All Around Sound is Turning Three! Day 4: I Guess I'm Floating

In just a couple days All Around Sound enters its third year! Celebrate with a week of mixes created by friends/influencers of the blog!

As seems to be the way, my happening upon I Guess I'm Floating happened in a rather roundabout way. During my first ever CMJ back in 2011, I had the great fortune of accidentally attending a showcase put together by Andriana over at Gluttony Is The New Black along with her pal Dave. After enjoying the rather eclectic showcase for Bigger Brush Media, I ran into Andriana later while grabbing tacos with Zach from We Listen For You. I recognized her from the showcase and introduced myself and she in turn introduced me to each and every member of her posse. And continued to do so every time I ran into her. Eventually when Andriana visited months later, she dragged me to a bar where several of her friends were hanging. One of which was Connor from I Guess I'm Floating. When asked if I knew of I Guess I'm Floating, she seemed absolutely incredulous when I stated I did not.

Turns out I was always dimly aware of I Guess I'm Floating's existence via my obsessive following of Eardrums music blog. You see every month, a bunch of blogs from all over the world would convene for the Music Alliance Pact - all offering up a track from their country that they felt best represented them. I Guess I'm Floating was the American blog.

Since my actual discovery of I Guess I'm Floating, I make sure to pay attention to what Connor and Nathaniel have to share. There's a strange sort of pride in knowing that many of the bands I love are great loves of theirs as well. Young Man, Hundred Waters, Lands & Peoples, ARMS? IGIF not only champions them proudly but also introduced me to them, premiering tracks that go on to be my absolute favorite. One of my favorite things about I Guess I'm Floating is despite being so popular, they don't deal exclusively with the big names instead focusing on what they're sure you're not listening to and should be. They do a rather great job of picking things slightly under the radar that appeal to a wide majority of people. It's accessible without being lowest common denominator and it's a feature of I Guess I'm Floating that I enjoy. They also have absolutely great taste in showcases featuring not only a rather great handful of bands at festivals but also for one-off shows at home.

Considering our similar tastes and approaches to running a music blog, it seemed pretty fitting to ask Connor over at I Guess I'm Floating for a mix. And what I got was certainly an interesting mix. A power hour mix Connor originally started working on in college, it's a heaping helping of indie-rock when it was in its heyday. Well that and a smattering of other things thrown in too. The mix covers a pretty wide range of music history in but a short period of time, surrendering to a kind of musical ADHD we all have but try to pretend we don't. It jumps from refrain to refrain, hook to hook, featuring some of the most memorable parts of a particular song and some not so familiar parts in others. See how many bands you can properly guess in the lightning quick snippets that compose the hour-long mix.

Connor of I Guess I'm Floating's contribution: