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Your favorite band that no one has heard of?
I understand with the rise of music streaming people have been introduced to a wider variety of bands than ever before, but what's your favorite band that no one has heard of? I think everyone has that one band that they love that no one in their friend group has ever heard of.
I think I have a few, but I'll throw out Kadavar who have a Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath feel to them.
Although they've disbanded, I still love Cibo Matto, formed by Yuki Honda and Miho Hatori in the 90s. They had one song that got some exposure called Sugar Water. I still love their '96 album Viva La Woman.
cibo matto is/was the shit! i love their cover of aguas de marco:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzWILJOuNsY
Ahhhh I love that one too! I'm also generally a fan of Brazilian jazz and bossa nova so I too enjoyed this cover.
Me and my wife both saw something recently that sparked a memory of sugar water and we couldn't believe the other knew of it. The conversation went soemthing like this:
"oh man, you remember that song from the Michele Gondry music video collection?!"
"what? Who?.. I remember it from Buffy"
"Buffy...?"
I love both Vive and Stereotype A. The latter inspired daydreams of a romanticized life as a bicycle messenger in NY City during my post college years. Kind of glad that remained a daydream. Great album though.
It's my time to shine
Here a couple of my favorite musicians I mostly found in the last 2 years who have less than 5k monthly listeners on Spotify:
Nick Marks (22 monthly listeners). They were just a random internet encounter who shared their music, which I listen to all the time.
Maybe I Will (Spotify, Everywhere else)
Nasty Snacks (103 monthly listeners). "Future-Funkestra" band from Chicago, USA.
Catch my Breath (Spotify, Everywhere else)
Sahara Grim (104 monthly listeners). Jazz/Indie (???) Singer. I binged their entire discography the day I first listened to them.
Replenished (Spotify, Everywhere else)
Eastwood (657 monthly listeners). Indie Pop Band. Another random encounter, a member of their band was in the same game lobby as me and asked folks to check out their latest single, Graduation. I've been a fan since.
Graduation (Spotify, Everywhere else)
i///u (1588 monthly listeners). Alternative Jazz from Seattle, USA.
Waiting Test (Spotify, Everywhere else)
Peela (3385 monthly listeners). Finnish Jazz Band.
Love Smoothie (Spotify, Everywhere else)
Paper Void (4068 monthly listeners) Jazz/Neo-Soul band from California, USA.
Safekeeping (Spotify, Everywhere else)
Demon Days (4732 monthly listeners). Australian Neo-Soul band. (Australia and New Zealand seem to have a dope Jazz/Neo-Soul scene).
Killer Bees (Spotify, Everywhere else)
edit: grammar and I apparently don't know where Helsinki is
I have to admit I giggled when I saw a band name like Nasty Snacks. That's a great band name! But I also took a listen to Catch My Breath. I like it, has a sort of R&B funk feel to it. Spotify says they're from Chicago. I imagine sitting in a dark cocktail lounge having a drink and listening to this band live.
damn, 22 monthly listeners beats mine. Thought I was gonna win with my 56 listeners haha
If it’s a competition, I’ve gotta shout out Just Harris with just 17 monthly listeners
Damn nice
I'm going to go with "unknown" here to mean generally fewer Spotify listeners, because I have friends that also listen to these bands.
Lo-Pan (5k monthly listeners) - Stoner rock. (Full disclosure these are my friends, but they are a legit good band too.)
Sisters (8k monthly listeners) - Kind of a shoegaze-y metal-ish band. One of the guys in Sisters is also in Spotlights (20k monthly listeners)
Kownloon Walled City (8k monthly listeners)- Sludgy doom metal.
Lice (Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman) (13k monthly listeners)- East Coast/NYC hip hop. (I'm honestly surprised these guys don't have more listeners, especially since these EPs have been out for awhile - Aesop Rock has 1M monthly listeners alone. Homeboy Sandman almost 60K.)
That's so cool that you're friends with Lo-Pan! Going to check out Sisters and KWC!
Lo-Pan are good dudes! I've known the drummer and bass player since before they were in Lo-Pan. Was also lucky enough to get to go on the road with them a couple times and sell merch and play roadie.
Kowloon Walled City rules, seconding that recommendation
These are played on a weekly rotation:
This guy, Omnitica , I think is one of the more creative and original electronica producers around . He creates what he calls 'progstep' and has been a favorite of mine for over a decade now, sadly never really went big.
Edit: It's hard to suggest Chrono Wizard, they are a local band a friend is in, when the only(?) recording of them online is this one, [update: there is a second], but the recording quality is quite stellar. They are a much harder stoner/psych rock meeting thrash metal combo. FFO: Black Sabbath, Red Fang, Mastodon, & The Sword.
I'm going to check those out! Since you seem to like space/stoner/psych metal, here are some for you:
I'm already a huge fan of Comacozer so I'll have to check out the other two, thanks!
Edit: if you're into a psych rock, free jazz, combo then I could suggest Mythic Sunship, they're a recent favorite of mine. The linked album "Another Shape of Psychedelic Music" is seriously addictive, give that first track a full listen and you'll understand what I mean.
I'm not sure how well this band is known outside of Korea, so I will link them: 새소년
Oh my. This song has got a VIBE! Thanks for posting this band, I think I just might be a fan
I have a skewed view of how popular he is- so maybe this is not "no one has ever heard of"- not sure, but David Bazan. Originally a member of what some would consider a Christian band in its early years (though even then it was quite subversive and questioning of faith)- Pedro the Lion. Then went solo, broke up with evangelicalism and reunited later with a new iteration of Pedro the Lion with a fresh energy, still very somber writing though.
He's also been connected to and involved in many other projects with other great artists known and unknown (TW Walsh)- projects like Headphones, Lo Tom, Overseas etc. all great stuff. Probably my favorite artist of all time. The fact that his criticism-of-faith while still being in it, and some of his journey out of evangelicalism was very similar to mine and connected with me musically in such a deep way, helps that.
Now, Now / KC Rae - I think they got fairly popular at a certain point in their synth pop (my favorite era, the album Saved). KC has started to release solo singles slowly under the name KC Rae that follows a similar style. But they have some great older stuff as a larger band (Threads was a great record) and a prior member went on to become the artist Tancred which is also great. A lot of great stuff on Polyvinyl and Graveface records that I often think goes under the radar.
Tons of other things too, a lot of metal bands, but I'm so deep into the genre and subgenres at this point it's hard to pick absolute favorites. Maybe for another thread later. Transylvanian Recordings and Dying Victims Productions are two labels that consistently put out good stuff, ranging from death metal, to gothic rock, and a lot of it is not well-known. Definitely would consider those underground.
Also, sorry if these don't qualify, I'm sure TW Walsh and some side projects mentioned here do, I just have a hard time gauging popularity but I'm sure I have much deeper cuts if I need to find them.
good call with Dave and co. If you take Dave back to Coolidge, you can branch off into Damien Jurado, who is one of my all-times.
Oh wow, that's a name I haven't heard in a while. Used to listen to Damien Jurado a bit and it's just not something I carried forward for some reason. Worth a revisit for sure.
Also forgot to mention Starflyer 59, whose members were in some of those projects I mentioned.
yessss! the last time I saw Starflyer was at The Paradox in Seattle --- the venue that Jeff Suffering (Ninety Pound Wuss) ran... which was owned by Mars Hill in the shit-show days of Driscoll :)
Dig in to Jurado, though. He went through a psych folk phase (which is another old christian genre worth a look). He's put out a shitload of records, too.
Did you ever get into mewithoutYou?
Oh wow, Ninety Pound Wuss is also a name I have not heard for like two decades. Never really got into them though.
I definitely had a big mewithoutYou phase. Especially Catch for Us the Foxes and Brother, Sister timeframe. Should listen to a few tracks again. Might dig back into some Jurado too.
I've left most Christian or Christian-adjacent music completely behind at this point, save a few exceptions. Not even necessarily depending on how overt the lyrics are or anything but more because the songs and sounds are so familiarly from a particular era of my life that I've now laid to rest that listening to them just transports me to mental places I no longer want to be in. It depends though because there are good memories too. I just try to be careful with what I revisit. I grew up only being allowed to listen to Christian stuff so it's sometimes like a quota that has been permanently fulfilled at this point and no longer connects with me.
