Better in Headphones

Here we are at the end if another year, and I only made 3 mixes of new songs this year (plus 2 Bands editions). My output has fallen off of a cliff, sadly. I have to accept that I am not finding the time nor motivation to produce these as frequently as I'd like. In fact what has been happening more and more is I am not completing mixes before I already have enough new music for another mix, so by the time I go back to finish the first one, it has already gotten a little stale. So I am going to change the way I do this. Here is the deal from now on: instead of struggling to find time to produce mixes I am going to share an Apple Music playlist (I'll try to get Spotify running as well), and keep that updated throughout the year. Apple Music is the main reason for my drop in productivity, because I am really discovering all my new music through that nowadays. I highly recommend it. Here is a playlist for 2016, organized in a sort of decent-sounding order: Apple Music: BiH Songs 2016 Spotify: BiH Songs 2016 (Coming soon, hopefully) I will come back here and provide new links for a 2017 playlist once I get a few tracks there worth hearing. So my general plan is for BiH to become a playlist each year, and I will still make mixes of bands to serve as a sort of 'best-of' for my favorite artists (I have a bunch of these in progress already) . And I will also do an annual mix of some of my favorite songs from that year. Here is this year's, which only includes a few favorites not heard on BiH mixes previously: BiH Favoritest Songs of the Year: 2016 feat. Communist Daughter, Animal Collective, pronoun, Seahawks, Morgan Delt, Tallest Man on Earth, David Bowie, Wye Oak, SHELLS, Japandroids This already feels so confusing, so let's summarize: BiH will now be annual playlists that I add to over time (and maybe subtract from if I get sick of a song or change my mind about it), an annual favorites mix, occasional bands mixes, and perhaps other mixes in between, but I am no longer making any promises on those. Thanks for listening. I really do love that BetterInHeadphones is a thing. Personally I have been really enjoying the 2016 playlist, and I hope you do as well. Until next year, all my best to everyone. xoxo

It seems these mixes are highlighting more and more well-known tracks. That's not necessarily  bad thing, but I used to mostly include obscure amazing tracks. I also used to have a lot more free time to listen to music. Alas, this one is still pretty damn great. The new Frank Ocean dropped this last weekend and you'll hear a few of my favorite tracks here. I saw the Church open for the Psychedelic Furs a month ago and their closing song, Miami, was the highlight of the night. Animal Collective remixed Bob Dylan (beautifully) for his birthday. Preoccupations, formerly Viet Cong, have a new album that is seriously soooooo good and the longest track on that also happens to be my favorite. I just heard this Animal Feeling track for the first time today (I try  to do this on every new mix: include a last-minute, great-sounding jam that I hope will stand the test of time, though sometimes I miss on these). Cardiknox has produced one of the best pop songs of 2016 IMO. I've had this Amber Quintero on a playlist for a while. And of course, The Avalanches. Duh.  Great headphone songs, all. And great commute music. BiH 54 feat Frank Ocean, Amber Quintero, Bob Dylan (remixed by Animal Collective), Preoccupations, The Church, Cardiknox, Animal Feelings ft. Nomi Ruiz, The Avalanches

This one is a mix of slower electronic tracks that build to a wallop and slowly sort of fades ultimately into a 7 minute, mostly-acoustic little beauty to close it out. But if you listen, you'll hear that for yourself. Mostly new music, though I somehow missed this Kiln album a few years back and I've been listening to that a bit lately. But the new Holy Fuck, Deakin, the 1975, Rogue Wave and much more is represented here. I have been looking forward to this one. :-) I hope you enjoy it. BiH 53 feat. The 1975, Deakin, Kiln, Plastic Flowers, Holy Fuck, Dual Point, Cool Ghouls, Midday Veil, Bear Hands, Rogue Wave, Dustin Tebbutt

I guess this sort plays like more of a greatest hits for these guys really. But it is remarkable that they have so many hits. I never got into their albums overall, and even my favorite albums had lots of tracks I'd skip. But these guys produced more than just a lot of drama in the media. They made some incredible music.  At least as hated as they are loved, Oasis made it difficult to ignore them. Here they are at what I consider their best. BiH Bands : Oasis

