ATSIC S07 - 2025 Recap
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Below this write-up, you’ll find the track list, complete with artists, albums, and the city they represent. You can listen here and follow along, or if you’re using the Mixcloud app, hit the “…” to check out the track list while you listen. There’s also a video below from the Twitch stream where I slapped this mix together. I’m having fun week to week, come through and say hi, hang out and listen to music. I’m streaming often on weekday afternoons, either working on ATSIC, listening to the new releases each Friday or Saturday to make picks, doing Fly In Formation interviews on Tuesdays, or working on my own music when I can find time.
Anyways, onto the mix - What a monster of a playlist to end out 2025 and bring in the new year on the proper volume. I don’t typically enjoy comparing art or trying to determine what art is “better” than others - but there are definitely songs that stick with me while I forget the rest. This year I stuck to tradition here at ATSIC and wrapped the season by choosing one track from each episode throughout it. I generally just look at the track lists from each episode, and listen back to songs that I can remember. Songs get heard when they’re released, then again when I buy them, then when I play them on ATSIC, then maybe once during the week while I listen through the episode myself at the gym or something. After that I’m on to the new releases of the next week, and on and on we go. That means anything I can remember a bar, hook, melody or vibe from a year later when I’m making the year end mix is a standout and a rarity - and this mix is full of those gems. The odd episode it was tough to choose, so I did my best to avoid repeating artists too often and tried to pick for some variety as well. This mix is a great starting point for anyone looking to explore and learn more about the Canadian Hip Hop scene/s across the country. I think I might have missed making picks from 2 episodes in haste… or something… because there were 36 songs in the mix and 38 episodes, but that’s beside the point - this is close to 2 hours of my favourite jams from last year, and it’s the only time I let myself play anything on ATSIC twice (purposely)! I had some fun on the mix and did some transitions, but mostly the music speaks for itself on this one.
Songs range in vibe and content this year - other years I’ve aimed to keep everything up tempo and skewing toward the positive vibes, but this year I just chose the tracks that resonated with me the most. Sometimes that meant it was a jam I had been dancing around singing all year like Bagged Milk & Forest Gumption’s infectious “Hydration”, and other times it meant the heartfelt reminiscing about days and people past of Chadio & the Gumshoe Strut’s “Been A Minute (feat. Chaps)”. Nothing should cause too much whiplash song to song though, and on my first listen back I think things gel pretty well for the most part, with my usual gravitational force pulling me toward choosing songs with lyrical substance and beats that you feel in your soul.
Lock in for a couple hours - I’ll write more about this mix when I get time to, but I wanted to have something here as a placeholder for now. Check back soon, I intend to write a couple sentences about each track, the artist, and the album it’s from to give people a bit more info without having to go looking themselves (I know you won’t, you lazy fucks).
Fly in Formation is back to weekly episodes every Tuesday for 2026, starting January 6 talking with West coast legend Junk! I’m booked through the end of February, and booking into March & April right now. You can watch every interview I’ve done up until this point on Youtube. Leave a comment, hit like over there, show some love and run up the playlist on a muted tab - it’ll help the algorithm show my content to more people, which will get more Canadian music in more ears.
Tune in every Tuesday for interviews with artists across the country as I continue to endeavor to learn more about local scenes and artist’s creative processes, talking to artists we play regularly on ATSIC. Come through, hit subscribe on Twitch to skip the ads, and hang out and listen to Hip Hop.
I buy every track I play on ATSIC (unless it’s sent to me directly). Streaming barely pays, so it’s essential to support indie artists by buying their music, tickets, or merch to keep them creating. Listening to #ATSIC on Mixcloud is free for you, and makes sure that each song you hear pays the artist at least SOMETHING. Spotify pays 0.006 CAD per stream, and that’s only if the song hits 1000 plays in 3 months. Assuming a song gets 1000 spins, that means it takes around 125 Spotify plays to earn an artist the same .76 cents they earn from my 1.29 purchase on iTunes. Spotify is also now investing the billions they earn into weaponized AI drones, which is just awful, frankly. Fuck those guys - I use it because it’s the only realistic way to keep up with all these drops from all these artists, but I never listen to anything more than twice on there - because I go buy a digital single of anything I like that much. You could to, and the music industry would thank you.
Shows like After the Smoke is Clear also need support. If you appreciate discovering new music without the algorithm, or if you appreciate my efforts to get indie artists music in more ears, consider donating via PayPal to help me buy the tracks and keep the show going. Every dollar helps indie artists and ATSIC alike.
If you can’t donate, that’s all good — people who can afford it are paying, and you get to enjoy a free show while I earn a living. Do me a favour though, and help spread the word to other people who love Hip Hop! Shoutout to everyone who is already supporting financially, by sharing the show, or by coming through in comments and chat to help build community.
Stay up.
