Listening Party
By Sowing
Tuesday October 1, 2024
Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q3 Playlist 2024
Just in time (-ish) for the start of spooky season, welcome to the third installment for our 2024 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam while reading what participating staffers had to say about their picks. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what should have been included (just remember this when it’s time for the end-of-year festivities)!
Tracklist:
The Airborne Toxic Event – “Our Own Thunder Road”
Glory
Building a song upon references to Springsteen’s classic of classics is a dangerous choice, but in this case, The Airborne Toxic Event pull it off: the delivery is slow-burning, dramatic, and ultimately captivating. –Sunnyvale
And So I Watch You From Afar – “Do Mór”
Megafauna
I adore “Mór”‘s pensive, contemplative start before ASIWYFA’s trademark cacophonous cymbals and fun guitar noodling wrap envelop you like your favorite hoodie on a blustery day. Plus, there’s cowbell (could I have used more throughout Megafauna? Who wouldn’t?). I really enjoyed how well-balanced Chris Wee’s toms and snare were mixed, especially as the song teeters on going off the rails towards its end. See also: lively opener “North Coast Megafauna” and delightfully bombastic “Mother Belfast (Part 2)”. –Jom
Anthony Green – “Last Summer in America”
Last Summer in America…
By Sowing
Thursday July 11, 2024
Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q2 Playlist 2024
Welcome to the second installment for our 2024 quarterly playlist! Having Canada D’eh and Independence Day during the same week had some of us partying hard. Feel free to jam while reading what participating staffers had to say about their picks. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!
Tracklist:
Arooj Aftab – “Aey Nehin”
Night Reign
Perhaps the most heatproof antidote I’ve heard this year to everything sweaty and inconvenient about summer, Arooj Aftab’s stellar new record opens in a revelation of cleansing harp tones and dusky croons. Her hazy weave of textures effortlessly trots out everything palatable you could ask of a current-year chamber jazz, earning a rare for all music fans badge of approval from practically anyone whose opinion you should care to ask. Literally better than sunscreen. –JohnnyoftheWell
ARTMS – “Virtual Angel”
<DALL>
Charli XCX might be sitting on pop’s most obvious AOTY ticket, but this right here is the flyaway headrush single of (maybe) the year, affirming everything gauzy and effortless about pop, living and dying on the sheer gratification of breezy production and the featherweight delivery of knockout hooks. If that’s not enough (and your Korean is up to it), ARTMS’ lyrics offer a wholesome take on…
KILL or KEEP Vol.14
Porcupine Tree – In Absentia
If there has ever been an, uh-huh, point to the KILL or KEEP series, odds are it’s been to dip into controversies still simmering, tracklists still disorganised, arguments still raging, and offer some passing aggregated opinionated stab at a Decisive Verdict – and if not a firm verdict on this/that/the other should-should-not be here, then at least a decisive snapshot of an argument still ongoing elsewhere in the world and (one hopes) interesting enough to be worth snapping to begin with.
This band/album/songwriter package has absolutely none of those. Nobody argues about Steven Wilson and the Porcupine Trees anymore. Everyone has chosen sides. The received wisdom of how much to listen to it if inclined (sparingly but intently) or if not (not at all, or else psychedelic ’90s years only!) is very received. The man’s music does not have the charm to sway indecisives – you either take it on his terms, or not at all. We all know what this means with prog rock. In Absentia was Wilson’s first metal album and has one of his stupidest concepts (I think we can all rejoice that auteurs tend no longer to mistake serial killer narratives as a cheap supplement for artistic clout). Here are thoughts.
Rules
The starting team was johnnyoftheWell, Koris and TVC.
Gatecrashers were welcome to this KILL or KEEP and we…
By Sowing
Thursday April 4, 2024
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q1 Playlist 2024
Welcome to the first installment for our 2024 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam while reading what some of our newest staff writers as well as other longtime Sputstaffers had to say about their picks. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!
