What I'm listening to today: "unleashed voices", Black Cookies
What the musician calls a "lo-fi tape loop ambient experiment". Super evocative. Sounds on free-running tape, four tracks on the left deck, one on the right, three separate echo pedals. Watch and you can see each little action the musician does to manipulate the sound, listen and you can hear all these little chunky sounds where the tape has mechanical imperfections. Deeply physical music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paHoNdR9BUE
What I'm listening to today: "Chinurareta Zabi-ke" ("The Bloody Zabi Family"), Takeo Watanabe
We've been watching the original 1979 "Gundam" and the music in it is actually incredibly sick? 70s Children's TV would just effortlessly toss off the rawest funk music.
There's this one obscure cue, it isn't even on the regular OST (you have to go to the extended 45th anniversary soundtrack), it plays during quiet moments. I love the vibe on this, the bass is so emotive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9jKCgNYwuk
What I'm listening to today: "Afternoon Chill: Live Electronic Session", Jai Cuzco
This is uh, a bit gentler than the electronic music I usually post.
Chill beats and synth tones, a fluid medley of 2 or 3 songs. It's not clear where in the world this video was taken, only that the view from this guy's window is incredible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxloiLT3Z1o
What I'm listening to today: "More disturbing wave bard sounds", OSVoS
There's a new Bastl Kastle and one of its configurations is a tiny "modular"ΒΉ sample scrambler. This artist did a number of pieces mixing the Kastle 2 with other gear, this one I thought had the most interesting beat (You might prefer "More Wave Bard Experimentation" if you like kalimbas more than I do). Alien Gregorian chants + hip hop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHcFkUliO6w
ΒΉ Jump wires instead of patch cablesβ¦take a look, it's weird
What I'm listening to today: "Legendary Wings", Hyakutaro Tsukumo (arranged by Yuu)
This is a General MIDI arrangement of the main theme to Thunder Force V, a sidescrolling shooter made by Technosoft in 1997 for the Sega Saturn. For whatever reason, this is the version I got hooked on!
Rendered on (splitting channels) a Roland SC-8850 and Yamaha MU2000, both of which were released in 1999, so if TF.V had come out just two years later it could have sounded like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGdRrnlbu9w
What I'm listening to today: "Walk On Girl", Linda from Work
Christine's been listening to this band lately and I really like them. They give me a vibe like whoever Linda is was a riot grrl 20 years ago and now she's 35 and she has a ghastly office job and her life is a lot slower, but she's still in a punk band after work
This is the last track from their album "The Night is Short", which has at least three "oh, I should put that in the music thread" level bangers:
https://lindafromwork.bandcamp.com/track/walk-on-girl
What I'm listening to today: "Pure Data Breakcore Live Coding", GrundTon
Distant barking. Weird overwhelming synth swells and one of the most unusual treatments of the Amen break I've ever encountered. (EDIT: It turns out to be a Funky Drummer break, which makes it even weirder it turned out like this?!) Generated by PureData and the YouTuber actually has several videos wandering around this same script's configuration space; this seems like the most focused.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6YxwYNBJoA
What I'm listening to today: "Akai S950 - Deep House Music - Vintage Sampler", MikeSynth
Hype little house techno fragment made on a plausible circa-90s vintage hardware setup (1986 Akai rack sampler sequenced by a 2003 Akai sequencer, mixing board as an instrument). Really refreshing vibe, has a bit of a trip-hop feel to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij2r1C-kr58
What I'm listening to today: "Volume", Pylon
@onelson@mastodon.social linked this and I don't know anything about it. It rocks! When I started typing this post I was gonna say something about krautrock but in fact it turns out she is not singing in German, only indistinctly. Wikipedia says this is from Athens, Georgia. Well that explains a lot. Cool crisp Clashy vibes that seem to predict everything that's gonna happen in pop music in the ten years after it was recorded (that's 1980)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp57WziV07g
What I'm listening to today: "Metric", Bryan Zentz
So there was this first golden age of "techno" in Detroit or whatever, when the genre was new and raw, but then there was this second golden age around 2000, when we (as a species) had gotten really good at the Detroit style and were just making a lot of it. This YouTube account spins a bunch of that era of music on vinyl. This track is a dense crystal structure of dance beats and staccato samples and it is sick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbk--wDbO5E
What I'm listening to today: "Untitled A ( Rock To The Beat )", Ferro
Another from the "Techno Vinyl Records" account's collection, this one's a little more genrefucky, with a more variety, bringing in strange sounds and "House Music" feels. A good gradual buildup.
