A New Format?
Welcome. Trying something a little different this time around: instead of one post for a mixtape, or one post to share some new music, I’m structuring this to have more content, more for you to pick through, and hopefully more takeaways for y’all. I’ve also got a bit of non-album content too, which will hopefully be useful in your search for new music.
And finally, make sure you read through to the bottom for a brand-new mixtape!
Every Noise: New Releases By Genre
Quick backstory: years ago, there was a music streaming service called Rdio and it was the best damn thing going. It was social - you could view what your friends added to their collection, see their comments and reviews on albums, view their heavy rotation, and more. When they closed, many of us migrated to other platforms but kept in touch on Slack. One person in that slack, was Glenn McDonald who created a site called Every Noise. It’s an unbelievable scatter-list of genres via Spotify, and is worth checking out. On that site, they’ve got a Spotify New Releases by Genre page. This page is absolutely one of the most useful ways to browse new music on the platform.
Let’s say it’s Friday, and you want to see all of the new indie releases (broken out by sub-genre.) Or, let’s say you want to only check out the latest “neo classical metal” releases. Now you can!
Not only that, you’re able to be as wide-ranging (select just “punk” and you’ll get “indie-punk,” “post-screamo,” “canadian hardcore,” “vegan straight-edge” and more) or as granular as you’d like (seek out the latest “southeast asian post-rock” albums if that’s what you’re in the mood for.)
Not only that, but click any album and get a quick sample of what it sounds like before deciding to add it to your collection for later listening. Unbelievably handy.
RateYourMusic Playlist Chrome Extension
For a long time, I had something against RateYourMusic. Maybe it was the UI/Design, or maybe it was the community itself (which always felt gate-keepy and pretentious or off-putting.) I resisted using the site for a long time. “When will there be a Letterboxd, but for music?!” I’d think.
Well, I’ve been using their chart functionality lately and if I had a time machine, I’d go back and kick myself. It’s incredibly handy to, say, view all chiptune albums released in 2019 to see what I missed, or see all albums released in 1981 sorted by popularity.
The only issue, was if I wanted to make a playlist I had to copy and paste all the titles into Spotify to see if I could find the records. Well, now that I’ve found the “Nice Playlist Generator” aka RYM2Spotify extension, this isn’t a problem.
How it works:
Load up a Rate Your Music chart
(Here’s the first page of 1981 releases by popularity, as an example.)
Click the extension, click “Get Spotify Links” and then “Copy Playlist to Clipboard.”
Now, go to the Spotify desktop app, click into the playlist and CTRL-V to paste the songs.
Voila!
A side-note though, it’s not perfect. It often pulls similarly titled songs into the playlist that don’t match your search (the year, for example.) This is likely because the intended album/song isn’t on the platform. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s worth double-checking your picks. Also, you can only do this one-page at a time. That said, that’s a helluva lot easier than doing almost 40 albums by hand, one by one, one page at a time.
Let me know if you use this to create your own playlists and link me on Twitter if you do!
Spotlights: New Albums & One Classic Revisited
Here’s some thoughts on music that has landed in front of me lately - either through discovery, or re-discovery of old favourites.
Sinking - Only Echoes (out via Patient Zero)
This is some real throwback shit right here - sounds like vintage early 90s emo/indie. Not exactly screamo/skramz, though it plays with textures and structures that you’d be familiar with if you’re into the genre while also injecting some post-rock theatrics into the mix. The vocals here are much smoother, not unlike what you’d hear in the second wave, and some of the melodies approach near-dream-pop levels of hazy hookiness. This really grew on me between my first and second listens - if you are a fan of the genre (or honestly, even 90s alt-rock in general) I feel like this might be up your alley.
Clones of Clones - Super Available (out via Shoe Assumptions)
This was listed as “dc indie” on the aforementioned Every Noise release chart, so I added it to my collection without listening to the preview.
What I’m hearing is actually a lot more varied than the Discord-esque angular guitar attack I had expected. This has elements of jangle indie-pop (“Century”) and subtle psych elements (that bouncy bassline on “Melt” or the synth moments on “Mine.”) The band does dip into hook-led indie-rock territory (“IOU,” “Aomm”) in a way that satisfyingly fits into the album’s hard-to-pin down sound. And is it just me, or is there even a little Beta Band hiding in album closer “Time?” All in all, it’s an intriguing mix of sounds, and I think it’ll please a lot of listeners.
Crass - Penis Envy
I don’t have a whole lot to say about this, except that while perusing 1981’s releases I remembered that this seminal release came out that year. Eve Libertine had sung on Crass songs before Penis Envy, but here takes lead alongside Joy De Vivre, creating ananarcho-feminist punk classic.
If you’ve never heard it, now’s as good a time as any to revisit. And if you’ve never read about the band’s prank surrounding this release, that’s a must-read (the long-and-short of it: they were able to get a flexi-disc of their “parody of a middle of the road love song entitled Our Wedding” into a legitimate romance magazine under the pseudonym Creative Recording And Sound Services.)
New Mixtape
And finally, here’s a new mixtape featuring a bunch of new acts, new albums, new tracks and more that have been running through my ears. If you’ve got recommendations for me, please let me know on Twitter. If you check out a record or band because of this mixtape of any of my posts, let me know too! Enjoy, and have a good afternoon.
Track list features: Schema, Pintandwefall, Pinkshift, Maston, Vertical Slump, Math the Band, Riverby, El Michels Affair, The Buoys, Silver Scrolls, Voiid, Tapeworms, FRITZ, WAAX, Sinking and Alright.