Playlist of the Week (2018/19)

This week’s POTW is compiled by the obscurely named ‘The X Reposts‘. This is actually a selection of tracks that this Spotify user found via the Atom Collector Records site, which I’ve already mentioned in a couple of posts, but is not one of their playlists.

A quick look at The X Reposts’ website shows that they have made the playlist to promote independent artists – just one of a number of ways that they are doing this. As you’ve probably gathered if you’ve been following this series, indie musicians are pretty passionate about supporting each other and getting the word out about each others’ work. It’s no surprise then that The X Reposts is run by an independent artist, Newen X, who produces mainly electronic dance tracks, including some pretty powerful dubstep. His own music hits the nail right on the head for the club scene, with big anthemic tunes and classic drops. It’s the polar opposite mood-wise to many of the tracks on this list, however, including my own Silver Bird.

 

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/18)

This week’s POTW is a compilation focussing on mental health, a slightly surprising topic for a playlist, but it turns out it works rather well. Fighting the Monster – mental health awareness is full of tracks around the topic of mental health (and maintaining it), but it’s not in any way a depressing listen. There’s a broad range of genres and moods represented, from in-your-face rock to dreamy ambient, and if anything it’s quite a thought provoking set of tracks, as there’s not always an immediately obvious connection with the subject of mental health.

Fighting the Monster – mental health awareness is curated by Verity White, an independent British rock artist, whose recent Break Out tour has seen her perform in venues in Manchester, London and Cardiff. Verity’s voice sometimes sounds like Stevie Nicks, but it can also be far edgier, and both sides of her vocals can be heard in the excellent Exhale, the leading track on this playlist.

(Disclaimer: there are, very occasionally, tracks on this playlist which contain swearing – please use the skip button if you are offended by a track.)

 

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/17)

This week’s Playlist of the Week is The Monster, which I mentioned in passing last week. This playlist is technically Simon’s Mini Monster‘s big brother, as it has multiple tracks from a larger selection of indie artists than feature on the smaller list, whereas the mini-monster is from a subset of these artists, with one track each.

As well as being big brother to a mini-monster, The Monster is the brainchild of Jon Magnusson, whose introductory Steemit blog describes him as a ‘borderline crazy Swedish indie folk artist who became a networking master in the independent music scene’. (I’ll second the ‘networking master’ description but he seems pretty sane to me. I don’t know him all that well, though!) Anyhow, before I start digging too far, Jon’s music can be heard on Spotify or, better still, on Musicoin, where you can still listen for free, but Jon will be paid considerably more for each song you listen to*.

Now, I should warn you, the Monster playlist is simply enormous – the clue’s in the name – and at over 40 hours long you’ll only be able to dip into it (unless you stream it everyday at work for a week) so… please give the people at the bottom of the list a fair chance and put the ‘shuffle’ setting** on before you hit play!

*If you read that and are wondering ‘why aren’t you featuring a Musicoin playlist, instead of a Spotify one, if the artists stand to benefit so much?’, hold that thought. The Musicoin site doesn’t, as I write, allow users to build playlists, although that’s a very likely future development. A tech-clever rap artist named Self Suffice has already worked out how to build playlists on external websites, however there isn’t a solution which works within WordPress just yet, where this blog resides. That won’t stop me featuring Musicoin-based playlists from other sites though – it just means that I can’t build my own Musicoin playlist.

**If you’re unfamiliar with the Shuffle setting, it looks like a wavy ‘x’ with arrows pointing to the right and is on the far left, near the play/pause button.

Playlist of the Week (2018/16)

This week’s playlist of the week is Simon Irvine’s Simon’s Mini Monster. Simon, aka Stuffamebobs, is an artist in Brisbane signed to Pink Dolphin Music, an indie label based in West Bromwich, in the UK. Simon’s also a member of the Climatronica Collective, a group of musicians and producers who are concerned about climate change and fundraising jointly with an album to support the charity Solar Aid.

