This morning I was sitting around, thinking about how much I miss the art of the skillfully-crafted mixtape. These days, rare as they are, what I’m referring to is more commonly known simply as a “mix”. Mixtapes, on the other hand have been deduced to usually track packed showcases of an artist most recent material, often with someone shouting over the beginning and endings of each song.

Please, don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the over-saturated world of web-accessible hip-hop mixtapes out there. Sometimes, I even hold true the theory that rappers are often putting out their best material for free, via the mixtape, often resulting in lackluster major label LP’s. I kind of like how this works.

It is not the aforementioned hip-hop mixtape that I long for. It’s the DJ Mix… the blend… the anonymous, unlisted, mind blowing track that once propelled us on an endless search for answers. The art-form I speak of has seemd to have all but disappeared from the hip-hop world, yet, emerged (or perhaps just never disappeared) from the electronic music scene.

In an age of genre-less, ever evolving, undefinable musicianship, the dj mix is often overlooked… yet it still exist out there, at least in it’s modern form- often electronic music, interspersed with bits and samples of hip-hop vocals. I wanted to share with you a couple great resources for these kind of mixes:

First, The FADER mag seems to be a great source for this kind of thing. I was actually listening to a great mix from Ryan Hemsworth while writing this. This mix was a free download from the FADER.

Another great place to find these mixes is Soundcloud. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Soundcloud is a website that allows artist to upload music which users can access for free. You will not just find mixes, but podcast, promo tracks, singles, remixes, and the like.

I hope, if you are anything like me, you might remember the mix format I speak of, and that you’ve found this comforting, if not useful. If you have any other resources you might recommend to me, please don’t hesitate to share.

Be Well- K