The concept behind this mix was very simple and concrete in my head, but hard for me to articulate coherently for whatever reason. Here’s some ways I tried: “organic futurism” “rainforest cyborg” “greenhouse A.I.”… uh hopefully one of those makes sense. Anyway here it is, enjoy! Visible Cloaks – Lex Raime – Some Things Can Happen Just Like This Iso…

This is the third Halloween mix by Scholastics, the follow-up to The Shadows Are A Mercy and Lies are Cheaper than Thrills, but departs from the horror disco & synthwave template of those two mixes for a sound that’s a bit noisier. Phoenix Chorale – Ola Gjeilo: Serenity (O Mangum Mysterium) John Luther Adams – Inuksuit Part IV Puce Mary – To Posses…

Scholastics – Marginalia № 5 1. David Wenngren & Christopher Bissonnette – Their Hunted Expression 2. Gailes – Requiem for an Airport Television Newsreader 3. Gregg Kowalsky – Maliblue Dream Sequence 4. Christina Vantzou – And Instantly Take Effect 5. Bing & Ruth – What Ash It Flow Up 6. Nested – What A Beautiful World This Will Be… 7. Julia Holter…

Marginalia № 4 by Scholastics 1. Lusine – Two Dots (Pezzner remix) 2. Sasha – Cassette Sessions E (Rival Consoles remix) 3. Roy Blues – Pyramid 4. Jonas Rathsman – Wolfsbane 5. Tunnelvisions – Umai’s Dance 6. Pale Blue – You Stopped Dying 7. Kink – Chorus 8. Kelly Lee Owens – cbm 9. The Cyclist – Ripples Through The Ice 10. Jimpster – Burning Up 11…

Scholastics – Marginalia № 3 1. Argoman – Chimicalissimo 2. Affkt – San Diego 3. Todd Terje – Ragysh 4. Roland Tings – Who U Love (12″ version) 5. Ara Koufax – Natural States 6. Leno Lovecraft – Princess (Yan Wagner remix) 7. Bufi & La Royale – Watch Out 8. NTEIBENT and Stella – A State Nearby 9. Dr. Packer – I Feel Acid 10. Wolfram – Automatic Dub…

Marginalia No. 2 1. Tourist – Tonight 2. Björk – Pagan Poetry (acapella) 3. Symmetry – Magic Gardens 4. Saint Cava – Forget (Scholatics Reprise Edit) 5. Havenaire – Brute Camp 6. Merely – Limestone Corridor 7. White Sea – Cannibal Love (School of Seven Bells Remix) 8. Hundred Waters – Murmurs (Brandt Brauer Frick Remix) 9. Cuushe – Daze (Populous R…

This is the sequel to 2013’s Wakanda Astronautics and Space Agency, and follows a Wakandan world ship through a wormhole and into uncharted reaches of deep space and beyond. Like its predecessor, WASA II is half footwork/juke and half other stuff, but everywhere focused on rhythms. Turn on your subwoofer. Scholastics – Wakanda Astronautics and Spac…

This is the first in a new series of mixes. The general idea is to be a little more free than the Live for the Library series, which turned out to be pretty house-focused. 1. Tafi All Stars – Outside Rhythm 2. Red Axes – Me And Abra In Ruanda 3. C.P.I. – Sacrifice to Venus 4. Freddy Spins – Journey to Middle Earth 5. Khidja – Mustafa (Timothy J. Fa…

The last Lampshade mix of 2017 is also the final volume in the Live from the Library series. It’s afrohouse. 1. Haloed – Human 2. Batongo – Aguirre (Mano Le Tough Remix) 3. Manoo, Raoul K, Ahmed Sosso – Toukan (Dixon Rework) 4. Skinnerbox – Gender (Auntie Flo’s Marimba Jam) 5. Hugh Masekela – Don’t Go Lose It Baby (Benedikt Frey Reinterpretation) 6…

The sequel to Lies Are Cheaper Than Thrills. 1. Felicia Atkinson – Valis 2. Steve Moore – Intro & Credits 3. Rafael Anton Irisarri – Fear And Trembling 4. Fever Ray – If I Had A Heart (Live In Lulea) 5. Makeup And Vanity Set – Ono Sendai 6. Protector 101 – Vision 7. Lost Years – Snakebite 8. Priest – Waiting For The End To Come 9. Sinoia Caves – Ru…

