After experimenting with three formats for the Monthly Mix — MP3 zip, Spotify playlist, Soundcloud set, etc. — in March we finally came upon a solution that pleased everyone: all of them. And so, for you, here is the month’s music, whittled down to its very best, via each of the aforementioned mediums, limited only by its availability on said mediums. This means a 13-track zip, a 12-track Spotify playlist, and a whopping 54-track Soundcloud stream. And somehow, falling through all the cracks and not represented on any is one of the month’s finest: The National’s straight-to-Youtube “Demons.” So make that part of your a la carte listening discipline, and then get busy on this month’s music omakase.

We’ll start with the download, since this is an MP3 blog after all:

Monthly Mix: April 2013 (zip, 89.2MB)

TRACKLIST
01 Great Thunder – “Kees”
02 Guided By Voices – “Flunky Minnows”
03 Bass Drum Of Death – “Shattered Me”
04 Kirin J Callinan – “Embracism”
05 Phoenix – “Entertainment (Dirty Projectors Remix)”
06 Peals – “Blue Elvis (Dan Deacon Remix)”
07 Joy Orbison – “Donell”
08 Drake – “Girls Love Beyoncé” (Feat. James Fauntleroy)
09 Tegan & Sara – “I Was A Fool (Matthew Dear Remix)”
10 Girls Against Boys – “It’s A Diamond Life”
11 Cold Cave – “God Made The World”
12 Medicine – “Long As The Sun”
13 Survival – “Since Sun Revised”

Here’s a Spotify version:

And for the grand platter, here is the Soundcloud set, with 54 songs and over 3 hours of music. Given that it dives more deeply into various genres than prior installments, you’re allowed some mild-grade skipping here/there. BUT ONLY MILD-GRADE. Enjoy:

ADDITIONAL SPOTIFY/SOUNDCLOUD SELECTIONS:
The xx – “Together”
Pure X – “Thousand Year Old Child”
Lightning Dust – “Diamond”
Deerhunter – “Monomania”
Hebronix – “Unreal”
Speedy Ortiz – “Hexxy”
Charli XCX – “What I Like”
Snoop Lion – “No Regrets” (Feat. Amber Coffman & T.I.)
Janelle Monáe – “Q.U.E.E.N.” (Feat. Erykah Badu)
Disclosure – “You & Me” (Feat. Eliza Doolittle)
Atoms For Peace – “Pyramid (Four Tet Remix)”
Lana Del Rey – “Young And Beautiful”
Grizzly Bear – “Sleeping Ute (Nicolas Jaar Remix)”
MGMT – “Alien Days”
Danny Brown – “Express Yourself”
TNGHT – “ACRYLICS”
Amber London – “Servin’ Fiendz”
Juicy J – “Ain’t No Coming Down”
Quasimoto – “Planned Attack”
The-Dream – “IV Play”
Bibio – “You”
Gold Panda – “Brazil”
Laurel Halo – “Throw”
Pictureplane – “Pure War”
Mount Kimbie – “Blood And Form”
Andrew Cedermark – “Canis Major”
Lemuria – “Brilliant Dancer”
Holograms – “Flesh And Bone”
Oberhofer – “Earplugs”
Poliça – “Tiff” (Feat. Justin Vernon)
Killer Mike – “Villain”
Pusha T – “Numbers On The Boards”
Colin Stetson – “Among The Sef”
Lower – “Another Life”
Vår – “The World Fell”
Cold Cave – “God Made The World”
Dungeonesse – “Nightlight”
Queens Of The Stone Age – “My God Is The Sun”
Beady Eye – “Flick Of The Finger”
The Men – “B Minor”
The Pastels – “Check My Heart”
Dan Deacon – “Konono Ripoff No. 1″
SAFE – “Normal Needs”
Empress Of – “Tristeza”
Dirty Projectors – “The Socialites (Joe Goddard Remix)”
Coliseum – “Fuzzbang”
Weekend – “Mirror”
Eluvium – “Entendre”

A few HONORABLE MENTIONS, i.e. tracks that weren’t available on our Big Three Mediums: Kelis’s “Call On Me” (Prod. Dave Sitek), Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “Animal X”, and Gauntlet Hair’s “Human Nature”, all of which are YouTube jams as of now. Oh, and that National song. Your turn.