(Honestly, I linked you that other track yesterday so I could link you this track today. This is how much variety you can get out of a initially-seemingly-rigid genre with some slight changes in texture.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1pBghAeGpU
What I'm listening to today: "Goldener Reiter", Joachim Witt
A long time ago I got captivated by this odd 1980 Krautrock track, with its weird mix of melancholy and peppy, 90s CGI video, and breaking into English with "und I'm feeling up" in the chorus. I was wrong about everything! The video (now copyright-claimed off YouTube) was for a 1994 remix and re-synced with the original audio; there's no English; and the lyrics are about medical abuse so uh, CW German speakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6RLXwKBz_g
What I'm listening to today: "BLK ZMBY", billy woods
As far as I can tell, this song is intended as a political condemnation of the living dead. Mr. woods makes hip-hop with complex and layered messaging, some of which is not intended to be Legible to me personally. This track is slow murky deep fried jazz
"In 2023, Woods published a children's book titled A is for Anarchist.[11][27]"
https://billywoods.bandcamp.com/track/blk-zmby
What I'm listening to today: "Funknitium-99", Fearofdark
This guy is a prolific Bandcamp/YouTube tracker musician, and here he pulls out some fusion funk with an immaculately crisp, clean energy. If you like the music in Sonic the Hedgehog levels listen to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQvPBEJVwn8
What I'm listening to today: Yoyaku instore session, Karla BΓΆhm
Here is a Belgian DJ spinning an hourlong techno set in a record store in Paris. Chill deep house beats, slowly transitioning into French Touch over the course of the set. Great feeling throughout. I think this video was produced as promo for the store, as the camerawork is unusually professional for this sort of video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCt_JY--F78
What I'm listening to today: "End Of The Abyss | Erica Synths Steampipe + Perkons x Soma Cosmos | Drone Day 2025 Live Jam", Travis Benjamin Simpson
Evolves in a way which suggests internal narrative, a journey through a long dark pipe. This is intense, atmospheric, horror-movie music given an unusual color by the fact it is being performed in a bright, sunny backyard with a pink flamingo. Three boxes, two near-designed for ambient drone, but the third isβ¦a drum machine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rowPfubpPp4
What I'm listening to today: "Citrus Cirrus", Muscises
It's hard for chiptune to surprise me at this point, but this surprised me. Impossible sounds coming out of the Sega Genesis sound-chip pair, funk music that has returned from the planet Jupiter with terrifying psychic powers, an evening drive in a convertible while the skyline of an impossible ruined city rises in the distance. A plausible soundtrack for your dreams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJcFmSRsP_Q
What I'm listening to today: "Bound For The Floor", Local H
Grunge is really good actually and there's some great gems if you look a layer or two deeper than the big 3 acts. This, from 1996, is a late (last?) gasp of "alternative rock" before slick acts like Creed and Matchbox 20 took over the space completely. It's a beautiful sustained single note, a monotone intonation, a hoarse, frustrated yell.
Supposedly this album is about how much it sucks to live in Illinois.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Oe5YKhzCE
What I'm listening to today: "Dawless Dreamz #2", Glemii
Here Korg's long-forgotten ur-groovebox, the Electribe, does a duet with an actual Game Boy to create what the musician calls "ambient jungle". This is one minute long and feels fantastic, objects from the past breaking through the envelope of time to show a glimpse of the beautiful feature we deserve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5BxV5gk8Ac
What I'm listening to today: "Tiny Setup, HUGE Sound: Jungle with the PO-33 KO! + Monotron Delay", Pocket Trax
The Pocket Operator and Monotron Delay remain the bang-for-buck champions of the desktop synth world, "toy" devices that at one time retailed for $60-80 in the Guitar Center checkout line (β¦before inflationβ¦) and pair beautifully.
