I haven’t really talked about my good taste in music other than maybe once on fedi. So I am feeling obligated to spread the gospel of my good taste in music to the selected ones who are lucky enough to subscribe to my blog, the holy trinity of shitpost, schizopost, and Linux sponsored ad.

Radio

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I developed the habit of listening to Internet radios and now I have a collection of stream URLs for radios I enjoy. I usually listen to them when I want some background music yet couldn’t find anything good elsewhere. Here are some recommendations for radios I frequently listen to:

Nightwave Plaza The best radio for vaporwave you would ever find with minimum repetition and good selection of works from both well-known and obscure artists. I discovered lots of albums here and it’s still the radio that I come back to the most. And just a side note, if you want to download some of the older vaporwave albums, check out this website, but I usually find it easier to just search up on Internet Archive.

Orthodox Chants Orthodox chants are the most gorgeous sacred music in my humble opinion. I accidentally stumbled upon this radio on Radio Garden, an app I no longer used. They are the perfect background music for reading and zoning out: peaceful, soothing, and heavenly.

SomaFM A large collection of underground/alternative radio stations, mostly electronic. I listen to Lush the most and occasionally Groove Salad and Drone Zone. All of the stations here are incredibly good in terms of quality but there might be some repetitions for the more niche and smaller ones, like the n5MD Radio.

Caprice Radio Yeah, another .ru domain. I don’t have anything to say about this one since it pretty much contains every genre I could think of. I mostly visit here for the Medieval Folk and the Industrial one.

Vocaloid/UTAU

I was also listening to some newer Vocaloid/UTAU songs that got out in the recent five years (maybe not that new after all). Here are some artists I have listened to and my favorite piece by them:

syudou Syudou is not a new producer, but he wasn’t very famous in the circle (?) and his style has changed A LOT in the past several years, which allows more people to discover his works. I have mixed opinions on his new songs, since most of them have wordsmith level use of lyrics but they are still a bit… I-write-whatever-zoomers-like-so-they-will-worship-me pilled. Perhaps I have this opinion only because I knew of him through Ado’s cover of 邪魔, and most of his later works sound like they are written for her throat specifically.

ぺぽよ I found ぺぽよ by らくらく安楽死, a suicidal song that got extremely popular and started popping out on everywhere recently, also highly addictive. I like how she used VY1 for harmony, something I wouldn’t notice without reading the comments. What shocks me more is her newest song のろいのノイローゼ. It gives me the impression of a person who has zero knowledge in music theory (which is actually me) trying to write a song by going with whatever note that jumped out from the brain but the final work ends up being great. Most of her songs are depressive, and I heard that the producer is dealing with mental illnesses.

Giga Giga’s songs remind me of Reol, but vocaloid. They are catchy, modern, and obsessed with fancy visuals if you watch any of the videos. It’s not too unique for J-pop, but quite unique in vocaloid, or at least that’s how I feel. Some of his songs also resemble KIRA’s style a little bit, and then I realized they are actually collaboration videos with KIRA xD (Sorry, no favorite piece)

柊キライ Yeah, I could safely say that I am not a big fan of 柊キライ. Same problem as Syudou, his(or her?) lyrics are filled with edgy teenager angst. I enjoy listening to them as a banger, but not something I would want to put on a loop. If I recall correctly, 柊キライ is also the producer who popularized the “special” use of Flower that makes her voice sound hoarse. Many hate it, but I find it interesting. (cringe, but addictive)

Bandcamp

Bandcamp is the best place to discover some niche albums. I haven’t been on it very often though since I just stick to radios or Youtube when I am not listening to local music on my device.

v i r t u a l _ w o r s h i p - Vacation Bible School Yeah, Bandcamp is also the best place to discover some niche genres, like…hmm…churchwave, a subgenre invented by this artist on the hauntological depiction of an abandoned church. It reminds me of mallsoft a lot, maybe the genre should be renamed to churchsoft, and those Zoom Sunday session signs around the churches here. I like the concept of this album: the collision and synthesis of the classic and the modern during a global pandemic. If classic vaporwave is a criticism of consumerism, then churchwave is a re-examination of faith, what we have abandoned alongside the rise of consumerism.

Exorcism - Sidewalks And Skeletons This is the first witchhouse I have listened to and I don’t hate it. It is hard to pin down a genre for the album, since each track just sounds…so different. I listened to a couple of other albums by the artists and this might be my favorite. They are all edgy, but the kind of edgy that has a certain aesthetic to it (goth? emo? I seriously don’t know much about these genres). The Ethereal Rest track reminds me of Lana Del Rey’s voice; dreamy, melancholic, and alluring.

催​眠​疗​法 - 维新噩梦工厂 I have never listened to a vaporwave album that uses Cantonese pop song and ad samples, so it is quite a unique experience. As a conceptual album, the story is quite mediocre and I don’t think the music sets up the atmosphere too well, but I get what the artist is trying to convey and it might be more immersive if each track is longer. Yet if these trackers become longer, they would lose the status as commercials, that are meant to be short and repetitive.

Libra’s Gift - Xxtarlit⚸ The artist is featured on a breakcore playlist on Youtube and that’s how I found this album. I was attracted by the cover art first, and the music didn’t disappoint me either even though I don’t have more things to comment on. It is good, but not good enough; just average.

Other Stuff

POWERNOISE/ EXPERIMENTAL & POST-INDUSTRIAL selected tracks. by Simplexia Yeah I listen to this unironically. It is actually very calming.

【早課】Morning chanting I listen to this when I am not listening to Orthodox chants.

Flesh, Blood, & Concrete - Full Soundtrack This showed up on my front page and it’s AMAAAAAAAZING. It would be my top choice for ambient for a while. I searched up the game and it looks interesting so I might play it sometime soon.

Gone (Concept Album) Another breakcore album. The tracks are supposed to be random unreleased works of the artist yet they sound very coherent together, if coherent is the right word.

Tame Impala - The Boat I Row Recommended by a friend. It’s good indeed.

Feint - Outbreak (feat. MYLK) Heard on OSU. I like it.

As you can see already, I mostly listen to instrumental and electronic music. I used to listen to metal, but now I rarely do. Nowadays vocaloid might be the only music I listen to that has lyrics lol