See Moir Music: Uh it's December now hi
Oh hello there. It’s been a minute. Thanks to all of you that reached out to let me know that you missed this newsletter. I’ll aim to be back monthly from now on! The pandemic kind of hit a new groove for me, where I was watching a lot of Abracadabra streams for a bit, then mostly found a new routine that took me out of my apartment more often, so writing this was a lower priority.
I went to a grand total of 3 outdoor distanced dining DJ experiences since I last wrote y’all. I enjoyed them all, but the introvert I grew during quarantine wanted to leave early every time.
Where I’ll Be
Tonight 12/3 – Sunday, 12/6, Revive the Night SF is hosting a bunch of DJs to raise money for San Francisco venues. Notable standouts: Ardalan, Qrion, Christian Martin, MPHD, Snakehips, Giraffage, Mark Farina, and so many artists I’ve never heard before! I’m listening to local talent Femmelectric b2b with Bad Girl Bailey as I write this…
Stream live on Twitch.
Peep the full lineup and set lists on Instagram.
Donate on their site.
Sunday, 12/6 at 3pm, Super Flu is playing on Abracadabra on Twitch.
Just Announced
Public Works has paused their outdoor distanced DJ sets for the foreseeable future, a smart move to avoid having to deal with canceling shows as we endure another surge of COVID-19 cases.
12/31–1/3: The Midway is keeping Fresh Start going with a series of “outdoor distanced dining DJ sets”. Given the direction of the pandemic, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if these don’t happen at all.
Livestream highlights
Occasionally tuning into my quaranstreams playlist on YouTube. Settling in with some deeper listening these days rather than binges of music discovery that come from DJ sets, but we’ll see how long it lasts.
Other notes
Y’all it is BANDCAMP FRIDAY again tomorrow. Let’s get buying. Here’s a Buy Music Club list for the list of recent great releases…
Recent great releases
Novo Amor’s new album Cannot Be, Whatsoever (indie-folk)
Overmono’s EP Everything U Need (this might be techno)
CRi’s album Juvenile (deep house)
Booka Shade’s EP Blaze of Unity and album Dear Future Self (ethereal house?)
Yolanda Be Cool’s EP Frisky in Fortaleza and single No More Sorrow (funky electronic)
Just get sjowgren’s entire discography (dreamy indie rock)
Sully’s single with 368 ft and rising (UK garage-y house
Logic1000’s single Perfume/Blossom and EP Logic1000 (another EP is coming out soon) (gritty house?)
Jerro’s EP Closer (deep house)
Ardalan’s album Mr. Good (electronic)
Melé’s EP Conga Mode (afro house)
The Toolroom compilations are a serious bargain, House Party Vol.3 came out in September and House Party Vol.4 just came out last week. (tech house)
Born Ruffians came out with 2 albums this year, JUICE and SQUEEZE. (vibrant indie rock)
Chambord’s single Mamentia (organic house?)
Howling’s album Colure and the remixes of Bind (ethereal house)
Laolu’s EP Force (organic house?)
KC Light’s single Girl (tech house)
Re.You’s album Maison (organic house?)
Andhim’s EP Buenos Aires (ethereal house)
Shanique Marie & Finn’s single Lifey/Movers (tech? house)
Phoria put out a new album, Caught a Black Rabbit (moody classical electronic)
Lauer digitally released an EP of previously-vinyl-only tracks (srs italo vibes)
Father/Daughter records put out a Christmas cover compilation album featuring artists like, okay I only recognize Diet Cig and Pronoun but like, Christmas covers are a genre I subscribe to. Use code “holiday20” to save 25%.
After attempting to describe the vibes of all of that music, I’m beginning to understand how genres like “organic house” start to appear.
Read Moir Music
Ok gosh so Spotify Wrapped came out, and like I have for the past two years, I compared the Spotify data with my Last.fm data and my own personal music project. I wrote a blog post with my findings: Wrapping up 2020: Spotify, SoundCloud, and Last.fm data.
Biggest takeaways from that post are:
Genres are inflated due to how Spotify stores data, and also fairly narrowly-defined.
Spotify Wrapped only covers the time period from 1/1-10/31 and that is vastly undercommunicated. (Read more here: What’s missing? Reduce bias by addressing data gaps in your analysis process).
Minutes-listened metrics are vaguely worthless, due to the overly-simplistic estimates and calculations involved in makign them. There is a chance that I’m underestimating the statistical investment behind this data insight.
I now have another post within me about how none of these metrics really mean anything but they all seem like they do because ~ the music industry ~ which of course, reminds me of the post I wrote back in March about the quality of audio analysis metadata: Why the quality of audio analysis metadatasets matters for music.
I also plan to write another blog post at the actual end of 2020 with more details and data about concerts and livestreams, and listening behavior in 2020 generally.
Thanks for reading, and for letting me know this newsletter has been missed. Tell me about your Spotify Wrapped (or equivalent)!