1. Siavash Amini – Dusk 2. Seahawks – Islands (Mike Simonetti Remix) 3. Cubicolor – Down The Wall 4. Pional – In Another Room (Reduxed) 5. Khidja – Looki (Africane 808 Live Dub) 6. Von Party – Cobra Kush (Peter Power Remix) 7. Pollyester – Voices (Baris K Remix) 8. Nicola Cruz – Espiritu De Proteccion 9. The Field – No. No… (John Tejada Mix) 10. Go…

1. Todd Terje – Snooze 4 Love (Luke Abbott Remix) 2. The Ancient Moons – Vermillion (Agoria Remix) 3. Zeké Africa – Dr. Ctrl 4. Leon – Bloosh (Zeb Zito Remix) 5. Courtney Tidwell – Palace (Michel Cleis Its Too Late Remix) 6. Lane 8 ft. Lulu James – Loving You (Moon Boots Remix) 7. Cain – Nagan 8. &Me – Cape Coast 9. Awanto 3 – Su What? 10. Dave DK …

We are still here. Love you all. 1. Maalem Mahmoud Guinia & Floating Points – Mimoun Marhaba 2. Vessels – Elliptic (Barker & Baumecker Remix) 3. Nils Frahm – Peter (The Drifter Edit) 4. Kevin Griffiths – Acid Splash (Leon Vynehall Translation) 5. Avatism – Serpentine (Clockwork Remix) 6. Patrice Bäumel – Lowrider 7. Alma Negra – Tribal Echoes 8. Se…

A fall-oween mixtape for 2016. 1. Aaron Roche – Giganova 2. Akron/Family – I’ll Be On The Water 3. Castanets – No Voice Was Raised 4. Danielson – Jokin’ At The Block (Dymaxion remix) 5. Vapor Lanes – Mary 6. Aperture Science Psychoacoustics Laboratory – Music of the Spheres [Portal 2 Soundtrack] 7. Broken Spindles – Matte 8. Blank Banshee – XENOS 9…

From Ore I Labored You is at once crisp and dreamy, nestled halfway between an arid autumn and a sharp winter. It’s full of small, delicate moments which are rendered grand by the intimacy with which they are viewed, a drama in miniature that grows in scale as it draws itself to its full height. When the crescendo comes, you will be ready. 1. Bob W…

With Watershed, Scholastics mines the effects left on the universe by late-period Talk Talk. Gorgeous and haunting, this delicately-structured mix is dense with sounds that evoke feelings and ideas that may have been lying dormant. I’m not saying this might make you cry or anything, but, you know. It might make you cry. Or laugh. Or sigh. Best take…

Like a lot of people on the internet, I was enamored with Mad Max Fury Road from the moment the film started. Elements of it crawled up into my brain and began leeching weird feelings, all shiny and chrome, into my body. Weirdly enough, this mix, its name an obscure reference to an in-show video game from Steven Universe, existed in some sort of pr…

The long delayed 4th edition of what’s become a series rooted in house music. For this one, I wanted something rawer, freer, more organic, groovier, jazzier, less mannered, less atmospheric, less melancholy. Summer’s starting and the heat is permeating further than just the temperature. Let Scholastics cool you down. SIDE A 1. Shur-i-kan – Jazz Clu…

We start off season 2 of LAMPSHADE with a haunting and gripping edition of the Live from the Library series. Scholastics has compiled a selection of tunes to prove that a group of disparate songs, played in sequence, can move you beyond in a dance-floor sense. We’re here, in the 21st century. ‘Remix culture’ is old hat at this point. So, is a mixta…

Moon Cities takes you to outer space and inner space, playing Pied Piper with a mix that’s by turns hazy and sharp, woozy and swaggering. You won’t know where you are or how you got there, but you’ll be happy to be there. 1. The Bobby Fuller Four – Let Her Dance 2. Richard Swift – Laugh It Up 3. Half Cousin – The Absentee (Fujiya & Miyagi Remix) 4.…

Live from the Library V is an oncoming storm. It begins with the oppressive atmosphere of a low pressure system rolling in as the sun sets, and never loses that low ceiling of melancholy. It takes a few tracks for the rhythm of the rainfall to take hold, softly and hesitantly at first and later driving and relentless. There are occasional moments w…

