Given we all live in a decidedly niche music sphere, I thought it might be helpful if we share our tips/tricks for finding new artists. Here’s my tried and true: everynoise.com
I’ve been using the custom chart function at https://rateyourmusic.com/ recently. It allows me to drill down to highly specific combinations of genres, influences and descriptors, such as “instrumental noise rock influenced by krautrock” or “noisy avant-prog influenced by post-punk”. Back in the day I discovered a lot of new music from obscure internet radio stations. Recommendation algorithms however have never worked for me, they usually just recommend stuff I already know.
I’m glad you asked this question, I’ve stagnated on my music discovery lately.
I’ve been a broken blob since a few months before COVID, and it’s been hard to get back to being myself, but I used to discover things through the live music scene. This isn’t practical advice though, because I was aware of what was going on because I was a drummer without a band, but a willingness to sub in whenever it was convenient. So many bands are desperate for a drummer that they’ll even take a mediocre one like me. It meant I got to play alongside and hang out with some really good bands (as well as some shit ones, but the live scene do be like that)
Ooo thanks for reminding me about Metal Archives… are they still a bit elitist? I seem to recall them being opposed to anything vaguely metalcore.
https://www.music-map.com/ can help a bit. It knows surprisingly underground bands.
Random browsing on Bandcamp can produce results too.
Accidently from memes, nowadays (sadly). I found out about Simpsonwave and Phonk that way and the latest that I found out was this trio of retired Englishmen who decided to start do freestyle hip hop music on their spare time. While I am more of the “milk from a dirty glass” -kind of lifestyle of a person, I like the attitude behind those filfthy lyrics and how they break age norms. The trio is called The Northern Boys and I would say Party Time is a good song to start 🤣
YouTube was a major source for me, before they did something with their algorithm and how they messed up search function by adding more recommended and promoted content rather than show only the actual results. I love to find good music videos. Like Felix Colgrave made a really cool music video for Fever The Ghost’s song SOURCE.