Tracklist:
Allie X – “Girl With No Face”
Girl With No Face
On an album loaded with mid-tempo mad-bops, “Girl with No Face” truly takes the cake. A new-wave beat and sassy bass lines revel in the humid dark before venomous guitars crash through the bridge and fully kick shit into gear. The resulting finale is a noiry powertrip with surprising muscle and a killerrr groove. –neekafat
Anatole Muster – “blip blop”
blip blop
The alliterative onomatopoeia “blip blop” seems to cleave a space between the digital and the natural — the ‘blip’ indicating an ontology rooted in electronic music, the ‘blop’ indexing the kind of reverberation brought forth by the movement of an object in real space. Anyways, this vaguely hyperpop-ish song by very promising German accordion prodigy Anatole Muster (“Layers”, “auntie mabel”) and pretty-damn-good South African cornball M Field (“Andrew”, “Block Universe”) is…
By Sowing
Thursday January 4, 2024
2023 :: Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q4 Playlist 2023
Welcome to the fourth and final installment of our 2023 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam the playlist below while reading what our writers had to say about each selection. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!
Next week: stay tuned for the Sputnikmusic community’s Top 50 LPs (and Top 10 EPs, Live Albums, and Compilations) of 2023 — cheers!
Tracklist:
Beastwars – “Waves”
Tyranny of Distance
Beastwars rightfully turned a folk song about murder and suicide into their own sludgy brand of metal. This scorching affair hits as hard as the lyrics, easily becoming a highlight in their catalog. –Raul
Casey – “How to Disappear”
How to Disappear
Casey’s reunion and subsequent slow-dripping of singles have been a pleasant surprise, with the title track (and album closer) being my favorite of the bunch. The Welsh quintet’s sonic palette brings to mind Keep You-era Pianos Become the Teeth with some of Moving Mountains’ most meditative moments, and the slow-burning crescendo into the song’s cathartic final chorus is refreshing despite the somber lyrical backdrop. –Jom
Danny Brown – “Bass Jam”
Quaranta
I have my…
KILL or KEEP Vol.13
Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
‘Sufjan Stevens is the Picasso of indie folk. He takes the soothing NPR/car commercial sounds we know and love for their warmth and familiarity and says “Nope” and farts in our faces.’ – V. Dreth
Sufjan Stevens is indeed the most ubiquitous, evasive, phlegmatic chameleon of our times (the indie ones), and represents many a thing to many a chum. To Pangea, he represents comfort and joy. To Pheromone, he represents balance and gay. To johnnyoftheWell and MarsKid, he represents being sick to death of the press circuit around which his latest effort Javelin is still running many a lap in this limpest of years. Now, KILL or KEEP has always been about pluralism (usually in the form of severe fucking death), and as a result we are going in! Into Illinois! Everyone has something to say about this one: the songs are endless, the possibilities are infinitesimal and the classic status is, yes sure okay you get it. What will our takeaways be? Will we sync or swim (in the Maynardian sense) as a team? Only Sufjan has the answers…
Rules
The team is johnnyoftheWell and MarsKid and Pangea and Pheromone.
Every song must either be KILLed or KEEPed.
There is no minimum KILL threshold.
Every time a song is KILLed, the KILLer must name a location that Sufjan Stevens should have…
By Sowing
Monday October 2, 2023
2023 :: Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q3 Playlist 2023
Welcome to the third installment for our 2023 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam the playlist below while reading what our writers had to say about each selection. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!
Tracklist:
Angelo De Augustine – “Memory Palace”
Toil and Trouble
Proving himself as more than just the best Sufjan knockoff ever, De Augustine has now successfully built the cutest little unique kingdom all to himself, perfected on his 4th LP, and you should visit. The melancholic ivy spiraling around “Memory Palace”, in particular, is surprisingly warm. More than that: it’s the slow-burning summer HIT that never was. –Asleep
Bearings – “Howie, You’re a Freak”
The Best Part About Being Human
Every once in a while I delude myself into thinking that I have outgrown pop punk. Next thing you know, “Howie, You’re a Freak” deploys its incredibly infectious chorus to work its way into my head and overtake my summer. Dammit. At least pop punk will never outgrow me, either. –jesper
Big Thief – “Vampire Empire”
Vampire Empire…
KILL or KEEP Vol.12
Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
someone walks into a bar. It’s someone. I am johnnyoftheWell. It was a slow afternoon, and there we were. KILL or KEEP? Aye, why not – which record? Several meaningful opuses were teased, all of them beyond the space of our timeslot. Where does gravity default to on a slow afternoon? Well… has anyone ever listened to Phoebe Bridgers on a fast afternoon? Is such a thing even possible? Please do contact us immediately if you have pulled this off. We signed our rights away. It was time: time to get punished! Has her downer norm-magnet SowingSeason “5.0 Classic” passport to all of social media all the bloody time throughout the whole pandemic aged well? Time to find out…
Rules
The team is johnnyoftheWell, and someone.