Simon’s/Stuffamebobs’ music is electronic, synthy and occasionally moody; do check out his latest album Metaphors, which came out on 8th January – I think you’ll like it if you enjoy my music.  My favourite track from the album (so far) is Pursuit, which sits at the sonic junction between trance and synthwave, but a close second is the ambient chillout track Birds – Crest of the Syndicate.

Simon’s Mini Monster playlist is a smaller collection of tracks by artists who feature on a much larger playlist, known as the ‘Monster List’. (I think I can see what he did there!) All artists featured are independent (or with indie labels). There may be a couple of Stoneygate tracks that have snuck in towards the end.

 

 

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/15)

This week’s POTW, The 100 – Electronic is another from the Atom Collector Records stable, and exclusively features independent electronic artists, some of whom you will have already heard in previous weeks’ POTWs, if you’ve been following the series so far. There is a broad range of genres within the list, even though it is restricted to ‘electronic’ music.

Support such as this is invaluable for getting my music heard by new audiences, and the same will go for the other artists who feature: we all really appreciate a helping hand. At the time of writing, this playlist is still a way off the 100 tracks planned, so do go back to listen again if you like what you hear: providing it doesn’t reach 100 in the meantime, there will be more tracks for you to discover later.

Playlist of the Week (2018/14)

Morning all!  Time for another POTW. I promised that Susan Moss’s name would crop up again, and here she is with another MoonDreams musicplaylist. This time we have some seriously chilled out tunes with a playlist called Dreamy Ethereal Soundscapes.

There are some fine mainstream artists in this list, such as Radiohead (Daydreaming), Nils Frahm (Ambre), Florence and the Machine (Long and Lost) and Sarah McLachlan (Possession). I’m honoured to be one of the indie artists who have snuck into this list, along with GJART, Røverann, Leg Puppy and others you may not have discovered – yet.

Playlist of the Week (2018/13)

This week’s POTW is the wonderfully named Keep Calm and Walk with the Elephant*, from Iced Note Music.   The Elephant in the title is a reference to Elephant State, which is a band in Iced Note’s stable and who have some tracks included on the playlist – I particularly like the driving Heritage.

The playlist has a broad variety of electronic music from electro house to noise, as well as tracks from other genres, so there should be something in there to please most listeners.

*No animals were harmed in the writing of this blogpost.

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/12)

This week’s POTW comes from Russell Suereth. Russ creates spiritual new age music and you can best hear his work via another playlist of his, Enigma and Russell Suereth.

Russ’s Freshly Picked Selections playlist is an eclectic mixed bag, as far as genres are concerned, but the common theme throughout these songs is that Russ has championed unsigned artists.

Disclaimer: there are a few songs in this list with the ‘explicit’ label. If that is likely to cause offence, please do use the skip button when these come up!

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/11)

This week’s POTW is from Daniel Feinberg, an indie artist based in Seattle.  My personal favourite of his (so far) is the charming Hand Drawn Map, which I’ve included in my Chilled Folk Playlist.

Daniel’s playlist is a showcase of unsigned artists, and is aptly titled Undiscovered.

Playlist of the Week (2018/10)

What’s really great about being in a community of independent musicians is how many artists really understand that we’re in this together, and that we all benefit when we do things that help each other out and work together.

My POTW for this week is another female-focussed playlist, drawing attention to lesser-known women in music. Let’s Hear it for the Girls is another playlist from Susan Moss / MoonDreams, who has been amazingly supportive of my work; she’s even been very kind, putting Sleepwalker at the top of this list (at the time of writing) – the best spot. Being a fairly prolific playlister, her name will crop up again – I just haven’t written that article yet!

One of Susan’s most recent offerings, Keep Moving (Basement Recording), is on my Chilled Retro playlist currently, and is a raw folk-rock song about keeping going when the going is tough, which I can rather relate to after everything that’s been going on with my Dad’s health the last few months.

I hope you enjoy listening to this little slice of girl-power… more to come!