The same qualities of midwestern winters that tend to drive people insane—the isolation that comes with it being highly unpleasant to go outside and do anything, the melancholy that foreshortened days tend to inflict—make it ideal for making mix tapes. In fact a number of my favorite iTunes playlists came from friends sometime around January or February.

A new favorite comes from local Internet microcelebrity Molly Soda, who coincidentally makes a brief appearance in my article on seapunk coming out tomorrow. While the weather outside is sort of frighteningly non-winter-like at the moment, the mix's emphasis on the meditative and the pleasantly bummed-out still feels right. And the transition from Dolly Mixture to Balam Acab comes very close to total perfection in my book.

Download it here.