For a while though back then that entire scene (Tooth & Nail records, Solid State records, etc) was my jam- constantly. So it is a bit fun to look back at that scene and those bands and remember how it all was. I've always been a huge music person and that era of my life was no exception.
we're in the same boat. I wasn't raised christian at all, but I spent my late teens and 20s in the church before getting the fuck out.
Tooth and Nail (and co) had a lot of fun bands like Craig's Brother, The Deadlines, even that Fine China record was great. These bands were more grounded than the more CCM ones --- they were basically robots. I was in the industry back then and we'd go to festivals and chat these people up and they were just dead inside... these zombies going through the same routine as if it were off the cuff.. but you'd see it a few times and it was simply depressing. Even dudes like John Reuben were like this for the show but at least he was normal off the stage.
There was a lot of really good hip hop back then via Syntax Records and some others. Lojique and that whole group was especially good. Well, it was back then... some of it probably hasn't aged as well.
I'm glad you also got out.
I've been there too - at least up until the point that our congregation decided to 'exorcise' the smoking demons from my dad and soured my parents on church permanently. I always found most of christian music to be... a little too on the nose? It always seemed like bands that wandered into that territory just once in a while made far better songs than the bands who decided to wear that christian mantle and focus exclusively on christian-inspired music. I still love Neal Morse though - that concert is actually in a church, and if more of them were like that I'd be at church every single sunday. :P
If you fancy a setlist of christian-adjacent gospel-infused classic-rock styled new music that isn't made by christian bands, you can check out this mix. That was a fun theme to work on. Blame it on the Rival Sons track, that's what put the idea in my head. All of them either mention God, faith, the devil, or include some other gospel element, or a message that would be right on point in church - just without the 'worship cult' that camps on top of that sound. ;)
Most of the stuff I listen to isn't a band.
One of my old favorites is Cool Cavemen. There simply isn't any better French Funk Fusion Comedy bands out there. They also disbanded years ago, sadly.
If we're not talking bands, there are a lot of musicians I like that probably count. I like a lot of Japanese composers who generally make soundtracks to other media. Top of the list is Yuki Kajiura. She's got a really unique style and I really love how she manages to make a few female voices sound as powerful as an entire choir. There are others I could mention that are more popular and therefore there's a chance you might have heard of them, but one of the less visable ones is Yoshitaka Hirota, who is most notably the main composer for Shadow Hearts.
I've talked before about my love of Battle of the Bits, and there are two prolific users who stand out, mootbooxle and kgb525.
Here are a few of lesser known songs that I have on heavy rotation.
Sea Wolf Spotify find, 362k monthly listeners
Statistics Stumbled upon this CD in college, I don’t remember how. 2.5k monthly listeners on Spotify.
Thomston Spotify find. 151k monthly listeners.
Sir Curse - I kid, I kid since they're the resident band here on Tildes, but they do only have 138 monthly spotify listeners at present. Their live turnout shows that spotify listens aren't a real metric of popularity.
Secret of Boris - Is my favorite active local band, I've been to too many of their shows to count, love everything they've put out, and have merch and CDs from their days under another name; 289 monthly listeners. New album drops mid-October, again their live turnout shows that spotify listens aren't a real metric of popularity.
Slow Roosevelt - Is my favorite band of all time, also local, also have every album, tons of merch, two of their three records on vinyl, no longer active, 9,102 monthly listeners. Last time I saw them was when they came out of retirement to headline the grand reopening of a historic rock venue here in Texas where they played every single song they've released in an utterly epic three hour set that tore the roof off the place.
Diarrhea Planet is a band that has 5 guitarists and has a song called Ghost with a Boner. You can probably figure out from the previous sentence what they sound like. I've seen them live three times (they always seem to stop in my small-ish town when they tour) and they're some of the best concerts I've been to.
A slightly more popular band is Peelander Z. Their concerts are incredible. The best way to describe them is to compare them to a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. There are different bits for each song and the crowd gets super in to them. The energy they manage to pull from the crowd is amazing. Far and away the best concerts I've ever been to.
Another hidden gem I found a few years ago is a band from the late 70s/early 80s called Plastics. All of their songs are super catchy. They have a weird vibe to them that I dig. If you like Devo, you'll like Plastics. They aren't exactly the same, but they are on the same wavelength. Their album Welcome Plastics is one of my favorites.
Diarrhea Planet is rad as hell! I had no idea they got back together, totally brightened my day!
