Playlist of the Week (2018/51)

Playlist of the Week No 51, 2018: Stoneygate's Alternative ChristmasYou can’t get to this point in the year in a series like this without having a Christmas playlist. It’s becoming a tradition of mine to put Christmas music on whilst I wrap the presents, mainly to try to persuade myself it is that time of year and I need to get a move on otherwise I’ll run out of time.

I enjoy some of the golden oldies, but they do get, well, old. So, a couple of years back or three, I started to compile a YouTube playlist of various lesser known Christmas songs, the ones that you don’t hear over and over again in the shops all the way from about September. It became more than a little obsessive and the list got extremely long, because just about everyone has done a Christmas song.

So this week’s POTW is a bit of a cheat, but it’s my collection of some more obscure Christmas songs, some secular, some sacred, some just plain daft and some serious. It’s got a wide variety of styles, from punk to an African childrens’ choir. There are a whopping 320+ songs included, so it will keep you busy for hours on end whether you’re hanging up the decorations, making the mince pies or preparing the Christmas dinner.  The mood of the songs is mainly grouped together, so if you want more variety, hit the shuffle button.

Playlist of the Week (2018/45)

#POTW No 45: Electric Road Trip by Tobi

My Playlist of the Week this time around is Electric Road Trip. As implied in the name, it is full of electronic music of different kinds with the emphasis on pop, EDM and other upbeat styles, and it is a very listenable mix of tunes.

The playlist curator, Toby Davis, is a Luxembourg-based musician and producer who is very much involved in getting independent music into the ears of music fans. He says, “Good producing is like good plumbing: if you do your job right, no one notices.”* He is one of the key figures behind the ‘Monsterthread Community’ of independent music artists, and he also writes for Brash! Magazine as well as being a professional graphic designer and being all over the interwebs. He’s notably active in the  thread on Twitter, which promotes new music from less well known artists.  I’m actually quite surprised that I haven’t written about him before now; that’s clearly an oversight on my part, given how much Toby does on behalf of label-free musicians.

Some of Toby’s recent productions include The Strand by Daniel Feinberg, and Yours by Katie Ellen. He is also a keen remixer – you can hear some examples here.

 

* Bass playing usually follows the same rule, also.

Playlist of the Week (2018/44)

Digital Music Goodness, from Replicant Theory, is this week's playlist of the week.

Digital Music Goodness by the artist Replicant Theory is this week’s Playlist of the Week. It’s full of various forms of electronica, focussing on darkwave, synthwave, ambient and electronica.

The Replicant Theory project originated as a collaboration between two artists in the early 2000s, but after making their first album, one of the members relocated and the project fizzled out. After a couple of failed attempts at getting going again and a second album, Polaroids, Replicant found new momentum after writing two tracks for a zombie shooting game as a result of a chance encounter with a game developer. Since then, as well as releasing more albums of his own, he has collaborated with a number of independent artists (including GJART, whose playlist GJART Loves I featured back in February). Replicant Theory describes the music he makes as a “hybrid of alt-metal, progressive, industrial, electronica & darkwave from the underground.”  There are several good examples of his work, such as Shadows Fall, within the playlist.

 

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/43)

Playlist of the Week: Susan Moss's Monday Playlists - MoonDreams Music Monday and Monday Monday.

One playlister whose name has come up again and again in this series is Susan Moss, because of her dedication to getting independent artists heard. Today I’ve got not one but two playlists of the week for you, both designed to cheer up your Monday (or other days of the week as you see fit), and both compiled by Susan : Monday Monday and Moondreams Music Monday. There’s a variety of music on these playlists, so there’s something in there for just about everyone – except maybe hardcore metal-heads.

Since I last covered one of her playlists, Susan’s released a new single under her Moondreams moniker, called Tropical Breeze, and you will find this on the playlists.  It has a nostalgic 80s vibe to it with lots of vocal layers; I’m hoping that I’ll get to do a remix of it at some point in the next few months, ready for next Summer. Meanwhile I can dream of sunny beaches while I navigate the storm puddles in a relatively wet and chilly UK!

Playlist of the Week (2018/42)

Stoneygate's Playlist of the Week No 42, 2018

This week’s playlist is from ENILSounds, aka Line Munch-Petersen, a “one-woman-band” from Copenhagen, Denmark, whose Traffic Jam List 2018 playlist I featured back in August. Line says about her work, “I make music because I have an urge to. I would love to be able to make a living out of it, but it is not my main goal. That is to be happy while I am doing it.” Line considers her style to be soft-synth electronic pop music, with lyrics about life, love and loss, but says some would label it New Age. In any case, listeners have said her music reminds them of Enya, but with a Joni Mitchell style vocal.

In case it’s not obvious from the title, this playlist is part of a series Line has been curating, to show off the most popular tracks that are trending by independent artists, plus a few from mainstream artists that fit with her vibe. She’s been faithfully creating  new lists of artists’ most popular music since early this year; This is October’s – enjoy!

 

 

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/20)

This week’s POTW is a bit different from previous ones, which have all so far been Spotify playlists. This one is a Musicoin playlist, run by artist Juxta via the Atom Collector Records website, with a little help from another artist, Self Suffice, aka Rapoet.  Musicoin doesn’t have playlist features built into its website just yet, so Rapoet took the initiative to work out how to do it from his own website, and passed the information on – a great example of indie musicians working together to help each other out!

The other unusual, if not unique, thing about this playlist, is that when you listen to it, the independent musicians you hear will directly receive a small amount of cryptocurrency for every track you play.   (Check out my article  What alternatives are there to Soundcloud? (Pt 5: Musicoin) to find out more about Musicoin and how it works).  It is very difficult to make a living as an independent musician, therefore many of us have been experimenting with different outlets such as this, to see if we can make it work for us.

To listen to this week’s playlist of the week, click here and follow the instructions on screen.

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!