Hello everyone. My apologies for not having any new mixes in so long. But here is a nice mix from one of the best bands ever. The Smiths were not around for all that long, and I am confident that we will never see a reunion from these guys. Nowadays Coachella and other festivals pay millions of dollars to get bands back together and The Smiths are probably at the top of many most-wanted lists. It isn't ever going to happen. But we can still listen to their records, which are still amazing 30+ years later.  For me it was The Queen is Dead. I was familiar with other songs before that but when I got that cassette, it didn't leave my player for weeks (and  I used to deliver pizza so I drove a lot). My friend PM and I spent over a week in NH listening to nothing but that album; I had just picked it up before our trip. We listened in the car, took the out tape and listened in the house, took it on the boat and listened there too.  I made this a few weeks ago and I have listened to it many times. It has been awesome getting back into a band I loved so much when I was younger. I think I may make a few more nostalgic mixes soon. And maybe I'll even finish a mix of new music at some point too. But for now, I am going to let these gents speak for themselves. BiH Bands: The Smiths

It's been a while. My last new mix was published 3 months ago. My apologies. Life is a little hectic and I am not finding the time I used to to make these. I still get tons of new music, I just don't get to hear it. In fact, I still have a ton to sort through. But I am off work this whole week, and my wife is working most days so I hope to tackle the pile (though I just heard the new Adele and that may take up a lot of time...it's so good!). I feel like I have been working on this one forever. I have been listening to unfinished, rough versions of this for too long. I have another one close to completion which I expect to get to this week. I promise it will not be another 3 months. In other news, happy 5 year anniversary to BiH! I cannot believe it has been 5 years since I started this. It all started in an Apple Store Genius Room where I once worked and needed a soundtrack. Thanks PM and JB for the encouragement early on. Thanks to all the artists I have featured for the retweets over the years. Thanks to all the artists just for doing what you do, actually. Finally, a huge thanks to NC for letting me pillage his Instagram feed at instagram.com/ncour for BiH covers. This one also features his amazing work. BiH 51 feat. Grimes, Perils, Yung, Aaron, Conner Youngblood, Deerhunter, Andrei Eremin, Chad Valley, BARO, The Besnard Lakes, Dr. Quandary, Crescendo

Here is a cool story. A long time ago I encouraged everyone to go and check out this amazing remix of Call Me Maybe by Saint Pepsi. That was maybe the first Saint Pepsi track I had heard (but maybe not; I don't remember).  But I became a fan, for sure. Then I heard this guy Skylar Spence a few weeks ago, and played the song included here (called Affairs) over and over and over and I was totally in love. Because I never read blogs anymore I don't really keep up with music news. But I had to check them out, and it turns out Skylar Spence is the new name for Saint Pepsi, only now the guy sings as well (and it's great).  Given how much new music I hear all the time it fascinates me that even though it's the same guy, it is very different music, and that I just loved the new stuff as soon as I heard it, that is cool. And he has incredible pop sensibilities. And to top it off, NM and I are going to see him play at the Treasure Island music festival this year (we got tickets before I knew the music, to boot). That festival reads like a laundry list of BiH favorites: The National, CHURCHES, Jose Gonzales, Run the Jewels, Panda Bear... plus a bunch of new favorites like Skylar Spence and Viet Cong. Cool story. Still can't get enough of the new Tame Impala and just had to include my favorite song here.  Tough to beat this BiH opening here as well; this Transviolet track is amazing. Kids these days, they can write some great tunes (but hey, so can the Chills still, so...old guys still got it too. And NM and I just saw Echo & The Bunnymen a few weeks ago and they sounded as fresh as ever, even while playing 3 Doors covers. I also recently saw another band included here: Doomsquad. They opened for (and played on stage with) Fucked Up, who just played in Santa Cruz to a small audience and they killed it. Doomsday is a tremendous live band (and are comprised of all siblings. That would not work in my family.) But speaking earlier of great pop sensibilities, the Tamaryn track on here also approaches the sublime. Come to think of it, this mix was hard to make because there is so much great material included on it. Once you raise the bar, you can't just lower it. It only goes in one direction. To raising the bar. Speaking of, props to my friend Nic Courdy for the rad cover image. BiH 50 feat. Tame Impala, Bec Sandridge, Joan Shelly, Doomsquad, Tamaryn, Transviolet, Beat Connection, Skylar Spence, Bob Moses, The Chills, Best Coast