I saw them live back in 2014 when I was still living in Florida. Ended up chilling with them after the show which led to me making a custom fuzz pedal for their singer.
Caught Peelander Z at The Southgate House Revival in Newport, KY several years back, they were fantastic! Chatted with a couple of them after the show, they were super nice as well. Their track Too Many Mike kills me, haha.
Like Vintage. I can't imagine anyone has ever heard of these guys. Love the chorus to this song in particular.
The Early November Another song that hits me hard from a relatively unknown band.
There’s this band Dawnbringer I accidentally discovered on Spotify.
They have very little online presence and only 790 monthly listeners. But their album Into the Lair of the Sun God is one of my favorite metal albums of all time.
https://youtu.be/YgHXN7I4HY0?si=rbiaevqb7ZOL_xLY
Some local/small/regional bands that are in various states of existence that I still listen to:
City of Ghosts - 56 monthly listeners, indie rock
edit: This band went by Hail Archer originally and I just found their original EP still kicking on Spotify! from 2008.
Frameworks - 3,200 monthly listeners, post-hardcore/screamo/skramz
Caravels - 600 monthly listeners, post-hardcore/twinkle
Disembarked - 1,300 monthly listeners, post-hardcore/emo
Empty - 1,900 monthly listeners (they should be way bigger, but their last album was a huge letdown imo), post-hardcore
End the Century - 100 monthly listeners, metalcore
Deer Leap - 1,000 monthly listeners, indie rock/emo
To Speak of Wolves - 2,000 monthly listeners, metalcore
Allison Cructhfield - 3,000 monthly listeners, indie rock/folk (if you know Waxahatchee, Allison is Katie's sister and is also in or was in Waxahatchee)
My Iron Lung - 2,600 monthly listeners, hardcore/post-harcore
The Kindred, but only this album (they changed vocalists and lost the charm imo), 800 monthly listeners, rock/post-hardcore
the Soil & the Sun - 1,900 monthly listeners, indie rock
Nelson Can was a great rock band of three women from Copenhagen. They had some local success but they never really broke through internationally.
They put out some great songs when they were still making music:
Nelson Can - Break Down Your Walls
Nelson Can - Miracle
Nelson Can - Limelight
Nelson Can - I Wanna Be With You
I personally really like Malian (yes, the country in Africa) folk rock band Tinariwen (linked is my favourite song from them); the proper name for their genre is Tishoumaren.
I heard them at Glastonbury this year playing Sastanàqqàm and was instantly hooked.
A lot of lesser known bands I see as openers as indie acts. Wouldn't say these are my favorites but definitely ones I'm currently enjoying. A couple that come to mind are
Blue Smiley - short lived strange shoegaze/dream popper out of Philly. Alex G vibes (they're contemporaries and friends) and ended tragically due to an overdose
Everyone Everywhere - another Philly indie/emo revivalist band.
Truth Club - indie noise rockers who I saw open for Wednesday.
Draag - dream poppers I saw open for Cryogyser
Syndey Sprague. 90s singer song writer who I saw open for math rockers Pool Kids who are better known and also great.
Not really unknown but I feel under appreciated is Billy Woods, I just find that his style of rapping as well as his choice is underappreciated in rap.
Pool Kids is great. I thought I was finally gonna get to see them this summer but the show sold out basically right away since they were playing in a cafe lol
Yea I was finally going to see them on them on their "Bad Girls Go on Tour" show but unfortunately, their bassist and lead guitarist both got sick so they did a short show as a duo. It was fun but man I really wanted to hear Andy shred (big fan of his old band You Blew It as well).
ah, that's too bad. And love You Blew It too!
The Dirtmitts (278 monthly listeners)
honeycut (1,947 monthly listeners)
Jim O'Rourke / Eiko Ishibashi (7.2K / 63.6K monthly listeners) pretty well known so I won't link but if you haven't heard definitely try a few different albums
Death is a band I discovered by accident browsing Spotify. They're a sort of proto-punk/funk mashup band that never really got any attention while they were active (initially) but were re-discovered over the past decade or so. Their style has been described as "that of mysticism and eccentric spirituality".
I have seen them live three times since they became active again. What a killer band!
