October 8, 2025

Discovering New Music

An international study ‘How Age Influences Musical Preferences’ from the University of Gothenburg, Jönköping University and University of PrimorskaResearchers suggests we may get less favourite songs as we age.

The study is based on data spanning 15 years and covering more than 40,000 users from the music service Last.fm, where users share music listening habits from platforms such as Spotify. The data contained over 542 million plays of more than 1 million different songs.

“In the study, we can follow how music listening changes over a longer period of time. When companies like Spotify try to develop music recommendations for their customers, they don’t necessarily look at listening habits throughout users’ lives,” - co-author Alan Said, associate professor of computer science at the University of Gothenburg

Spotify appear to be continuing to press ahead with it's commitment and continued investment in AI. They had previously declared their future of music discovery was with their "AI DJ" and have now announced partnering with ChatGPT to personalize music and podcast recommendations.

In an interview with The Times, Spotify’s new co-CEOs didn’t clarify whether AI music is welcome on the platform or not.

"we don't think we should decide what [users] are allowed to listen to". But they're not just deciding whether users can listen to AI music. They're refusing to make it clear to users that what they're listening to is AI music.”

I have no plans to ask ChatGPT for music recommendations and I still believe in human curation for music discovery, which is the most common theme among the articles I write about. If you would like to read more on that subject, check out my my music blog on Medium.com

https://medium.com/@damienjoyce/discovering-new-music-a6815dc40ab3

Radio still matters in Ireland

There were some interesting statistics from Ireland's recent Joint National Listenership Research/Ipsos report into radio listening (Aug 2025) 📻

- 3.49 million listeners (15+) tune into radio every weekday in Ireland
- 79.3% of all adults listen to the radio daily
- 90.2% of the population listen to the radio weekly

Hopefully some of these folks even tune into The Human Recommendation on community radio station FLIRT FM every Monday! (Also, congratulations to FLIRT FM who celebrated their 30th birthday recently 🎂)

New Music

Even with all I time I spend listening to music, it is difficult to keep up with all the amazing new releases by independent artists at the moment!🌟

In show #34 I attempted to guide you through some of the latest emerging indie and alternative music from around the globe. This week's show was crammed with talented artists from multiple genres. (If you missed show #34, the playback link is available on Mixcloud)

I'm excited for the new album 'Sunlight Echoes' from London based shoegazers Whitelands after hearing their single "Glance", it is due out in January 2026.

Birmingham band Chartreuse have a smashing album in 'Bless you & Be Well' that I have played other tracks from on previous shows. Come December this album will be on my A.O.T.Y list.

Bless You & Be Well | Chartreuse

11 track album

From Ireland, I played some noise from the West coast from Bannered Mare as they released their debut album called ‘He’s Only Sleeping’.

In Athens and Ash Red are both on the Blowtorch record label and both have new singles. The song “Tides” is from ‘Mirrorism’ the new E.P. from In Athens, who are also from Galway. They are a blend of fuzz-drenched post-gaze and alternative 90’s music. It was recorded and produced at Darklands Audio Dublin by Dan Doherty (Fontaines DC, Hope Sandoval)

Cork alt rock trio Ash Red released their follow up single “Friends?” after a positive reception to their first single ‘DB COOPER’ from their upcoming debut album ‘THE FOREIGN GAME’.

Also from Cork are Little Known, who have a new single called “It should be easy”.

From Dublin, Martina and the Moons and Eppie both have excellent new singles, “Laundry Mat” and “Sunbathing in Winter” respectively.

Canadian Indie

If you are a regular listener to The Human Recommendation you will know how much I love and how often I play Canadian indie music. This week show featured Ribbon Skirt, The Dears and Sleepy Gonzales.

Ribbon Skirt are blowing up after their impressive album release earlier in the year with ‘Bite Down’ but they are not resting on their laurels. Instead they are busy touring and they dropped a new E.P. called “PENSACOLA”

They will play a live KEXP session this month, one to look out for.

Sleepy Gonzales have a great live session available on the Youtube Channel ‘Once More with Feeling’, which I would recommend subscribing to. A small group of people are doing amazing work showcasing local bands from the Pacific North West with that channel. Find out more about the awesome crew behind it in my blog post “Take it from the top”

Sleepy Gonzales - Sally on the Avenue (Live at OMWF)

The Dears are indie stalwarts having formed back in 1995. The band have another album set to release ‘Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful!’

U.S indie bands on the show included L.A's Small Forward. Their album 'Crush' is an under rated album.

North Carolina's Wednesday released 'Bleeds' which is another album to get acquainted with while Boston was represented by Tiberius and Paper Lady.

Canadian music magazine just published their “New Faves” for October which featured two artists that have featured regularly on The Human Recommendation show, bloom effect and The Boojums.

I interviewed Jula, Craig and Tom from bloom effect back in April this year. That interview is available on Mixcloud and I mentioned checking out their new ep ‘oscilón’ in the last newsletter.

Interviews

I spoke with Chris Hemer from Canadian indie band Funeral Lakes. Chris spoke about their growth over their 2 albums & 3 EPs. As well as being a musician Chris is a settler scholar and PhD student in the Cultural Studies Program at Queen’s University, Kingston and his research work which has informed many of their songs. The conversation is available on Mixcloud:

The Human Recommendation interview #42, Funeral Lakes by The Human Recommendation | Mixcloud

The Human Recommendation is a weekly radio show on Flirt FM 101.3 in Galway city showcasing the best of indie & alternative music from Ireland and around the globe. But in this special interview side project, host Damien had the opportunity to talk with Chris Hemer one half of the collaborative, creative force behind Funeral Lakes, Sam Mishos is the other. The duo just released their new EP ‘Mountains Turned to Dust’ which you should definitely check out. In a very enjoyable exchange, Chris spo...

I also caught up with singer/songwriter Brendan Wright from Boston-based indie four-piece Tiberius. Their excellent new record 'Troubadour' releases Nov 14th via Audioantihero. Listen to the conversation here, also on Mixcloud:

The Human Recommendation interview #43, Brendan Wright from Tiberius by The Human Recommendation | Mixcloud

The Human Recommendation is a weekly radio show on Flirt FM 101.3 in Galway city showcasing the best of indie & alternative music from Ireland and around the globe. But in this special interview side project, host Damien had the opportunity to talk with singer/songwriter Brendan Wright from Boston-based indie four-piece Tiberius. Their new record 'Troubadour' releases Nov 14th via Audio Antihero. Troubadour was written in a short period of time where these relationships changed significantly, a...

Help celebrate music discovery through human curation 🙌

Forget the "samey algorithms" and tune in at 8pm (GMT +1) every Monday on FLIRT FM 101.3 FM in Galway city and via streaming at flirtfm.ie to discover some of the best new indie and alternative music from Ireland and around the globe! 🇮🇪 🌎 

#TeamHuman