Discovering music by stumbling into it...

Anyone else in here find extreme gratification from discovering weird/obscure music by simply stumbling into it as a solo venture? Like once i searched youtube with a string of random characters, and stumbled upon some very eerie russian lo fi goth pop/techno stuff which had barely any views... The mysteriousness is what i love.

feel free to explore my youtube playlists. you could find something awesome

  On 12/16/2013 at 8:35 PM, logakght said:

feel free to explore my youtube playlists. you could find something awesome

:D hmmm maybe ill do that.. but let's keep it our secret. i like keeping obscure music that i find on the DL haha

I'm the same way with cassette releases, many of which have bandcamp or soundcloud samples.

One of my favorite releases this year I picked up based on artwork alone at a local record store. Clerk said it was good as he checked me out but beyond that I had no idea what to expect.

I think streaming options have help bring music discovery full-circle. I used to browse allmusic.com before I went to college in 2004 and would treat it as a sort of standard/benchmark for notability. Far less music and media was documented online. So it was that versus the unknown when I say, browsed CDs at a used bookstore. Now you can take the same sort of journey into the unknown online. I suppose that's why so much new music and art is heavy retro aesthetics - it's because most of it has been digitized only in the last few years.

yep. this is how i prefer to discover music.

Yeah, absolutely. I didn't have an Internet connection for a couple of months a year or two ago and what I did was I'd go to public libraries and borrow CD's. Surprisingly enough they had lots of interesting stuff.

I remember that time fondly. I'll write a 400-word composition on the subject.

Here's an eerie, Russian goth band I stumbled upon

Pretty much every metal or jazz album I've ever picked up was discovered this way. Just clicking through random shit online or going through other people's albums, checking out random things from the library.

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Thrift store cassette sections of random towns I'm passing through.

Youtube also used to be a haven. I don't know how long it will remain.

I used to stumble upon sounds in the environment. Happened today a couple of times. You'll just hear a beautiful sound coming out of an air vent and there is this strange musicality to it, like some kind of ghost reactor is churning a few dimensions over.

In 2005 myspace had many wonderful independent artists. That was when music networking was pretty young. Lots of great sound art, drone, collage types. Seemed like I would find a profile I liked and all of their top friends would be making gold.

One I will always remember is Sonomute.

Now obscurity is the trend and our idea of obscure music actually has a form, which is strange.

  On 12/17/2013 at 3:42 AM, poblequadrat said:

Yeah, absolutely. I didn't have an Internet connection for a couple of months a year or two ago and what I did was I'd go to public libraries and borrow CD's. Surprisingly enough they had lots of interesting stuff.

I remember that time fondly. I'll write a 400-word composition on the subject.

 

 

Here's an eerie, Russian goth band I stumbled upon

This is excellent. It has that subtle shoegaze vibe too, like a darker version of Radio Dept. with an edge of "really decent local band." A lot of my friends back in the myspace days were Russian. This is bringing me back.

Thanks.

Edit: HA! the first link in the description is the myspace link. I'm not making this stuff up man.

thread title sounds like you were picking your way around the attic in poor light and tripped over a pile of records you never knew where there.

Yep sir. Bandcamp and whatnot have been a godsend for me. Totally lush feeling stumbling across ace unknown stuff.

  On 12/17/2013 at 7:28 AM, sheatheman said:

Now obscurity is the trend and our idea of obscure music actually has a form, which is strange.

Totally. I've noticed that for years, it was a gradual thing. In fact there's such a quest for the most obscure and unknown that it's actually making more sincere underground followings exist again. There's the superficial "obscure" band of the week you'll read about on music journalist sites, and there's the actual underground creators and collectors of obscure music you can find if you look.

Like, there's the bubble of very topical obscure trends that burn out quickly (think about the fragile file-sharing and social media networks of things like witch house or seapunk or vaporwave, and the very insular and protective subcultures that spawn them; the founders often disappear or move on as such genres gain even minor recognition). On the other hand very tight-knit communities are spawning around things like tape labels, forums, niche blogs, etc.

It used to be contained mostly within cult followings (things like outsider music) before the internet, or even then word of mouth during the era of pre-torrent, pre-download link p2p music. In mid-2000s and until now it would often be one blog or music site that would share an obscure discovery, and then over days, weeks and months you'd see other publications follow suit. Now

  On 12/17/2013 at 7:28 AM, sheatheman said:

 

I used to stumble upon sounds in the environment. Happened today a couple of times. You'll just hear a beautiful sound coming out of an air vent and there is this strange musicality to it, like some kind of ghost reactor is churning a few dimensions over.

Autechre and BoC have mentioned things like this often in interviews. Bibio too. Matthewdavid (Brainfeeder/Leaving Records) mentioned he samples outdoor sounds a lot and keeps recorders all over his house.

