It's Monday! It's August! Have a mixtape! I recommend finding a nice spot somewhere cool with a little dappled sunshine, reclining back and relaxing with a drink in your hand, ice cubes tinkling. If you are currently in the Southern Hemisphere, please disregard. I know summer's not over yet, but I suppose we should all get while the gettin's good. Tracks are from Said the Whale, Feist, Sloan, the Decemberists, Broken Social Scene, Seaplane, Turnpike & Giant Drag. Enjoy!

Many many years ago I lived in Armidale, NSW. I wasn't there very long (i'd moved there to study, but ended up heading to Brisbane for that instead), but while I was there I kept myself entertained a lot of the time by juggling a bunch of radio shows at the University community/student radio station 2UNE (now known as 'Tune FM'). When I first started broadcasting I was too nervous to even announce songs, so I was doing slots at quieter times of the day where it didn't really matter that all that was playing was a big chunk of music.

Eventually, come the University holidays, there were a lot of empty slots as students went home & the like. I ended up at one point doing 5 or so 1 - 2 hour programs each week; I remember having a science news show, & a vegetarian info/news show among other things. My Sunday program was called "Double Take" and the premise was a simple one - I would play any sort of music I liked, but I had to play two songs from each artist I featured, back to back.

Thus the theme of my most recent 8tracks mix is a 'double take' one - and I kept it all antipodean & independant as well. Starts off with stalwarts You Am I (Melbourne), goes on into the now defunct Iron On (Brisbane), then to a band I wish I had more of - Peabody (Sydney), and back up north to my favourites the Giants of Science (Brisbane), capped off with a couple of guitarish dreams from noisy Turnpike (Brisbane). Enjoy!

[Direct link to 8tracks mix for those who can't listen to the embedded playlist.]

It's been a while since I put a mix together (you can go here to listen if the embed doesn't work below). I fully intended to relax this evening, and I didn't expect to be flopped on my bed poking around making a mix to do it, but there you go. I hope if you listen it takes you nicely to the end of your weekend. Onward into the week ahead, I suppose..

(Ramona included because of a rewatch of Scott Pilgrim recently, and the mix is capped off by the Beta Band because everyone needs to be lulled into thinking about John Cusack before bedtime, right? Sigh.)

I fancied some riffs this morning, so here's a new mix! Threw a few pretty unknown/defunt Australian bands in there because it's amazing what I can find on my hard drive - I finished the mix up with an epic track from the Grey Daturas, in fact. Lots of delicious riffs and distortion - enjoy!

Here's another mixtape. The sunny winter's day made me do it. If you can't see it embedded below, visit the playlist page here (includes Beasts of Bourbon, Rowland S Howard, Dear Nora, Sebadoh and others!)

I can't remember where I saw it surface in the last day or two, but I was reminded about the existence of 8 Tracks and thought it'd be a good thing to make a mix and post here on a regular basis. Seeing as i'm having a nice quiet night at home and heading for a nice old lady bed time, have this one: Dreamy Night Time Mix - includes Great Lake Swimmers, Stars, 2 Litre Dolby, the Dirty Three, Black Heart Procession, Morphine & Do Make Say Think. Have a dreamy evening. (And if it's not evening for you, then give it a whirl when it is!)