The Vampire Algorithm
Tunng, Djrum, 24 songs that could have made it to 2024's best of list, Damon Locks, exiting the vampire algorithm, DJ Anderson Do Paraiso..
Hello all,
I’ve been sick for what feels like the whole month and lacked energy to do anything. However, while sick, I had a practical revelation about something I knew theoretically: algorithmic browsing is an extremely lossy way (twitter, instagram, youtube etc.) to browse information online and it fries your brain!.
I decided to start an algo-less life while sick and had the gameplan set. Now that I’m better though, my brain is playing tricks on me saying it would not be practical to leave these services. Saying it’s just a silly cause, a pointless struggle, that it won’t matter, no one will care and I will be lost to history.
.. but I think this is the great catch 22 of late capitalism, that we can’t even dream of an alternative, and although we hate these “enshittified” services, we say to ourselves that we can’t live without them. This is the illusion they are selling us! I think the digital space is beyond salvageable at this point and that we’ll have to wean ourselves from the digital teat whether we like it or not, soon enough.
So, let’s live like the homeless as God intended and will make us soon!
The great contemporary internet thinker @being_on_line has published these rules for 2025. I will try to add two more rules: listen to albums from start to end because randomized music creates brain rot. And second, even if you keep one algorithmic feed, stop following any brand/major institution - however cool it might seem.
I will press on my digital exit and document how this goes on a separate newsletter which I’ll try to use as a diary. Ironically on social media to get some readers? :) Hope some of you guys can tag along, too!
Currently Listening:
♩UK folktronica band Tunng’s new one “Love you all over again” is the album of the month for me. We’ve been deprived of a Tunng album for 5 years, and frankly I was not sure if they still had it in them but there are quite a few strong tracks, and it has a certain charm and composure as an album, which is something rare in the era of singles.
♩I'll admit I realized I am quite late to Djrum while doing some R&D, The British artist is a quite established name in leftfield dance circles. Although this 2025 track is not groundbreaking per se for me, amidst 1000’s of boring tech / ethnic house derivatives every day, it's a fresh breath of cinematic electronica.
♩Our algorithmic / networked times bared open by Damon Locks’ spoken word/poetry. I was floored this morning while listening. Out on International Anthem and will be an album of the year contender.
I am not sure if I’ll be able manage the aforementioned algo-less challenge but one thing that has definitely got to go this year is Spotify. I don’t want to be hypocritical when I have been reading / writing about how much there’s to hate about Daniel Ek and Spotify, and still use it for publishing playlists. I will be switching to Apple Music ASAP, and will publish playlists there. I just need some time for the technicalities.
Reggie Watts is one of the artists that I saw leaving Spotify. This is exactly how I feel.
Spotify has built a platform that devalues art by turning music into a numbers game. It’s a giant corporation profiting off the blood, sweat, and creativity of artists while paying out fractions of pennies per stream.
I’m currently trying to take my music off Spotify. It’s not an easy decision because the system is designed to make artists feel like we have no choice. But we do.
📖 Exiting the Vampire Algorithm
Great article about the role of algos.
In music, the algorithm is responsible for a flattening of discovery, a horizontalization of possibility, a one-size-fits-all approach to curation.
To exit the algorithm—or to fend it off, at least—is to embrace the fact that music is a communal artform, created by humans for humans; that its fundamental purpose is to bring us together; and that its power is fully realized when we share it with one another.
📖 Does anyone care about music anymore
Another great read about music consumption as “part of a playlist culture, where songs are selected and consumed based on mood, activity or algorithmic recommendation”
As consumers, we may have more access to music than ever before, but the very nature of how we engage with it – through algorithms, streaming and the decline of live performances – raises concerns about whether we are truly valuing music as an art form or simply consuming it as background noise.
Yet there’s always this other angle, that makes me think that this is all futile and we are just beyond the point of saving ourselves from the capitalist system.
📖 Why Quitting Spotify Won't Help Indie Musicians
Furthermore, indie artists like me can't afford tо ignore and abandon Spotify, nо matter how much we despise it. If I want tо book a live gig, a promoter will check my streams first. If I want tо get label interest, A&R will glance at my numbers before deciding іf I'm relevant enough tо even respond to.
So yes, delete your Spotify listener accounts іf you feel like it. But know that Spotify іs only a symptom оf a much larger problem. Boycotting Spotify will not dismantle the machine. The machine will keep running.
📖 Over at Metalabel though, Yancey Stickler has a creative case of Stockholm Syndrome:
Promotion isn’t a chore. It’s a gift. A chance for us to celebrate the effort we and others put into our work. We shouldn’t shy away from it or treat it like a burden. Relish it as an opportunity to honor something we worked hard to make that we believe in.
I guess, marketers are gonna market, right?.. 🤷
UNDOMONDO DISCOVER WEEKLY
I made a new playlist called 25 overlooked/missing songs that could have made the best of 2024 list. Also archived the 2024 best of list here if you want to go back to it.
I’m sure everybody and their aunt knows about Doechii now after the Grammy’s, Ol Burger Beats makes jazzy beats has some good feats. of my fave rappers like Quelle Chris, Pink Siifu and billy woods; New album on the Jazz is Dead record label feat. Ebo Taylor, I loved the Israeli duo Winter Family, and now that I know their stance on Gaza, I love them even more, New Saagara album on the intersection of jazz and Indian classical, Early American electronic pioneer Jill Fraser, Welsh gothic avant wytch folk Tristwch Y Fenywod — The image generated comes from the name of the song featured meaning Green Flower, fingerpicking folk from Jacken Elswyth and much more!
♩I can’t say I understand much about the urban music phenomenon Baile Funk, but I think I have started to understand Dj Anderson do Paraiso, doing a very minimal version of baile funk. There’s something captivating in his tiny minimalist dance moves!.
“While Belo Horizonte’s funk scene is as raucous and lyrically scandalous as those in the larger cities, it has become defined by an almost elegant minimalism, sparser and more refined than the heavy distortion of Paulista bruxaria or Río’s more hip-hop-oriented sound.” Pitchfork