I need to buy a nice little digital recorder for this reason, one of the most pretty (and haunting) melodies I ever heard was when I was walking my dog, and this wind chime that got stuck in this loop of notes based off one wind gust. That sounds so new age-y but it was pretty cool.

  On 12/16/2013 at 8:34 PM, Lane Visitor said:

Anyone else in here find extreme gratification from discovering weird/obscure music by simply stumbling into it as a solo venture?

I did this once; the people at the record store got pissed at me for knocking over their display.

  On 12/16/2013 at 8:34 PM, Lane Visitor said:

Anyone else in here find extreme gratification from discovering weird/obscure music by simply stumbling into it as a solo venture? Like once i searched youtube with a string of random characters, and stumbled upon some very eerie russian lo fi goth pop/techno stuff which had barely any views... The mysteriousness is what i love.

That's like, 21st century DXing :) Will give this a go

Joyrex haha

  On 12/17/2013 at 3:56 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 12/17/2013 at 7:28 AM, sheatheman said:

Now obscurity is the trend and our idea of obscure music actually has a form, which is strange.

 

Totally. I've noticed that for years, it was a gradual thing. In fact there's such a quest for the most obscure and unknown that it's actually making more sincere underground followings exist again. There's the superficial "obscure" band of the week you'll read about on music journalist sites, and there's the actual underground creators and collectors of obscure music you can find if you look.

 

Like, there's the bubble of very topical obscure trends that burn out quickly (think about the fragile file-sharing and social media networks of things like witch house or seapunk or vaporwave, and the very insular and protective subcultures that spawn them; the founders often disappear or move on as such genres gain even minor recognition). On the other hand very tight-knit communities are spawning around things like tape labels, forums, niche blogs, etc.

 

It used to be contained mostly within cult followings (things like outsider music) before the internet, or even then word of mouth during the era of pre-torrent, pre-download link p2p music. In mid-2000s and until now it would often be one blog or music site that would share an obscure discovery, and then over days, weeks and months you'd see other publications follow suit. Now

 

Josh, that's a great analysis. It's interesting how it seems like there's this "I can be even more obscure than you" battle in the underground haha... But on the flip side, it spawns some amazing raw stuff. I sometimes feel like when people make music for absolutely no audience goal in mind, just pure fun or therapy or experimentation, there's something that comes out that's more sincere than any planned effort- and it often reverberates with us. That may be part of why I think ultra-obscure music is fun to find. It's like little remote worlds, that had no plan to reach out.

  On 12/17/2013 at 5:11 PM, Joyrex said:

 

  On 12/16/2013 at 8:34 PM, Lane Visitor said:

Anyone else in here find extreme gratification from discovering weird/obscure music by simply stumbling into it as a solo venture?

I did this once; the people at the record store got pissed at me for knocking over their display.

 

lolol

  On 12/17/2013 at 5:21 PM, IOS said:

 

  On 12/16/2013 at 8:34 PM, Lane Visitor said:

Anyone else in here find extreme gratification from discovering weird/obscure music by simply stumbling into it as a solo venture? Like once i searched youtube with a string of random characters, and stumbled upon some very eerie russian lo fi goth pop/techno stuff which had barely any views... The mysteriousness is what i love.

 

That's like, 21st century DXing :) Will give this a go

 

Joyrex haha

 

Yes!!! It's really fun.. you can put in like jbsdjt or uhghdfs or 8274625 (numbers even)... ill do it when theres downtime, on my phone.. sometimes some very interesting stuff comes up-- it's usually speeches by imams in arabic or kids in haiti playing soccer or someone's baby eating pudding.. but every now and then, you'll find a gem.. strange music or a weird recording of a car driving by or like some industrial space, and there are like 0 views.. watch out though and be careful, because i stumbled across some kind of beheading or execution video from some north african country this way- i didnt watch it, but i saw it as a result. freaked me out, cuz it looked like there were only a few views, description was in another language, and and it looked very real from the screen capture. but mostly, you'll find random weirdness.. there's also a lot of tribal music i found.

Have fun Youtbe DXing! Oh and shhhh, let's keep it in on the DL... (; it's more fun that way

  On 12/17/2013 at 5:54 PM, Lane Visitor said:

 

  On 12/17/2013 at 3:56 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 12/17/2013 at 7:28 AM, sheatheman said:

Now obscurity is the trend and our idea of obscure music actually has a form, which is strange.

 

Totally. I've noticed that for years, it was a gradual thing. In fact there's such a quest for the most obscure and unknown that it's actually making more sincere underground followings exist again. There's the superficial "obscure" band of the week you'll read about on music journalist sites, and there's the actual underground creators and collectors of obscure music you can find if you look.

