Nov
Glyders, Reverend Kristin Hayter, Joe Hisaishi, The DNAYs, RIP Carla Bley, Changes at Spotify & Bandcamp and a bit more..
Hello cuties,
We are already in November once again, and we’re about to say FO to another political shit show of a year. Two mega wars, rampant fascism, climate and immigration crises, the technological panopticon going full steam and what are we left with? Music I hear you say, and that’s right. That’s indeed the one thing!
Now however, the greedy fuckers at Spotify and Bandcamp’s parent company Epic/ want to take that from us as well. Read these two articles for the sake of your artists if you regularly stream music. Pitchfork covers the beloved indie publisher Bandcamp’s selling drama and this essay on Substack by Damon Krukowski of Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi covers Spotify’s upcoming changes:
“Starting in 2024 (less than two months from now), they will no longer pay any royalty on tracks that fall below a minimum 1,000 streams a year. These tracks will still earn royalties, in theory – but those royalties will not be paid to their rights holders. Instead, they will go into a pot to be divided among accounts that garner more plays.”
Once again something wonderful, working and profitable like Bandcamp is broken by agents of capitalism, and well Spotify has only been interesting for mass music and major labels (who will benefit from these changes) anyway.
OK rant over. Here are the must listen tunes/albums from the last few days.
Solid garage revival & Route 66 driving music from Chicago outfit Glyders, For fans of Thee Oh Sees and et al etc. I’m def a sucker for this sound although I can’t drive :) . Out on Drag City.
Japanese composer extraordinaire Joe Hisaishi, who I guess is most well known for scoring Miyazaki, has his Ghibli soundtracks interpreted by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Couldn’t pick between the first two pieces, one from Howl’s Moving Castle and the other from Spirited Away. Out on Deutsche Grammophon.
Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter: Album of the month. Lingua Ignota reverting to her birth name with reverence after a tumultuous relationship with Daughters vocalist Alexis Marshall which saw her get abused and raped - NOTE: This is a harrowing read.
This album could be in the starters pack tote bag for an Appalachian death cult. A very personal & spiritual record which could lead to your salvation or your demise.
The DNAYs: While the world is rightly going crazy about the new Beatles song - which I have to admit makes me shed a tear- experimental artist Mikado Koko just produced this AI punk EP using Stable Audio, complete with AI personas and great styling. Very inspirational, a new era is upon us!
New playlist with a lot of danceable, soulful jazzy radio friendly stuff, unlike what the image conveys. Yazmin Lacey, Ana Frango Eletrico, Jungle, Pink Pantheress, Sofia Kourtesis, FaltyDL and more! Tune in!
♩ CHAMBER MUSIC: Wu-Tang Clan’s origin story
According to RZA, “A democracy would not work; it had to be a dictatorship. But it had to be an agreed-upon dictatorship, not by force. I told them, ‘I have a vision and I see it. If you give me five years, we’re gonna be the number one crew in the country.’”
♩ Obituary: Carla Bley Jazz composer and arranger [NY Times] [Guardian]
Her music, which ranged from chamber miniatures to blaring fanfares, was suffused with a slyly subversive attitude.
I’ve used ChatGPT to automatically get mentioned tracks that were available on these two obituaries into a Spotify playlist with some success. It can be listened to here..
PS: You have to use a Plugin called PlaylistAI, therefore you have to be a ChatGPT subscriber.
Well, I hope you got this far, once again if you liked what you read, please share with your friends, the world has 8B people and we are reaching only about 1K. Boo!