Every song must either be KILLed or KEEPed.
There is no minimum KILL threshold.
Every time a song is KILLed, the KILLer must name a vaguely Boygenius-adjacent artist whomst’ve the youthes should be consuming instead.
Okay.
Starting Impressions
jotW: Um, I expect little from this album and am ready for anything? It has disappointed me many times and probably aged more than anyone including me is/was prepared to admit. This is very exciting boy I can’t wait to see what someone does to it.
someone: I remember listening to the record a bunch back in the…
KILL or KEEP Vol.11
Weezer – Pinkerton
I had benefitted greatly from her care and yet I had always kept my heart hard to her, believing that if Weezer did make it, I would want to be free for the many superior options I imagined would be available to me.
– Rivers Cuomo on his on-off relationship with Jennifer Chiba (later Elliott Smith’s girlfriend)
No further preamble on this one (here it is): KILL or KEEP is back in full swing, and to celebrate our return with maximum hubris, we decided to sidestep our usual brief for bloated opuses in need of a butcher’s trim. Instead, we tumble headlong into one of the worst records ever made.
At a poxy 35 minutes, Weezer’s cursed flagship record Pinkerton might as well be a doe in the headlights here – can KILL or KEEP do justice to such a fragile ego death album with such, uh, vast horsepower behind it and Pheromone’s egregiously powerful foot at the wheel? What kind of justice can we do for a man like Rivers Cuomo, whose entire existence is itself above justice, logic and humanity? Let’s see…
Rules
The team is jesperL, johnnyoftheWell, and Pheromone.
Every song must either be KILLed or KEEPed.
There is no minimum KILL threshold. There was no need for a maximum KEEP threshold.
Okay.
Starting Impressions
Phero: This is a sexy album. It is an album about sex. It…
KILL or KEEP Vol.10
Kanye West – My Fantasy!
At the start of KILL or KEEP Vol.9 (Taylor Swift – Red), we promised we were getting back together.
But then, at the end of that KILL or KEEP, we broke up again.
It took some time, but an elite KILL or KEEP hitsquad eventually assembled for a champion assignment album party. It was time to do the inevitable: to look back in time, to a time before 100 gecs, before Whorecore-gate, before nu-gaze,, before retroism decided Linkin Park were good actually, and to start directly into the face of the modern music landscaping capitalism egotism vortexes. That’s right. We were to examine a record that changed the shape of commercial hip-hop and wiped its arse across the whole consenting pop landscape including, as of now the good pages of KILL or KEEP. It was a proper comeback and we took the elevator up to the top. Can we get much higher? Is he too high? Too big for his boots? If so, just you watch as we KILL him down to size.
Without further ado, I give you: Kanye West…what do you even say about the man?
Rules
The team is johnnyoftheWell, normaloctagon, Pheromone and Windowpain.
Every song must either be KILLed or KEEPed.
We played with a special rule: Every song KILLed must be accompanied by a cancellable take that Kanye himself has not yet said.
We forgot to enforce a minimum KILL threshold,…
By Sowing
Wednesday July 5, 2023
2023 :: Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q2 Playlist 2023
Welcome to the second installment for our 2023 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam the playlist below while reading what our writers had to say about each selection. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!
Tracklist:
Alfa Mist – “BC”
Variables
If you’re a sucker for tricksy, stuttering drumwork, “BC” will have a firm hold on your nether regions from the jump. If you need to be wined and dined first, well, stick around for seven minutes worth of wild soloing and nimble comping before that final reprisal of the starting motif makes you want to spark a cigarette and stare at the ceiling, fully-satisfied and maybe just a little hungry. Go ahead and eat — you’ll need the energy. Those sheets aren’t gonna change themselves. –Milo
Allie Kelly – “Gunshy”
GUNSHY
Like Big Thief, Allie Kelly cognizes the value of a touch of the insolite among pop structures; like Sheryl Crow, she wants her guitars to shimmer like the sun; like both, she’s capable of knocking it out of the park — 2022’s excellent Menthol with Thumpasaurus…
By Sowing
Saturday April 1, 2023
2023 :: Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q1 Playlist 2023
Welcome to the first installment for our 2023 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam the playlist below while reading what our writers had to say about each selection. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!
