I just spent two and a half weeks submerged in the woods and there wasn’t much music besides frogs and a neighbor’s chainsaw. Radio stations were few; the local NPR broadcast was locked in a fundraising drive; my iPod wouldn’t talk to the tape deck in the car, and my working brain (I was submerged in the woods with a laptop, I should have said) only responded to Schumann, Handel, Brad Mehldau, and the Grateful Dead.

And I forgot to bring any mixes with me. I love mixes in the summer. It’s good weather for jubilation. As a kid I’d hide in my bedroom during summer break to make cassettes. For lack of a record collection, or a world that contained mp3 blogs, the mixes weren’t big on variety—Beatles, Michael Jackson, Beatles, Belinda Carlisle—but at least the songs were never in the same order.

Here’s a mix for this afternoon, dedicated to the lack of air conditioning in my office:

1. “Wildcat” by Ratatat (on Gorilla vs. Bear)

2. “To Go Home” by M. Ward (on Fingertips)

3. “Get Myself Into It” by The Rapture (on Work For It)

4. “Morning Sun” by Al Barr (on Moistworks)

5. “Reconstruction Site” by The Weakerthans (on I Am Fuel, You Are Friends)

6. “I Can’t Say Goodbye” by Bravo Silva (on My Old Kentucky Blog)

7. “Time Will Tell” by Eddie Holman (on Green Pea-Ness)

8. “Private Eyes” by Towa Tei (on Berkeley Place)

9. “Here I Am Baby” by Marcia Griffiths (on Soul Sides)

10. “When The Day Is Done” by Elton John (on La Blogothèque)

11. “In the Corner, At the Table, By the Jukebox” by James Hand (on Big Rock Candy Mountain)

12. “You’ve Been Foolin’” by The Roulette Sisters (on Pre-War Blues)

13. “Some Things Never Stop” by The Alarmists (on Music For Robots)

14. “Seulement Toi” by Cuizinier (on Fat Planet)

15. “Get Off (Urge Mix)” by Prince & The New Power Generation (on The Number One Songs In Heaven)

16. “Crazy” by The Raconteurs (on Stereogum)

17. “One-eyed Cloud” by The Weird Weeds (on Gorilla vs. Bear)