 

Like, there's the bubble of very topical obscure trends that burn out quickly (think about the fragile file-sharing and social media networks of things like witch house or seapunk or vaporwave, and the very insular and protective subcultures that spawn them; the founders often disappear or move on as such genres gain even minor recognition). On the other hand very tight-knit communities are spawning around things like tape labels, forums, niche blogs, etc.

 

It used to be contained mostly within cult followings (things like outsider music) before the internet, or even then word of mouth during the era of pre-torrent, pre-download link p2p music. In mid-2000s and until now it would often be one blog or music site that would share an obscure discovery, and then over days, weeks and months you'd see other publications follow suit. Now

 

 

Josh, that's a great analysis. It's interesting how it seems like there's this "I can be even more obscure than you" battle in the underground haha... But on the flip side, it spawns some amazing raw stuff. I sometimes feel like when people make music for absolutely no audience goal in mind, just pure fun or therapy or experimentation, there's something that comes out that's more sincere than any planned effort- and it often reverberates with us. That may be part of why I think ultra-obscure music is fun to find. It's like little remote worlds, that had no plan to reach out.

 

Totally, I think of while it's bit overwhelming, we're reaching the best of both worlds right now in that aspect. Distribution and gaining audience is the very skewed part of the internet right now, but actually sharing one's music at a basic level - i.e. putting it for public access - is not an obstacle. In the past so much odd experimentation (which you pointed out) was scrapped before committing to recording on tape or vinyl or whatever, or it was discarded inadvertently if it was. Now (in theory) anything anyone wants to make can live forever virtually. It may be years or decades before some of the weirdest and most novel music one makes is found and acknowledged, but at least it's not completely forgotten by time. That's a neat reality.

  On 12/17/2013 at 6:25 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 12/17/2013 at 5:54 PM, Lane Visitor said:

 

  On 12/17/2013 at 3:56 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 12/17/2013 at 7:28 AM, sheatheman said:

Now obscurity is the trend and our idea of obscure music actually has a form, which is strange.

 

Totally. I've noticed that for years, it was a gradual thing. In fact there's such a quest for the most obscure and unknown that it's actually making more sincere underground followings exist again. There's the superficial "obscure" band of the week you'll read about on music journalist sites, and there's the actual underground creators and collectors of obscure music you can find if you look.

 

Like, there's the bubble of very topical obscure trends that burn out quickly (think about the fragile file-sharing and social media networks of things like witch house or seapunk or vaporwave, and the very insular and protective subcultures that spawn them; the founders often disappear or move on as such genres gain even minor recognition). On the other hand very tight-knit communities are spawning around things like tape labels, forums, niche blogs, etc.

 

It used to be contained mostly within cult followings (things like outsider music) before the internet, or even then word of mouth during the era of pre-torrent, pre-download link p2p music. In mid-2000s and until now it would often be one blog or music site that would share an obscure discovery, and then over days, weeks and months you'd see other publications follow suit. Now

 

 

Josh, that's a great analysis. It's interesting how it seems like there's this "I can be even more obscure than you" battle in the underground haha... But on the flip side, it spawns some amazing raw stuff. I sometimes feel like when people make music for absolutely no audience goal in mind, just pure fun or therapy or experimentation, there's something that comes out that's more sincere than any planned effort- and it often reverberates with us. That may be part of why I think ultra-obscure music is fun to find. It's like little remote worlds, that had no plan to reach out.

 

 

Totally, I think of while it's bit overwhelming, we're reaching the best of both worlds right now in that aspect. Distribution and gaining audience is the very skewed part of the internet right now, but actually sharing one's music at a basic level - i.e. putting it for public access - is not an obstacle. In the past so much odd experimentation (which you pointed out) was scrapped before committing to recording on tape or vinyl or whatever, or it was discarded inadvertently if it was. Now (in theory) anything anyone wants to make can live forever virtually. It may be years or decades before some of the weirdest and most novel music one makes is found and acknowledged, but at least it's not completely forgotten by time. That's a neat reality.

 

I agree.

However, a caveat is the loss of an actual scene. There is so much cyber momentum, but a lot of it is a feedback loop of perceived reality and has little to do with actual reality. So often do I stand around and feel such a huge disconnect.

Of course, my entire musicianship and interest has been digitally based. There has always been a disparity between my experiences irl and what I hoped searching musically would lead me to. I think that is the main thing, that we are busy creating worlds and sharing them anonymously, but we don't know where these worlds actually are. What I am interested in is finding a way to use these narratives as a transformative vehicle, not in a political sense, but I believe music must create something beyond the fame and elitism that most of us are standing against.

I can dig this. Usually it's with boomkat sprees that I'll stumble into something completely new. Happened with Vladislav Delay just recently. It can be really refreshing to just leap to something completely different sometimes. I tend to just branch from artist to artist; aphex -> squarepusher -> ae sort of thing, but your music explorations can get a big stagnant this way I think.