If you thought the previous Mike Mix was a downer (which it was), wait until you hear Mike Mix 15. I don’t know what inspired it, but holy crap is it depressing. It’s also one of the longest mixes to date. Better buckle up…

Mike Mix 15 kicks off with “Untitled,” the opener from Interpol’s classic debut Turn On the Bright Lights. The track, much like the album, perfectly captures the seediness of the city after the sun goes down. “Ghost of a Shark” by Tom McRae, on the other hand, would make an excellent soundtrack to escaping the city limits at the break of dawn.

I could continue like this for the rest of the mix but I think you get the idea: the songs of Mike Mix 15 are the opposite of happy. Some of my favorites include the fiery “Bought a Bride” by Brand New, the monstrous “Dance Little Liar” by Arctic Monkeys, the dejected “Things Fall Apart” by Built to Spill, and the wistful “Forests and Sands” by Camera Obscura. If these tracks seem familiar, it’s because they all made my Top 10 Songs of 2009 list. I loved them back then and still love them today.

As always, I strongly recommend listening to Mike Mix 15 in the order presented below. Download the entire mix here or stream it using the player below! Enjoy responsibly.

As it turns out, every song on Mike Mix 11 is new to my site. I don’t know how this happened, but needless to say I have my work cut out for me.

So I guess I’ll start with the obvious: Mike Mix 11 features a ton of great music. And it starts out firing on all cylinders. After almost two minutes of quiet noodling, the first track, “Brother” by Annuals, explodes in a cacophony of guitars, drums, and violins. The next two songs keep the pedal to the floor. “Percussion Gun” by White Rabbits rides a thunderous drum beat while “Quiet Little Voices” by We Were Promised Jetpacks soars on a relentless guitar riff. It’s hard to imagine a more energetic start to a mix.

Following this fiery opening is a trilogy of fantastic songs. “Y’all Come Back Now” by Ten Kens is one hundred percent badass. “Available” by The National is the angriest, most bitter song the band’s ever recorded. And “Papillon” by The Twilight Singers is dark yet surprisingly upbeat.

The second half of Mike Mix 11 doesn’t quite pack the same punch as the first. But what it lacks in energy it makes up for with raw emotion. “Lies I’ve Told” by Yarn is completely devastating. So too is “Fool” by Cat Power, though for different reasons. In “Lies I’ve Told” the lyrics break your heart, whereas in “Fool” the instrumentation paints an overwhelmingly bleak picture. But the second half isn’t all doom and gloom, however. The mix closes on a relatively upbeat note with “Epilogue,” the soaring finale from Hospice by The Antlers.

As always, I highly recommend listening to Mike Mix 11 in the order presented below. Download the entire mix here or stream it using the player below! Enjoy!