Unkay, new Robot Sheets. Let’s do it.

1. Crash Crew – “We Are Known As Emcees”
When this record was re-released a few years ago, the blurb was basically that these guys were Jurassic 5 before Jurassic 5 ever rippity-rapped at the Good Life. Whatever. They’re a really great and pretty big rap crew that sung their hooks. What’s impressive to me is the fidelity of the production in 1984 – a lot of drum machine and bass production from that time, even from big names, was pretty thin-sounding. Anyway, seems like a good way to get started.

2. Lil Wayne – “Cash Money N*gga”
This might be my favorite Wayne song, and there are a lot of great Wayne songs to choose from, even though it’s no longer fashionable to admit it. This is from Tha Carter 2.5, which I don’t have, but I copped this song from a compilation put together from the guy behind The Martorialist website.  The flow is untouchable, and you can tell he loves this beat – I do too…Mannie Fresh is a legend, but this is in his top five beats, in my book.

3.  Glasser – “Apply”
There’s something Bjork-ish about this track, if not the rest of the Glasser album.  Mostly, I put it on because the beat bangs and I love the way this one builds.

4.  The Clientele – “E.M.P.T.Y.”
This is a rocky transition because I didn’t mean for this tune to come next – I goofed with the track order.  I love, love, love this song and the album it comes from.  I think I agree with the rest of the world, Strange Geometry is my favorite Clientele album.  But if the Minotaur mini-album is any kind of indication, they’re heading back in the right direction.

5.  Robyn – “Call Your Girlfriend”
If you’ve visited this blog before, you already know how I feel about Robyn.  This is from her kind-of full-length from the end of last year.  I loved it when I first heard it – I’d never heard a song from the perspective of the “next girl,” providing her new boyfriend advice on how to let the “ex-girl” down easy.  Romance is complicated, and it takes a grown-ass person to write about it sometimes (see Millie Jackson).

6.  Jamie Woon – “Spirits”
Jamie Woon is the latest in a string of pop singers who have decided that UK bass music is the stuff hits are made of.  It’s hard to say if they’re right at this point, especially by me.  I’m shamefully out of touch with what songs are being played on the radio – and I mean shamefully…it’s not like a contrarian thing.  Either way, I’m glad to hear that dubstep and UK garage music won’t just fade in and out of consciousness like most strains of electronic music.  Jamie Woon has a heartthrobby kind of voice, and even if his stuff fits a little too snugly next to Jason Mraz, his lyrics are not dumb, and he seems genuinely interested in creating a kind of nocturnal R&B.  I’m into it.

7.  Portishead – “Only You”
Since we’re honoring one moody genre of Bristolian electronic music, it seems only right to cherry-pick a song from the last big moody genre of Bristolian electronic music (the worst named genre ever, “trip-hop”…yeugh).  I can only conclude that there is something wistful in the water of my hometown.

8.  Nosaj Thing – “Us”
I’m almost sure I’ve dubbed some Nosaj Thing for you before, but his debut album really is beautiful.  This piece of glitch-and-glow actually manages to be romantic.

9.  Death Cab For Cutie – “Lightness”
Thank God I’m 32 and don’t care whether people approve of my musical taste anymore.  What a shackle to wear for so long.  Ben Gibbard writes the occasional stunner, and he threw a whole bunch of them on DCFC’s 2004 album, Transatlanticism.

10.  Jon Brion – “Piano One”
I saw Synecdoche, New York the other day, and I think I liked it.  I definitely liked Jon Brion’s score, but that was predictable.  Jon Brion, like me, is probably nostalgic about a moment before it’s even over.  Which is what makes him perfect for the films of Charlie Kaufmann and Michel Gondry, which are obsessed with memory and narrative.

11.  Crowded House – “Fall At Your Feet”
Every once in a while, one of the great songs from one of Crowded House’s first three albums will pop up on my iTunes shuffle.  It’s always a welcome surprise, and it’s usually followed with a couple of spins of Woodface, which is probably their most consistent full-length.

12.  Townes Van Zandt – “Nine Pound Hammer”
I’m not trying to be difficult.  This just came up the other day, and it sounded so good next to everything else I was listening to that I thought I’d play it for you.  It’s from his live album, Live At The Old Quarter.

13.  Robin Pecknold – “I’m Losing Myself” (ft. Ed Droste)
I’ve heard the new Fleet Foxes album, and it is astounding.  It is the best album I’ve heard in ages, and that’s including James Blake’s fantastic debut.  I just feel like Robin Pecknold has marinated himself in only good songs for his entire life, internalizing the way they work so he could deliver his own unique take on them.  This is a song he wrote and released on his MySpace, and that’s Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste playing Garfunkel to his Simon.

14.  Paul Simon – “Graceland”
Speaking of Simon.  I don’t have much interest in hearing Paul Simon’s newest album – he’s grumpy in interviews, and I think he’s finally gotten old.  It doesn’t matter how AOR it is, or how trendy Vampire Weekend (another deservedly hyped band) has made Graceland, it is still an amazing piece of work.  One great thing about the 1980s is how free mainstream artists were to get weird over the top of production that sounds like it cost millions of dollars.  Paul got really, really free-associative on this album, and it resulted in some of his most memorable lyrics.  This song came up during a performance of The Score the other day, and I figured I’d include it here.

15.  Judas Priest – “Electric Eye”
Butch Roy is to blame for this one.  We were at Pizza Luce after a night at HUGE Theater, and this song came on the XM.  Until that moment, I had been sheltered from the double-guitar flame throwing assault of K.K. Dowling and Glenn Tipton.  I had no idea what this awesomeness was, so I asked Butch, who knows his metal.  He knew it was Judas Priest, but it took some kind of magic application on his iPad to place the album (Screaming for Vengeance).  Needless to say, it was mine within 48 hours.

16.  Low – “Try To Sleep”
Good heavens.  Alan and Mimi (and bassist) have been making some of my favorite music for over a decade, but this most recent album is an astonishing return to form.  It has all the slow beauty of Things We Lost In the Fire, but Alan’s in a better place now, so it’s not quite as bleak.  I really, really recommend it.

17.  Flying Lotus – “Galaxy in Janaki”
Cosmogramma is harder for me to love than Los Angeles, which blew my mind.  A music writer I sometimes like said that Flying Lotus sounds to him like someone playing J Dilla and Squarepusher at the same time out of different speakers, and not in a good way.  I agree with his points of reference, but I think it’s in a very good way.  This is the last song from Cosmogramma, and the last song on this mix.  Hope you liked it.