Mixtape

Radiance [mixtape]

/ David James / 5 Comments

New year, new mix. Gliding into 2022 with some deep house, acid, breakbeats and more. Wanted it to sound like how I feel when I hear Major Briggs’ speech to Bobby on Twin Peaks – the deep harmony, the warm embrace, the tremendous sense of optimism for the future.. all that goodness. These are some of the most pure, blissed-out tracks I’ve been looping over the past year, the kind of music that blasts away the rough edges, leaving me refreshed and feeling better about the day, if only just for the time it’s playing.

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Airborne Lagoon [mixtape]

/ David James / 2 Comments

Airborne Lagoon is a spiritual trip into equatorial mystery zones, through the healing waters of some deep forest pool, finally reaching a place of transcendence and acceptance. Reaching a save point in the depths of a long journey and feeling your whole being revived on a warm updraft into the clouds. Japanese fourth world jazz explorations, cosmic arpeggiated synth bliss, hazy dust floating in a sunbeam, chamber whispers, the sounds of birds, insects, and water, water always.

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Memory Coalition [mixtape]

/ David James / 6 Comments

Memory Coalition is a mix of some of the best melancholy deep house and soul melting ambient tracks that have warmed and elevated me like nothing else over this long, heavy winter. The snow’s been piling up here in Michigan like it hasn’t in years and life.. hasn’t gotten any easier than it was last year, for my family at least. This stuff is a little nostalgic, a little spacey, full of atmospheric grooves, unmoored from time.  It’s the kind of music that’s perfect for when you’re feeling sad and you’re okay with that, but you still want to blend in a little taste of wonder and awe.

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Love Will See Us Through [mixtape]

/ David James / 2 Comments

This is my last mixtape for 2020, and that’s young me on the cover. I named it Love Will See Us Through after the ghostly refrain in the very first track you’ll hear. I think I need it to be true as much as the singer does, echoing beyond the rhythm and ambient waves. This one’s a little bit wistful house, a little bit ambient jazz, and a little bit new age dream. It’s sort of my sad dad mixtape, composed solely of music that’s helped my darker thought trains turn cathartic over the course of this year.

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Jungle Bump [mixtape]

/ David James / 3 Comments

Hey friends, here’s my latest mix. I named it Jungle Bump. This is a colorful blend of woozy deep house, epic ambient, melancholy techno, and all sorts of genre-agnostic magic that fits between world music and new age and humid environmental bliss. It’s meant to conjure the specific type of daydream euphoria I associate with getting lost in the sprawling weird world of JRPGs, without using music that actually comes from or sounds like those games.

So really, it’s the soundtrack to a certain shade of nostalgia that runs through memories of exploring spaces that don’t exist, from early childhood on up through today, now playing with my own kid on my lap. It’s a warm feeling, utterly lost but totally relaxed, at peace, vibing with existence – and it’s a place I go to in my head when I need to calm, re-center, check myself, whatever. I figure that’s something we can all use now and I hope this music conveys it well.

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Ecstasea [mixtape]

/ David James / 8 Comments

Here’s my latest mixtape. I’m calling it Ecstasea for a number of reasons, firstly because I just like the way it looks, hovering there over the warm neon purple glow of an oilplatform in a roiling ocean. It’s also a cheeky punmanteau that neatly describes the music within: all endless liquid rhythm and blissful abandon. I had no greater ambition with this mix than to gather some of my favorite transcendental deep house and techno tracks and sequence them for maximum joy. No concept, no specific era – just a vibe that I know and love, riding beat crescendos and chill valleys up to an ecstatic, jazzy finale.

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Echo Station [mixtape]

/ David James / 1 Comment

Echo Station begins on a city street with the honk of a car horn giving way to bird calls and dogs barking. There’s a gathering of synth sprinkles, footsteps, the low drone of far off conversations, and then a voice speaks closely in your ears. It’s time for peaceful adventure. Lean into the membrane of your normal day and push through, fall into the world, wander off the path and into the forest. Let go. As the final words of this welcome message say:

“I get off the train at a station that I usually just pass through on weekdays.”

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