Typically a mix tape is a grab bag of sounds, songs and artists. Always atypical, Brother Dege’s Scorched Earth Policy is pulled from only one artist—him—but lives up to the diverse aspect of the concept.

Dege Legg took to the mix-tape idea to deliver his version of what summer sounds like by culling together new songs, old demos, two covers and recordings literally done in a field for a whopping 19-cut release. During the past three decades, Legg honed what he calls his “psyouthern” sound (first with his band Santeria before venturing out on his own). Scorched Earth is full of stripped-down, Delta Dobro blues with Legg’s heady, pre-post-apocalypse-whatever mindscape. Though Delta blues and summer aren’t synonymous, Legg’s Dobro sounds like simmering waves of heat.

The tracks exhibit a wide range of Legg’s skills. “Set It Off” does just that: jump starting the album, the haunting song is barebones, yet has a nice rock pace and a bit of a summer groove. Legg shows his twisted roots on a Dobro-and-stomp version of Black Sabbath’s “Supernaut” that is completely his own beast and a cover of Hüsker Dü’s “Powerline” that rocks despite a softer, less percussion-driven core.

His once timely Bush era “Jones for War” returns in demo form and sounds a little like a Neil Young echo. Like Young, it has an unlimited shelf life. “Speaking Tongues,” with its acid flashback Dobro sequence, is a complete 180 from the album’s more summery material. “Bombs Away” and “Flower Power Chain Gang” are day-trip melodies while “Mamou,”“Yinning on a Yang” and “Operation: Have U Never Been Mellow” are recordings done in a field that sound as if they were composed while cloud watching.

Legg shines as bright as his polished-up Dobro on these haunting and catchy compositions. Though he says he spends his summer tubing and in swimming holes, it’s clear that whatever this is a soundtrack to, it rocks.