Sylvan Summer Spectre, Moon Cities’ long-awaited proper follow-up to Golden Ghost Forest, has arrived in its proper timing, on the fall equinox. Like the mix it follows, it’s full of perfect, moody segues that move fluidly and unselfconsciously between genres without being showy, distracting or disturbing the spell it carefully weaves. The mix lies…

The first volume of Moon Cities’ live mix series is here, and it’s a slab of amped up, genre-agnostic electronic dance music. His mixing’s got a raw immediacy to it that’s thrilling – my favorite moment is when a the bassline from a significantly sped up “You’re Nasty” slams down over Daft Punk’s acidic french house, in sync but a beat ahead. It’s …

A proper tribute to Frankie Knuckles, Live from the Library, Volume 3 starts meditatively and never loosens its grasp on that emotional thread, even while delicately punching its way up to a workout. It’s pure house and pure heart that crescendos into a classic, often leaving you breathless with tears—or stars, or both—in your eyes. 1. Kyle Bobby D…

“Feels”, that piece of post-Tumblr Millenial slang, is as much misunderstood as it is derided. But let’s get to that later. Pure Feels (the name chosen as a homage of the iconic Pure Moods compilation) draws from ambient music, not the genre proper, but the music that was going on while other things were happening. Music from Dreamcast and N64, the…

Just in time for summer, Moon Cities’ Direct from the Caribbean is a warm breeze of tropical mood music. It starts in a sort of woozy 60s California nostalgia, but quickly becomes blissfully unmoored from both time and space, effortlessly leaping across decades and international borders alike. Just as its fraternal twin Direct from the Islands was …

Scholastics has taken the feeling of existential dread that can be experienced at 4 am in a dead town and has transmuted it into an hour and a half of chills-up-your-spine bone-rattle music. A spiritual cousin to Golden Ghost Forest. 1. Rachel’s – Cypress Branches 2. Castanets – Into The Night 3. Scott Tuma – Red Roses For Me 4. Other Lives – Dust …

The third in the ongoing Chapter of Seas ambient mixtape series ventures out into deepier, choppier waters. But the brutality of the opening third gives way to an ocean of celestial drone. Salvation is reserved for those who endure. Tracklist: 1. Superstorms – Part 1 2. RxRy – Cetus 3. therefore – Free Soundtrack 4. Seth Nehil – Grave 5. ISIS – Hym…

The second mix in the Live from the Library series is a lot brighter and more sprightly than the first. It’s also about 15 minutes longer, clocking in at just over an hour. Scholastics – Live from the Library, Volume Two 1. Philip Jeck and Jacob Kirkegaard – Soaked Pt. 7 2. Tim Hecker – Spring Heeled Jack Flies Tonight 3. Coma – Raindrops 4. Tomson…

I’m a man who loves Christmas music. I’m also a hardline no-Christmas-until-after-Thanksgiving seasonal separator. So the few weeks between Christmas and the new year are filled with wall-to-wall Christmas music for me. Over the years, I’ve amassed quite a collection, and I’ve become something of a connoisseur of original Christmas songs. A good Ch…

As much as I love doing heavily plotted, extensively planned concept mixes, they take me a pretty long time to do. And I haven’t had as much free time on my hands recently, so I’m starting the Live from the Library series. The concept of this series is there isn’t a concept – I play music from my library that sounds good together. Here I play conne…

This started as a Halloween mix and transmogrified into more of a Fall-oween mix, it seems. It’s not so much spooky and ghosty (though there is that) as much as it is music for cold, windy nights, full of moonlight and magic. 1. Tim DeLaughter – Pink Trash Dream [Thumbsucker] 2. Zulma Yugar – El Trasnochador 3. Monster Rally – Ribbons 4. George Bru…

I started playing this in the car and my two-year-old son said “Scary music!” but when I asked him if he wanted me to turn it off, he said no. Scholastics has put together a little over half an hour of Halloween slasher music that uses synthesizers instead of knives. 1. Makeup and Vanity Set – A Prologue 2. Glass Candy – Redheads Feel More Pain 3. …

Halloween 2012 (mark 2) by Moon Cities Here’s a redone version of last year’s Halloween mix tape. It’s spooooooooky! Tracklist: 1. The Revival Hour – Hold Back 2. M83 – In the Cold I’m Standing 3. Spoon – The Ghost of You Lingers (Daytrotter version) 4. Dead Man’s Bones – My Body’s a Zombie for You 5. Jookabox – You Cried Me 6. Sufjan Stevens – The…

