I made this in springtime, as I was coming out of an anxious, fearful period of my life. It’s the sound of an airlock opening, of stepping outside for the first time in years. It’s my fucked up, weird nostalgia for the future, and it works. This is the sound of me beginning to feel OK again.

The future’s going to be alright. Things have changed. This is Progress.

Download the mp3 version here.

Listenability and fun are the highest priorities. That being said, I think it’s important for the songs to have some meaning, or at least a guiding theme.

Nostalgia is borne from the mixture of optimism and apocalypse, dancing throughout this hour-long trip. Here we witness the neon digital rendering of an unsettling dream as it dissipates. I wanted that feeling I experienced as a fevered child, watching movies at home from school on my side, feeling the distance from the screen to my eyes fluctuating. I felt myself healing through the delirium. It was always something dark, sci-fi, scary, weird, beautiful. I remember those moments and I try always to conjure them, to reach that place. This is my best attempt yet. This is my cyberpunk utopia.

Without revealing the track list just yet, I will say that this mixtape draws from the sounds and moods of those fantastical stories of my adolescence. The movies and books and songs that so profoundly shaped my musical tastes have influenced the work of so many artists I now love. This sound was over 30 years in the making. Nothing here is coincidental.

Some things you might find conjured within: Akira, Nintendo dreams, analog synths, space travel, Blade Runner, reflection, rain, optimism.

Below I have shared cosmic instruction and the full track listing.

Draw an imaginary map.

Put a goal mark on the map where you want to go.

Go walking on an actual street according to your map.

If there is no street where it should be according to the map, make one by putting the obstacles aside.

When you reach the goal, ask the name of the city and give flowers to the first person you meet.

The map must be followed exactly, or the event has to be dropped altogether.

Ask your friends to write maps.

Give your friends maps.

– Yoko Ono

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About the cover art: this image was created by combining two of my favorite shots from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi opus 2001: A Space Odyssey. The transformative nature of the film’s story and the psychedelic feeling of its imagery seemed like the perfect representation of my mindset at the time. I was evolving, growing, getting smarter about life and sorting out my ruined past in order to progress to a real future, a sustainable future. Also, it just looks like a really cool video game I’d love to play.

Here are my other mixtapes.

I love the idea of listening to a mixtape without knowing what’s inside, but I totally understand wanting to know beforehand. The track list appears below:

01. Vangelis – Blade Runner Theme

02. Disasterpiece – Progress

03. Kendrick Lamar – ADHD

04. Thundercat – The Life Aquatic

05. Keep Shelly In Athens – Rainy Night

06. Aphex Twin Btoum-Roumada

07. Machinedrum – U Still Lie

08. Robyn – None of Dem

09. Holden – Blackpool Late Eighties

10. Disasterpiece – Legend

11. Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Requiem [part 1]

12. Shane Carruth – As If It Would Have A Universal and Memorable Ending

13. Outkast – Liberation

14. CFCF – Perfume

15. Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Requiem [part 2]

16. Oneohtrix Point Never – Chrome Country

Thank you for listening.