ilovefuzz.com

My primary filter used to be Aquarius Records, San Francisco record store that had an amazing email list that would give exhaustive reviews of just about everything that was coming in each week. But they were bought by Stranded a few years ago and although Stranded does have a few highlights in its weekly email, it's definitely nothing approaching Aquarius' newsletter.

Bleep's weekly newsletter is pretty cool, I'm discovering lots of stuff there, but it is heavily leaning on the electronic side of things.

I find stuff in Bandcamp's various postings.

The Quietus reviews some cool stuff.

And of course what you all post in this forum, definitely have discovered some favorites here.

But I'm curious where else?

Mostly gigs, when they were happening and friends.

I read a UK magazine called Uncut, which mixes old stuff from the 60s right through to modern bands, and Bandcamp.

I used to get quite a lot from The Quietus but haven't looked on there for ages.

I only just recently started looking at Bandcamp outside of artists pages. Bandcamp Daily's Acid Test and Electronic sections are pretty good. I check out their monthly lists, there's usually one or two releases that grabs me.

I used to get some success from Spotify playlists, but there's just so many now, and some have thousands of songs making them not very focused. I'll usually check the similar artists tab on there now and again, but it doesn't seem to bring up much I haven't already heard anymore.

Instagram is good for electronic music artists. I follow a bunch of hashtags which throw up some good artists regularly.

I follow a few shows on Mixcloud, but I don't know if it's a dying format, or if the few shows I follow are losing interest in making content, but it's slowed down a bit.

coldbrightsunlight wrote:Mostly gigs, when they were happening and friends.

Yeah, this. Sigh.

I miss finding rad bands on music blogs.

manymanyhaha wrote:My primary filter used to be Aquarius Records,

I found out about so many cool things from Aquarius. I remember reading about Amon Duul II & Comus and going on my lunch break to buy CDs when I was doing a student placement at a mental health clinic. That was 14 years ago! I took a job with the same clinic about a year ago.... anyway they were so great. I bought so many things based on their reviews. Hijokaidan, Cluster, Trettioargia Kriget, Aluk Todolo, Magma, AMM.... all kinds of fucking cool prog and noise and all kinds of weird shit.....

I used to read the reviews on Mimaroglu and Crucial Blast as well. I ordered so much noise from Mimaroglu.

Most of my new music interests now are harsh noise, Instagram and Twitter are my primaries for hearing about new stuff. And email blasts from the labels I buy from frequently.

I still go to record stores and dig but it’s hit and miss now that the market has gone nuts over the last 5 years and sellers think even a dusty copy of DSOTM is worth $50.... but I still make some cool scores! Last month I found an OG DOA “Something Better Change” LP for $30. I’m loving buying $20 reissues of $300 LPs. I don’t pay crazy prices for stuff very often.

90% of the new music I discover is from www.angrymetalguy.com
7% is from www.yourlastrites.com
3% is stuff that Coldbright and DoS force me to listen to.

I've got a pretty broad palette of music I like - I like death metal, black metal, thrash, power metal, grind, progressive metal...

Unless your listening tastes are similar the sources above might not give you the same mileage.

When it comes to jazz, I mostly go by artists. So I've been binging on Bill Evans undercurrent recently. Then I'll be like "sheeeeiiiitttt, that guitar is amazing". Then I'll google it, find out it's Jim Hall. Google "Jim Hall's best album". Then I'll add them to the playlist. I don't really care if the albums are the best or not, they are a good way to narrow down some pretty prolific discographies. Find something to get hooked on in one of them and keep going down the rabbit hole. There's so much crazy good jazz out there that this is a really fruitful approach.

That is the time honoured and probably best way to find new jazz artists, yeah. It's a never-ending chain of cool people!

Just realised I also discover a lot through being on label bandcamp mailing lists, following labels I like on instagram etc.

If you like stuff a label is putting out it's probably a reliable way

TQ is pretty good, bandcamp mailers are good, their features are pretty hit or miss but the hits are usually pretty good. A lot of it is bog standard geography and geneology.

The problem with following labels is the inundation. I probably get 50 emails a week from labels and I try to listen to everything they send but it is just difficult to keep track. It's why I miss Aquarius Records! And also why I have been enjoying Bleep's weekly roundup, though I wish I could find something similar that was not so electronic focused.

So much great music out there, so much not so great music out there too. Y'all's responses above have me realizing we are all going through the same problem.

Yeah that is true about label bombardment.

IDK I don't believe I have a problem because I have such a huge stack of GREAT stuff to get round to listening, I don't want to add to the pile faster than I can listen to things. And when gigs were happening I was finding out about enough of them and not missing out so I'm good

I am lucky in that I can (and do) listen to music pretty much the entire workday on most days, so I can keep the pile managable most of the time.

But there's way too many records. That's for sure.

50-70% of my recs come from d.o.s. just for the uh, record.