That ethereal vibe you get from the above image? It's appropriate.

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Last fall, we told you about These Long Strange Nights, a then-new mixtape/album from S.F.-born, L.A.-based rapper-producer Alexander Spit. That was good stuff. But Spit came back yesterday with Mansions, a funky, spooky, mind-bending instrumental mixtape that's pretty damn engrossing. It shows Spit to be at least as talented at assembling soundscapes as he is at rapping -- and with no rhymes to mind, Mansions lets you focus on its ever-shifting textures and rhythms.

Spit himself bills Mansions as "a wide array of drugged-out 4 a.m. vibes to sample-heavy neck crampers," which is putting it pretty well. Some of the tracks here are wispy and ethereal, barely announcing their presence before they disappear; others are built on big, funky beats that beg for a huge car to bang out of. There's no rapping per se, but there are plenty of vocal samples: Slowed-down, pitch-lowered utterances, hilarious clips from television, and, on "DMT," one lengthy explanation (endorsement, really) of the psychedelic powers of the naturally occurring drug dimethyltryptamine. That track is lots of fun on its own, but this is whole mixtape is probably something you should hear:

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Fairly few mixtapes entertain, point out a musical trend, and ask interesting questions of their listeners at the same time. But, over at Uptown Almanac, Serg and DJ Hunnicutt have just posted a mixtape that does both of those. It's called "oooOOOoooOOOooo..." (The Mixtape), and it consists of rhymes from songs that use a sample of the Beastie Boys' "The New Style."

So where's the question? Well, see, the thing is more than 36 minutes long. That's a really long time to be listening to the Beastie Boys' go "ooooOOOoooOOo." A really long time. Long enough for the whole thing to be kind of a challenge to see how long you can listen. But it's kind of amazing how many songs use a sample of that song, and the mix sounds pretty good. Check it out after the jump.

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On the off chance you're not yet overwhelmed by the clip at which free Bay Area rap is coming at you, here's another one: The Red Eye Flight mixtape from indefatigable Oakland duo Foreign Legion, released yesterday as an appetite-whetter for the album Night Moves, slated to drop next Tuesday on Hungerstrike Records.

For those of you keeping track at home, Night Moves is also the name of a high-concept motion picture in which MCs Prozack and Stretch have to outwit an evil label exec to get back the masters of their album, Night Moves. (Cervantesian, no?) Read this East Bay Express profile on why the plot isn't pure concoction -- the Legionnaires have been at it for a long-ass time by rap standards, without seeing as much love from the majors as they feel is coming to them.

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Yes, but do they have Rainbow Grocery?

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Feeling bummed because you're not in Austin right now for SXSW? Buck up, young modern. As our fearless leader Ian S. Port has already discovered, you "pretty much can't spit in Austin" without hitting an act, or a festivalgoer, from San Francisco and environs. So it's like Dolores Park on a Saturday, with better amplification and way more barbecue sauce. And roughly the same distribution of beards.

Fortunately for those of us who stayed behind to enjoy the gloomy skies and BART delays, The Bay Bridged has compiled a three-volume mixtape of SF bands playing at SXSW this year. You may have heard the first in podcast form already, but you can grab two web-only slabs filled with choice cuts by Shannon and the Clams, Personal and the Pizzas, The Fresh & Onlys, Birds & Batteries, Zion I and the Grouch, Sugar & Gold, Hunx & His Punx, Thao with the Get Down Stay Down -- and that's only the bands with conjunctions in their names.
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​Lil B fucks with him. The Jealous Guys fuck with him too. And you may or may not have heard of them yet, but Oakland's Main Attrakionz are also in love with this New Jersey producer who is quietly leaving his mark on the Bay Area hip-hop scene. His name: Clams Casino.

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Rap impresario and motivational speaker Sean "Puff 'P. Diddy' Daddy" Combs wants you to have a festive, funky, and above all, thought-provoking Valentine's Day. Which is why he and his femmetourage Dirty Money have just released the eminently Kierkegaardian LoveLOVE vs. HateLOVE mixtape, a handful of new songs, unreleased cuts, and some boudoir-ready remixes of tracks from December's star-studded Last Train To Paris (which is, quoth Diddy, "the OFFICIAL album of Valentines Day!").

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Yuri Bond

​In honor of this cloudy, rainy Valentines day, S.F. rap duo The Jealous Guys are releasing The Love Mixtape, their first collection of tracks made available to the world. If the mixtape's title wasn't enough of a giveaway, they dedicate seventeen songs to the L-word, with no-nonsense, beats-and-rhymes hip-hop.
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Swag!

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Believe it or not, "Digital Underground" used to mean something other than that secret server farm 400 feet beneath South Park. Want proof? This just in from the Good Records blog, via Tumblin' Erb: Cities of Dope, an expertly mixed and surprisingly instructive hour of Bay Area rap.

Jonny Paycheck -- not to be confused with the late honky-tonking rebel Johnny Paycheck -- takes it back to the scene's golden early days, with old-skool numbers from the likes of RBL Posse and Rappin' 4 Tay, gems from luminaries like E-40 (a lot of E-40, in fact) and the late hyphy progenitor Mac Dre, classics from The Coup and Too $hort, and deep cuts from Eyedle Mode and expansive backpack crew Bored Stiff. Also, some young upstart named Lil B.

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L.A. label Friends of Friends has quietly been rising over the last couple of years as a notable player in the experimental electronic scene. Now, just in time for the holidays, it's dropped Pop Massacre, a new label comp featuring interpretations of wonderfully low- and middlebrow pop from a high-minded stable of producers (including S.F.-resident Shlohmo's remix of Soulja Boy's "Pretty Boy Swag" ). And the best part? It's free.

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