Y'all may remember when I reviewed the debut mixtape of up-and-coming MC Rory Ferreira, a.k.a. Milo. The title: I Wish My Brother Rob Was Here. You can hear it here. While it wasn't the most well-recorded tape I heard all year, it was easily one of the most brutally honest. Honesty and tangibility is incredibly important to Milo. If I had to guess what the biggest influence on his music is, I would have to say reality. Of course, that's the theme Milo chose to deal with then I approached him and asked him to make a conceptual mix of songs for this blog. Here's Milo's explanation of this mix, a download of it, the cover art, and the play list:
This is a playlist that should help people deal with reality. It seems like there is a really weird Digital Age trend of focusing on planet-transcendence and making life "magical" or whatever. That's much older than the Digital Age but you get the point. All the Lady Gaga enthusiasts who are making appeals to who knows what, Kid Cudi's insistence on being from the Moon, Wayne's insistence on being from Mars, etc. This playlist focuses on the mundane, the ordinary, the normalcy of everyday life and trying to grapple with that in authentic ways. Ultimately realizing this life we have has enough to explore and keep us busy for much longer than Teen Moms 2 will be on TV.
No appeals to being from planets outside this giant blueberry, or having a million dollars to buy a laser beam equipped yacht or any of those hullabaloos; primarily because that cannot be honest. And you're selling yourself short every time you subscribe to these stale notions of The Ideal. Hopefully this can spark some thought into more elaborate and unique daydreams. This is the playlist for the every-person, the idealistic pragmatist who recognizes the beauty in struggling with, what Reggie Watts calls, "binary existence."
1. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young- "Almost Cut My Hair" 2. Joni Mitchell- "California" 3. Solander- "Flight" 4. Open Mike Eagle- "Dishes" 5. Busdriver- "Mr. Mistake (Bested By The Whisper Chasm)" 6. Why?- "By Torpedo or Crohn's" 7. Fleet Foxes- "Blue Spotted Tail" 8. Sage Francis- "Best of Times" 9. Yes- "Yesterday & Today" 10. Bobby McFerrin- "Drive" 11. Neil Young- "Pocahontas" 12. Serengeti- "The Whip" 13. The Roots- "Hall & Oates" 14. They Might Be Giants- "Dr. Worm" 15. Junip- "Sweet & Bitter" 16. Talking Heads- "This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)"
.zip: Milo's "The Intangible Newness of Doing the Same Old Thing"