As I mentioned yesterday, I’m going to be taking a break from dealing with music submissions until November 1st, 2021 (and when I come back to the music submission factory, it will only be open on Mondays). But, as I realized late last Wednesday night / early this Thursday morning, it’s going to be hard to really focus on other work if I still have all my other weekly music blog tasks to keep up. For example, my already recently-reduced-to-clear-space-for-other-work mix tape publishing plan of posting a Mixcloud mix EVERY Thursday. Because now it is already Thursday again.

Luckily, as far as my 'post a Mixcloud mix EVERY Thursday' plan goes, I have a bunch of ‘early HI54 Mixcloud mixes’ from before I was asked by Folk Radio UK to do a mixed show for their online radio station (which is how The Mix Tape Radio Show started — and I guess how there eventually came to be The HI54 Yearbook Mixes + The Mix Tape Radio Mix CDs + whatever other themed Mixcloud mix series I do next). And since those early mixes go back way before you could even get a “dot blog” domain, that means those early mixes don’t exist on the current blahg.

It’s like a reverse “the lost episodes” situation, because putting together blog posts for old HI54 Mixcloud mixes that don’t have a blog post yet sounds like the perfect compromise for me to be able to keep up my EVERY Thursday mix tape post plan, while, at the same time, continuing to free up some headspace when I need to focus on some other work (ie. like these last couple weeks of October 2021 as I try to better plan out my blog/work/life schedule for this colder & darker stretch of 2021 becoming 2022.

So, let’s take a trip back to a pre-pandemic March 2012, when I posted a mix called IT ALL BEGAN WITH A BURST…

…which would turn out to be the last of the ‘early mixes’ that I posted on Mixcloud before starting the 9 year / 200 episode journey that was The Mix Tape Radio Show (with a ‘mix tape radio’ idea being one of the main thru-lines for the first decade of this HI54LOFI thing).

So press play on the player above or jump over to Mixcloud to listen over there (or tune-in to MTR | FRESH TAPES for an all-day-string of HI54 mix tapes playing one after the other) AND make sure to have a browse thru the listenable/clickable track listing below — I bet there’s a track/artist or two that your headphones are going to want to spend more time with:

‘IT ALL BEGAN WITH A BURST’ Playable Track Listing

If you find your ears enjoying what they’re hearing, there’s some pretty decent odds that following HI54LOFI over on Mixcloud for future/more episodes would not be the worst use of one of your internet clicks today (I’ll be back to posting new mixes when I return to accepting music submissions on November 1st), nor would following HI54LOFI out on the other parts of the internet where it is normal for people to follow other people on:

PLUS, if you’d ever like to extend the “soundtrack by HI54 mixtape” vibe all day, go press the play button over on MTR | FRESH TAPES, which is a place where you can get one HI54 mix tape to play after the other *ALL DAY* with just an internet connection and a click of a button (and EVERY Thursday a couple different mix tapes get put at the front of the queue).

ALSO also: HI54LOFI is in the Mixcloud Select program, which means you can now support the making of these mix tapes & the artists included on them with a monthly subscription (while also unlocking offline listening of EVERY HI54 MIX for yourself) — y’know, if you’d be interested in something like that (or nobody would be mad at you if you’d prefer to make a one-time “thanks for the stuff” donation of your choice to HI54LOFI over here , or even if you just told someone else that they might like what they’d find over on the ol’ HI54.BLOG… it all helps keep the wheels moving!).

And, final finally… if you hear something you like in this latest episode (or just in general out on the internets today), make sure to check out the people making the stuff you like and show them some love / support / appreciation (in whatever ways you can) — because everybody wins if we all start sharing some more metaphorical coffees/beers/cheers with the people making the things that make things a little bit better. And maybe while we’re at it we can also start giving way less to the people out there always trying to keep things shitty?

\M/