This shockingly hard track shows just how far you can push these little PCBs. Lightspeed 12-bit drum & bass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIlK_16Wal8
What I'm listening to today: "4 dollar casio sa5 processed through EQD avalanche run, afterneath and transmisser reverb", Anne Sulikowski
Gorgeous, slow ambient music composed live on [see above]. Time-lapse video of clouds over cliffs, a cat sleeping for nine hours, chunky kalimba echoing over brainfog. Three blocks away there is a cement mixer running, just at the edge of your hearing, far enough the acoustics of the street turn the grinding into soothing white noise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-5Oqd-JB-8
What I'm listening to today: "Slack", Gar Hoover
Here's the PO-33/Monotron Delay tiny power combo again, making what the musician calls "Chill House" with more than a bit of French touch. Stands out from its genre with some strange sample freaking (is that Paul McCartney??).
Notice the YouTube synth community pro tactic of leaving some random objects on the desktop for Visual Interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18VSdLHR2H8
What I'm listening to today: "kickstart my heart", elricfd
oversaturated brainglaze vaporwave fuck music
This URL was in a text file on my computer where I must have stashed it at some point. I have no idea what this is and I do not remember where I got it from. Bandcamp informs me this musician is the inventor of "Frasierwave". Ok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_3D7deeIeY
What I'm listening to today: "[You Caught Me] Smilin'", Sly and the Family Stone
My favorite track from "There's a Riot Goin' On", possibly the most stoned funk album ever made. I have heard so many weird stories about the production of this album, and I don't know which ones are true. Everybody sounds like they just woke up. Everybody sounds like they love making music. The music itself sounds like it's drunk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfljDrx9Tho
What I'm listening to today: "The Ocean Floor" (part 1), Kazumi Totaka (Nintendo)
In Japan, Mario Paint got a sequel for the 64DD (an N64 peripheral that added internet access, mouse support, and a floppy drive). The music for Mario Artist is amazing. This track is moody fusion jazz, vaporwave in 1999; it pushes the N64 to the limit, synthesizing most things but then dropping in what seems to be an entire realtime guitar track. (I think part 2 samples Massive Attack.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzM_G80xL0c&list=PL-pEm4IqI6c_DfCBqt5VBvR-atgwqTlZB&index=100&pp=iAQB8AUB
What I'm listening to today: " DRIVIN' ", Fox Capture Plan
Incredibly funky Tokyo jazz, tons of energy and wild futuristic synths that just slam you from the start like you're a movie character who just opened the forbidden box and it was full of otherworldly light that disintegrates you instantly. But like, in a smooth jazz kinda way. Do you like electric piano
https://foxcaptureplan.bandcamp.com/track/drivin
What I'm listening to today: "Level 3", Jim Andron
The Phillips CD-I is one of the most infamous video game system failures ever, and it hides a secret: *The CD-I Tetris game had a bizarrely kind of amazing soundtrack.* 10 tracks (I also love "level 0") of the kind of pure vibes "Vaporwave" was trying to chase in the 2010s slowing down 80s r&b. This version comes pre-slowed down! Strange murky easy-listening swamp jazz, general MIDI instruments only
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRVEtOL6Kho&list=PLFCp1PLqgPzCrfc4BALfINUs7ueJMkUcP&index=4
What I'm listening to today: "Wanted", Hiromi
Some chill loungey jazz by a Japanese pianist and her band. Wonderful feel.
This is the kind of music that trip hop was processed from and I believe trip-hop fans should listen to some of the raw uncut stuff once in a while, perceive the woman who casts the shadow. Actually I'm not sure there ARE any trip-hop fans under 40. Maybe liking Portishead in 2025 is the equivalent of liking jazz in 1998. But I did like jazz in 1998
https://hiromimusic.bandcamp.com/track/wanted
What I'm listening to today: "When The Catholic Girls Go Camping, The Nicotine Vampires Rule Supreme.", GIRAFFES? GIRAFFES!
Basically whenever I listen to Tera Melos, Tidal recommends this next. It's actually a pretty good four-minute primer on "math rock"!
