music

When I am home I virtually always have music playing. More and more often it happens that I don’t feel like chosing something particular and I can’t keep on playing my own Spotify playlists over and over again. I find almost no Spotify playlists of other users that I enjoy and the Spotify radio function sucks, so do the discover weekly and personalised playlists.

I’ve had some webradio station for many years. Some just disappear all the sudden, others keep playing the same music. A while ago I was looking for interesting radio stations. Perhaps the list can be of help to you too.

Last year I reviewed eight releases that I rated four or higher, seven of them were released in 2018. One release got a 4.5 out of 5, the rest 4 out of five:

• Herz Jühning – Samsara (2018)

• Am Not – Unpunished: Appendix (2018)
• Ausströmen – Immobilise (2018)
• Control / Geneviève Pasquier / Kommando – Cold War, Hot Love (2018)
• Hadewych – Welving (2018)
• Michael Idehall – Prophecies Of The Storm (2018)
• Tanz Ohne Musik – Night (2018)

• Stromstad – New Devoted Human (2017)

Replying to a very different question on Reddit, a person who appeared to work for Spotify kept referring to Every Noise. Not knowing what it is, I looked up the website. The name seems to be named “Every Noise at Once” and it is presented like a massive word-cloud with musical genres which is ‘clickable’. You can also use the search function. Once you get to a genre, you have the choice between different Spotify playlists: “playlist” (opens “the sound of <genre>”, “intro” (“introduction to <genre>”), “pulse” (“the pulse of”) and “edge” (“the edge of”). I have not yet found out what these “pulse” and “edge” playlists are supposed to be.

Because only ‘official’ Spotify playlists are presented, I had the idea that “Every Noise” is made by (or for) Spotify and it could give an idea of how Spotify connects different artists. The website is made a group called “The Echo Nest” though, who appear to develop software (or algorithms) for (personal) music comparison. Perhaps Spotify buys the technique that they use for their automated playlists and the like.

I do not listen to X Wave Radio as much as I used to (I liked their music better before than I do now), but I have noticed great tracks of a project named Kein Zweiter. The music sounds old so I tried Soulseek without succes. It proves that the music is actually recent, Kein Zweiter has two releases which can be purchased at Bandcamp! Read More »Kein Zweiter

It does not happen to me often that Spotify recommends me something that I like but did not know. But then there was Zeigenboch Kopf. A project of one of the members of the no wave band The Oh Sees and a style that I would call “industrial disco”, think of Thorofon. There are four releases (not all on Spotify) with mostly a nice and dirty mix between industrial and dance. The only thing I like less about the project are the constant corny homosexual sexual references. That is funny for a couple of tracks, but less so for a couple of albums. Then again, according to Last.fm “the band was a humorous side project”, so I guess that is it.

Have I reached that age of starting to look back to what once was? Before I started reviewing on a website, I had quite a ‘musical past’. For one, for a couple of years I was quite a Mortiis fan. Somehow Spotify drew me to seeing what of my ‘old music’ is available and I noticed that Mortiis has a playlist with “strange and not so strange music that shaped my life“. Having corresponded with the good man for several years, it was no surprise to me that this short playlist contains mostly metal.

A couple of years ago I wrote “my early days in dark music” and Mortiis’ playlist got me thinking to see what of my music is available on Spotify and if it would be fun to make a playlist of it.Read More »My musical autobiography playlist

While clicking through the website, testing, tweaking, etc. I noticed my Deezer vs Spotify post of a year ago. Curious is anything changed during year, I took a little peek again. Read More »Spotify

In 2017 I reviewed 12 releases of that year. Three of them got a 4.5 (out of 5) rating: “Kainskult” of Trepaneringsritualen, “The Place Of Dead Roads” of Ex.Order and “The Developing World” of Am Not.

Every time I listen to “Kainskult” is seems to be getting better. So perhaps I should say that this album is crawling to a five out of five. This is certainly the album of 2017 to me. What helps a lot is that it is by and far the best album of Trepaneringsritualen so far. The other two albums that I mentioned are also great, but both Ex.Order and Am Not have releases that are even better.