Good morning, Monday! Today is a short week for most, and hopefully all are planning on barbecuing and celebrating the 4th with a few beers with friends. So happy soon to be 4th of July.

The first track of this week's mixtape, "Alright," was performed by Kendrick Lamar as the opening act of last night's BET Music Awards. Lamar stood atop a graffiti-laced cop car and spit out a ferociously technical song on live TV. Listen to this song and the wordplay, speed, and execution of his delivery: "Now tell my momma I love her / but this what I like, Lord knows / 20 of 'em in my Chevy / tell 'em all to come and get me / Reapin' everything I sow / so my karma come / And heaven no preliminary hearing, so my record / I'm a motherfuckin' gangster in silence for the record." The whole track is the epitome of Lamar's ability to spit. Another interesting tidbit is the hook is sung by Pharrell. I thought the song was an interesting choice for Lamar to play to the primarily black audience as he sung along with Pharrell's backing vocals, "Do you hear me? Do you feel me? We gon' be alright."

Trails and Ways hails right over the bridge from me in Berkeley, California. If you like this song, I highly recommend their album. The female singer and some of the songs remind me a bit of another band, Alpine, who released a great album in 2014 and a new one this year as well (which I have yet to listen to!).

Gengahr - NO IDEA how to pronounce that - released their album recently, and "She's a Witch," stood out to me from all the other tracks. The only comparable I can think of is Of Montreal's "Bassem Sabry:"

Both weird songs, both oddly catchy.

I wrote about Will Joseph Cook's EP already, but I am really digging this song and have been listening to it more than any other song over the past week, so it's gotta make the mixtape!

Twin Peaks sounds like they're recording their music in a garage while their friends jump around, drinking beers, and the band has to just keep getting louder because their friends progressively get drunker. It's raw, unpolished rock.

De Lux is is like the hideous menage trois music-child of LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, and Talking Heads. "Irish people hate me / Hippies don't love me." This is not all true, I'm cool with you guys!