What is Math Rock, at core? It's jazz. It's just jazz with rock instruments. Or maybe metal with jazz instruments. In the 70s we called this prog, now it's math or post rock. Anyway here's guitar played very fast
https://giraffesgiraffes.bandcamp.com/track/when-the-catholic-girls-go-camping-the-nicotine-vampires-rule-supreme
What I'm listening to today: "Main Menu" (Mario Artist: Communication Kit), Hideaki Shimizu (Nintendo)
"Mario Artist" for the N64DD consisted of 4 separately-sold "games", of which this is the slightest and most utilitarian (a piece of modem software that let you upload and download creations from the other 3 games). It has possibly the most interesting soundtrack; it seemed to want to be unobtrusive, so it's minimal and ambient. This is a wonderful sparse techno track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmREOQxh0rU&list=PLWgMiwPdlU0WEnBTjEeCIRnf15uuvydJo&index=2
What I'm listening to today: "Hand of Doom", Black Sabbath
Have you ever listened to Sabbath's early stuff? They're still nailing down their sound (ie "metal") and so it's got this wild raw nature to it with currents in strange directions. I hear people describe parts of it as "blues". "Paranoid" is worth a listen in full; this track's a twisty, dynamic, genre-spanning little rock opera about drug addiction with Ozzy Osbourne (1948-2025) using his entire emotional range
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNIgt6yKgDM
What I'm listening to today: "Ambassadors of All that is Good" β "40 Rods to the Hog's Head" β "Guy vs DC Sniper", Tera Melos
The magnum opus of Tera Melos's early instrumental-only days is this 3-track sequence. "40 Rods" is the highlight but it needs the windup and cooldown of the other two tracks. Incoherent noise slowly coalesces into gorgeous melody then dissolves back into noise. Ordo ab chao, order out of chaosβ
https://teramelos.bandcamp.com/track/ambassadors-of-all-that-is-good
https://teramelos.bandcamp.com/track/40-rods-to-the-hogs-head
https://teramelos.bandcamp.com/track/guy-vs-d-c-sniper
What I'm listening to today: "Breathe", Azkyll
This is a deeply strange album consisting almost entirely of indefinable "weird noises" (mostly, I think, coming from a granular synthesizer)? This particular track is all punchy, staticky percussion with the "music" part only present as a hint or aftertaste, sounds with implied colors, Γ©tude for violent coughing fit and string quartet
https://azkyll.bandcamp.com/track/breathe
What I'm listening to today: "Make It All Better", Neuro No Neuro
T!! ano!!!!__ !e i!!t e_s !!ur !t!en!i_!, _!y !i_!o _mpro!i!!_io!, p_a!e__! __!k t!r!u__ ! !!_!y sh!! a!k, _!_ il!u_, !_! th_!_!t !!!p_ __!!!!u!t!_! it_el_. ! s!_g!! !!ar! __ !an!!!. Do! !cr!!c!!!_ ! !! _!r tryn_ _ e! !n
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBT7VkH6ekM
I enjoyed the video; this one's really nice to just stare into and try to reverse engineer the pattern (I ultimately couldn't).
What I'm listening to today: "severe brain damage by dominator"
This is a 1996 "octamed" modfile/tracker tune for the Amiga soundchip that simply goes as hard as it possibly can, dialing in some sort of acid sound and then slowly turning one of the knobs more and more until it actually breaks. Simultaneously a audience-pranking brainfuck and a thoughtful mix of dance genres; the drum line feels like it might be one of the "classic" breaks but I can't identify which one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsro5DpnWNA
What I'm listening to today: "Close your Eyes (Autechre Corporation Street rmx)", Anodyne
One time Autechre dropped a whole ass Funky Drummer loop on a track and it ruled
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nl4GaPMcx0
What I'm listening to today: "Jackin for beats", Ice Cube
On this track Ice Cube states an intent to steal every other rapper's beats, then follows through. Despite the claim of "jacking" Cube actually did pay for sample clearance on every beat used here, leading to a situation where 112% of this track's revenue is owed on sample royalties. If you buy this track on Apple Music, Ice Cube loses money
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Vn12rvPfM
What I'm listening to today: "γ‘γγγγΌγ εζ (32ε)", Ikeguchi Laboratory, Tokyo University of Science
This is an entirely physical effect. Place two or more metronomes on a table and start them at different times. The metronomes will acoustically couple through the table and gradually interfere with each other until their oscillations move into perfect alignment.