Most often, these involve more than one take. I compile a mix, listen to it, decide what to change, and do it again. I repeat that process until I am happy with the whole thing, or at least until I can't find a way to improve it with recent material at my disposal. But this one came together in 1 take and I haven't been able to find anything that needs changing. It has some variety, even some alt country (not normally my thing). This will probably be the last mix I make for the next few weeks, because we just got a beautiful new house up in the mountains and we move in a week. So I will be busy. But the next one will be inspired by my new huge open living space and beautiful decks overlooking the mountains. And my wine fridge. BiH 46 feat. Blackbear, Jaymes Young (remixed by Thero), Field Report, Emily Yacina, itndylAn feat. Willow Smith, The Chromatics, Broken Water High, Cathedrals (remixed by BRNS & Tommy English), Yumi Zouma, Bueno and the Goods, Miss Roisin Murphy, GDNA feat. Jo Def

I've been making these mixes for over 4 years  now and pretty much every year I make some sort of statement about how end-of-year lists are stupid. I just can't stand the precision of a numbered, ordered list of music. But recently a friend asked me what my favorite songs of this year were (after I said I wouldn't give a year-end list of albums), so I went through all the BiH mixes from this year and picked my favorite songs. Here they are, in absolutely no particular order. This was an interesting year from music. It was not dominated by 'the great album', though there were some great EPs (Doss, Ana Caprix, Diarrhea Planet)). Mostly, this was a great year for songs. I had a few albums I got into this year (Real Estate, Haerts, Fucked Up, Temples...I am not counting the new Panda Bear because officially it hasn't come out yet, and until I have the vinyl it doesn't count), but really I am so wrapped up in making these mixes that I paid more attention to the great songs everyone was putting out rather than the handful of great albums that hit the shelves.  But really, if you are only going to listen to 1 BiH mix per year, then this is the one for 2014. I have never produced a year-end mix before but I think this is something I'll start doing from now on. All of these songs have appeared on BiH mixes previously, so for the few avid listeners out there, you'll recognize all of this. That's okay. This should be a fun mix for all. I definitely noticed that I have  given greater weight to music that came out later in the year, and that's possibly because of how I went about accumulating music in the 2nd half of the year (and ended up with a better selection), or maybe it's just because I already overplayed my favorites from earlier in the year.  At any rate, here they are in honestly no particular order (or even any particular number of songs; I only decided to pick 1 hours' worth of my favorites from the last 12 months...we ended up with a 'top 15' mix). I only wanted to make a mix that included my favorites and actually had some decent flow.  Enjoy! And Happy New Year... See you in 2015. BiH Favoritest of the Year: 2014 feat. (in order for once): John Southworth, Moodoid, Desert Stars, Breakfast in Fur, Shocking Pinks, Temples, Sucre, Suburban Living, Doss (remixed by Ana Caprix), Rubblebucket (remixed by Body Language), Pepa Knight, Milo Greene, Morning Harvey, Betty Who, Ana Caprix

Officially, yes I know, Brian Eno is not a band. He is many things: an artist, a musician, a producer, an innovator, a pioneer, a composer, a futurist, an evangelical atheist, a fiercely intelligent human being, a writer, a collaborator, a speaker, a developer, and much more. Most people know him as the producer of U2 in their glory days (he and Daniel Lanois produced The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby) or the inventor of an entire genre of music: ambient (which in his own words is music that is 'as ignorable as it is interesting'). I am not going to say much more about him here. His Wikipedia page is fairly detailed.  I will say however, that he has had a profound impact on me and my musical tastes, as well as helped shape my intellectual thirst for the interesting. And I listen to his music every single day. Literally, that is the truth. I sleep to BiH Sleep, more than half of which is all him. And most of that is a single piece called Thursday Afternoon, which to this day is my most listened-to piece of music.  I seriously could make 10 mixes dedicated to him and still not include all of his best work. There are just shy of 400 songs in my iTunes which he is a part of. And that does not even include him as a producer. And honestly, it's all good, and some is sublime.  I selected a few of my favorites here, trying to include a little variety with respect to instrumentals/vocals. I can't stop listening to this one. Put it on repeat.  BiH Bands: Brian Eno feat Brian Eno with John Cale, Michael, Brook, David Byrne, & Harold Budd