The second in what has become an ongoing series of collaborative ambient mixes between Scholastics and Moon Cities. The unsaid theme of this one was for more “organic” sounds. We <3 you, Hearts of Space. 1. Serifs – There Is an Inaudible Roar Underneath All Things 2. Arp – The Rising Sun 3. Balmorhea – Winter Circle 4. Geotic – Sleep and We’ll Tran…

I was gonna write a big thing about this, but I think the thing speaks for itself. Dancing about architecture, etc. Three things you need to know: 1. Wakanda is a fictional African country from the Marvel Universe. The mix follows W.A.S.A. from its tribal origins to deep space. 2. Afrofuturism is an aesthetic that combines science fiction with Afri…

An ambient collaborative mix. We both grew up hugely inspired by long-running “slow music” NPR show Hearts of Space. The Chapter of Seas series of mixes are our tribute to Hearts of Space and ambient music in general. 1. Murcof – Cosmos I 2. Oneohtrix Point Never – Where Does Time Go 3. Stellardrone – Eternity 4. Cluster & Eno – Steinsame 5. Back t…

A cassette style mix of timeless cool summer evening jams. 1. The New Pornographers – Failsafe 2. Damien Jurado – Caskets 3. The M’s – Big Sound 4. DM Stith – Suzanne (Randy Newman cover) 5. Here We Go Magic – Tunnelvision 6. Citay – Final Fantasy 7. Les Paul & Mary Ford – The World is Waiting for the Sunrise 8. Capitol K – Pillow 9. Richard Swift …

This is a mix designed around gospel house music. Although there’s a lot of the wonderful soulful vocal house sound that’s associated with that phrase, it draws from other traditions in house music as well, dipping into 90s deep house and bass-influenced house music. I tried to create a narrative not just out of the sound and pacing, but out of the…

Inspired by the BBC Radio One Essential mix, this is a wide-ranging 2 hour dance mix designed to work in your headphones or on a dance floor. It starts off with some weaponized pop sugar, but quickly becomes more complicated, blending together afrobeat, nu-disco, rap, post-punk, and deep house with a pulsing four on the floor beat. The whole thing …

Here’s part 2 of the shibuya-kei primer, this time focusing on influences of the genre, artists who were influenced by it, and music that co-evolved along the same lines. It also happens to be some great summer fun time music! 1. Primal Scream – Loaded 2. Gorillaz – 19-2000 3. Handsome Boy Modeling School – Metaphysical (featuring Miho Hatori and M…

This is something of a primer on that mid-90s Japanese melting pot sound, shibuya-kei. Drawing equally from Brazilian bossa nova, French nouvelle chanson, electronic experimentalism, synth-pop and twee, this sound exploded into life in the early 90s and was heavily influential through the late 90s and early 2000s. These few songs are from key playe…

Twenty minutes of thoroughly modern electro-disco woven together into a dense mat of beats and crazy synthesizer hooks. And Karen O. 1. Metronomy – Heartbreaker (Discodeine remix) 2. Rafale – Everglades (Voyou remix) 3. Dragonette – Mixin To Thrill (Villains remix) 4. Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor (Soulwax dub) 5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll…

This is an old (December 2009) collaborative mix from both of us. We traded songs back and forth in an attempt to make a coherent whole. This mix is much more pop-focused than the previous two. Tracklist: 1. DM Stith – Pity Dance 2. Celestine Ukwu & His Philosophers National – Okwukwe Na Nchekwube 3. Kate Bush – Pull Out The Pin 4. Animal Collectiv…

An instrumental mix of sylvan reading music for the December Adventure Hobbit book club. (decemberadventure.tumblr.com) 1. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Title 2. Jim Guthrie – Dark Flute 3. Ombre – Cara Falsa 4. Clams Casino – Wizard 5. Bibio – Saint Christopher 6. Candy Claws – Warm Forest Floor 7. Monster Rally- Jaguar 8. Balún – El Medio C…

This is an hour long exotica mix, mixing classics and rarities, Golden Age and modern era. If you’re not familiar with the “genre” of exotica, there are a couple of great primers here (www.ambientexotica.com/aboutexotica/) and here (exoticaproject.com/about.php), but the basic idea is that it’s white people making an ersatz, romanticized version of…