You might have heard of this trick before! But try just listening to it. Like really listen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWToUATLGzs
What I'm listening to today: "Weekly Beats #8 - Dustin'", Tristan Baldi
Elektron are giants in modern "DAWless" music production, a path they started onΒΉ with the pair of idiosyncratic "machine" synthesizers released starting in 2001. Here on a machinedrum with hacked firmware is a chill song for laying on a machine beach sipping coolant, watching a square sun set. Takes off once the beat comes in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8AgGXOi-J4
ΒΉ I intentionally ignore the SIDStation here
What I'm listening to today: "Brutal", HarrytheHat
Core-competency Jungle from an EPΒΉ made on a restricted set of instruments (2 Pocket Operator samplers, 1 Monotron Delay, 1 Volca Bass dialed into 303-mimic acid mode).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsbwnOX8aQo
Heavy but smooth; Millenials will immediately have flashbacks to late-90s racing games. Of course this isn't the hardware people would have used in the 90s, it just has the same number of bitsΒ².
ΒΉ Full EP here https://harrythehat225.bandcamp.com/album/pocket-jungle-v1
Β² Twelve
What I'm listening to today: "shapely hedgerows of the dying world", Dragon Warrior
Shuffling, comfy instrumental folk / indie pop in the Elephant 6 style. Feelings like Polaroids of early mornings. You might know this musician as Brother Android or Harrison Lemke, depending on what genre you encountered him in.
https://dragonwarrior.bandcamp.com/track/shapely-hedgerows-of-the-dying-world
What I'm listening to today: "Dual Monomachine IDM with new aftermarket +Drives from MachineStore", MIDERA
An enormous emotion. Thinky techno production with a human pop core and a touch of chiptune feel on the drums.
I think we're at the point where this particular type of 00s electronic sound is as old now, as the 70s-80s sounds Boards of Canada was evoking in the 90s were then. Meaning the progressive parts of Boards of Canada now themselves qualify for nostalgia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr3idTvkp-A
What I'm listening to today: "OB6 Dub Techno", dc11
The musician says this emerged from setting up a new synthesizer, so what I imagine happened: They were trying to make that "chonkchonkchonk" noise from reggae, stumbled into an amazing-sounding semi-repeating pattern, went "I have to stop everything and find a way to make this a song" and built a life support system around it. Result:
Lovely little ambient meditation over a 128bpm heartbeat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDXeiQ6KdWM
If ur bored stop at ~5:00
What I'm listening to today: "New Instrument, new sound!", Fron Reilly
A short demo of a musical instrument created by this YouTuber/woodworker. It's⦠kind of a brilliant idea, actually, simultaneously shocking and in-retrospect obvious.
The video is 100 seconds of abstract noises that, if you'd played it for me without the video, I could tell you how to create with FFTs and DSP techniques but would not have believed was a recording of a completely acoustic device.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGHIcU3g8Ps
What I'm listening to today: "The Terrorist", DJ Vadim & Motion Man
Motion Man is an Oakland rapper so far under the radar he has no Wikipedia page and at least one album of his I've listened to is not on Allmusic. If you know him it's probably from a guest spot he did on someone else's song, probably Kool Keith's, and you remember him because he absolutely steals every track he appears on.
Here, for a 1999 DJ Vadim single: Villainous pronouncements over supersaws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rOYGk6TV_o
What I'm listening to today: "Concerto for Cello and Wind Orchestra" (Overture), Friedrich Gulda
I don't know much about Gulda, but apparently his career was marked by a desire to work in both classical music but also jazz (back in an era when jazz was still cutting edge and/or illegal). This 1980 piece feels like he was asked to compose a concerto but he just really, really wanted to make funk music. This slaps. This cellist is fucking shredding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYTQQtwYYbQ
β 
οΈLoud static at 0:41
@mcc@mastodon.social woah neat find! How did I not know this person, apparently a teacher of Abbado and Argerich? Amazing determination to go his own way.
mcc