling through actual wires, as opposed to the air, and then on to taping CDs.  Often the cases were works of art in themselves, incorporating collage, drawing, calligraphy and later computer graphics.  Moving on to CD mixtapes was great, as there was no longer any worry of the much played and much worn tape snapping and getting tangled in the player.  And then you could import the whole thing into your computer to have with you anywere.

In the advent of MP3s and digital mixing software, the mixtape has reached a new level of complexity and personalization.  Gone are the lovingly crafted cases, but now there is a new-found emphasis on the experience of the music.  More specifically, there are more opportunities to interact with the music and make a personal or artistic statement in the way that the tracks are presented, through mixing, layering, sampling, etc.  And that brings us to the latest RobotMix podcast, my mixtape to you.  It is a catalog of many of the songs that have been moving me this past month or so- most new, some not so much.  Some may be tracks that you’ve heard before, but it’s put together in a way that makes it something personal, and something that you will only hear from me.  Enjoy.  And remember, the Robots love you.

Click here to see tracklist.