Tracklist:
Acid Arab – “Habaytak”
٣ (Trois)
Acid Arab continue to infuse techno with Arabian music to great effect, with “Habaytak” offering a more aggressive groove sprinkled with catchy vocals and hypnotic keyboard leads. It might seem like an absurd mix at first, but the song (and the entire album) becomes addictive. –Raul Stanciu
Algiers – “A Good Man”
Shook
I like Algiers when they let loose and let that bit of Bad Brains take over. This is where this band shines. Their latest record Shook is an impressive display of experimental post punk — sometimes hard to follow, sometimes hard to let go — but it’s in short bursts like “A Good Man” where this band really proves there’s a wildfire still burning inside of them. –Dewinged
Asian Glow & sonhos tomam conta – “hangthemall”
…
KILL or KEEP Vol.9
Taylor Swift – Red
Time has passed. How much – too much! The gang at KILL and KEEP are getting back together, and where better to turn our attention than on Taylor Swift’s never-forgotten recently-reclaimed coming-of-age epic post-teen mess of an album Red.
This was the time! Most of us were dumb teenagers when Red was red-hot off the press and had complicated relationships with everything and anything including this album. How awesome! Now that post-Red history has continued and happened, we have the privilege of parsing it for Taylors past, present and future – for there was a whole lotta Taylor in that melting pot! She was fresh from stabbing the entire republic of Nashville in the front and exporting her domination of teenage bedroomspace to teenage dancefloordom: no more tiptoeing towards pop stardom, this was where Taylor Swift began to stomp (but on whomst’ve?).
Also, Sputnik was down for whatever reason while we were doing this lol. Let’s go!
Rules
The team is DavidYowi, johnnyoftheWell, Sinternet and Steak
Every song must either be KILLed or KEEPed.
The version of the album used is the original because we were invested in the time capsule, and because it is shorter and one of our number was midway through a 24-hour exam window, and Taylor Swift is rich enough as it is.
Two proposals were made…
By Sowing
Friday January 6, 2023
Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | 2021 | 2020
Since the turn of the decade, we’ve amassed 389 staff-selected songs for our ever-growing playlist, which equates to just under 30 hours of music. Here you can find all of our favorite songs from 2022 (for previous years, follow the links above) — from metal to indie to hip-hop to whatever obscure genre you can think of, it’s most likely represented here. We’re a proudly eclectic website, so if your aim is to broaden your musical horizons, then you’ve arrived at the perfect spot!
The playlist below encompasses all 143 songs that our staff hand-picked from the past year. Please join us on a retrospective journey through 2022: listen in order for the chronological Q1 –> Q4 experience, or shuffle the playlist for more of an even flow. Spotify’s embedded playlist only shows the first 100 songs, so be sure to launch the spotify app or web browser to listen in full. From our administration and staff to you, we hope you had a safe and wonderful holiday season. Happy listening!
By Sowing
Monday January 2, 2023
2022 :: Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q4 Playlist 2022
Welcome to our fourth installment for our 2022 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam the playlist below while reading what our writers had to say about each selection. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, as well as any new artists you may have discovered here — or, alternatively, tell us what we missed! Thanks for reading/listening, and stay tuned for the cumulative 2022 playlist later this week and the Community’s Top 50 LPs (and Top 10 EPs/Live Albums/Compilations) of 2022 next week!
Tracklist:
16 – “The Floor Wins”
Into Dust
The sludge metal veterans returned this year with a brand new, uncanny full length that further explores the misery, deception and sad realities of American life. Centerpiece “The Floor Wins” peeks into the ugly downward spiral of drug addiction that haunts the country right now. The scorching riffs and aggressive vocals create a suffocating atmosphere that works really well with the lyrical content. –Raul Stanciu
The 1975 – “Wintering”
Being Funny in a Foreign Language
I’m not exactly a fan of The 1975 in general for plenty of reasons that many of this music site could articulate. “Wintering” doesn’t really set itself apart from all my…
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