I would love to see them live, but the chances are pretty slim. ^^;
Delicate Steve should be a lot more popular than he currently is, imo. The last album (After Hours) especially, which was the first time I've ever heard of him, really blew my mind.
https://spotify.link/7G3dD0R6qDb
I love Delicate Steve! I don't know if should be proud or ashamed to admit I found him from a Scooby Doo parody cartoon.
I would say Sovereign and the Non Prophets. They classify themselves as cowboy grunge, but I can't really fit them into a genre. They have a few songs on Spotify and some songs and fan filmed live stuff on YouTube, but most of their best material is on their albums
https://youtube.com/@sovnonproph?si=jGXd9x8_DRxFffP5
https://www.scandtnp.com
Definitely an outgrowth of that wonderful time period of steampunk-related bands a few years back, this is steampunk dark western, great stuff.
Cheeto's Magazine (less than 1k monthly listeners on Spotify, if we're doing that).
Jake McKelvie and the Countertops, a Massachusetts indie band I've been obsessed with for years. Super clever lyrics. Takes inspiration from Silver Jews.
I doubt I know of anyone truly unknown but my "unknown" favorite artist is Owen Pallett, formerly known as Final Fantasy.
He's got nearly 500k monthly listeners apparently, which is shocking to me since I've only ever heard his music used or referenced in the wild once. It was at a play in Vancouver, where the instrumental portion of Do You Love was used while a character crept about on stage. Interesting note about that production, the sound design for that show was done by Alessandro Juliani who had been playing Felix Gaeta on Battlestar Galactica at the time.
Lucid Planet is one of my top 3 bands, yet they oscillate between 20k and 25k monthly Spotify listeners. They describe themselves as “progressive psychedelic tribal metal” and that nails it well enough. They’re from Australia and purposely 100% independent, so no label or anything. They even made their website themselves!
They have two albums: the first one is their self titled, which is the more psychedelic of the two. Took me a couple listens before I started to really appreciate it, but I still recommend it to anyone who’s even remotely interested in the genre. The second one, literally just called II, is easier to listen to, but still as interesting as the first one. My favourite album of the year. That’s all they made so very easy to listen to everything and form an opinion. I really hope they get big enough some day to tour in Europe because I really want to listen to them live!
Awesome New Republic
I went to my cousin's indie music show like 15 years ago and this band opened up for them. I wasn't expecting to find a new favorite band.
A couple of faves are:
My number one all-time "Nobody has ever heard of this band" band has to be Clearance who boast a whopping 288 monthly listeners. They do sort of a pop-y, upbeat, Pavement/Jicks impression, which is very much up my ally.
For my biggest flex, I'd like to point to a band called Typical Organ. I came across them when I was looking up the Mutemath song Typical (sidenote: 10/10 music video), and, well, they're pretty good. Only 13 other people listen to them on Spotify so there is plenty of room up front on the bandwagon.
Finally, I couldn't leave this thread without sharing one of my favorites and my pandemic obsession, Frog. I've posted about them several times on tildes, they've got about 90k listeners, top songs are over 1m, though I might've put in about 250k on my own.
You can't really expect me to pick just one band for this. I don't have a favorite band, I only have favorite bands. Hundreds of them, actually... but if we're looking for the diamonds that the rest of the musical world hasn't uncovered yet, it's gotta be this list.
I'd say that's the best of the criminally unknown artists I've dug up over the last couple of years. I've spun all of these albums multiple times and enjoyed them all immensely. I'd put them on best-of lists in their respective genres without hesitation. They'd pass the old /r/listentothis sniff test for obscurity, most are under 100k listeners on Spotify, many under 50k.
If I have to pick just one, it's Kiev. They have been recording for the better part of a decade without releasing anything, and their single album is seriously in Pink Floyd / REM / Radiohead territory - perfect prog-pop which is my favorite genre. I'd say their next album, whenever it gets here, is my most anticipated album.
Toehider fan here! As a prog rock and prog metal fan, almost every band I listen to is pretty much unknown to the mass public.
When Arjen calls someone his 'musical hero' I sit up and take notice, that's how I found out about Michael Mills. He's just delightful. :)
Two great musicians right there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_United_States_of_America_(band)
Not to be confused with "Presidents of the United States of America" which released a lot more albums but I think they're just a forgettable college rock band whose 6 albums don't add up to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjeZq3LAUJQ&list=PL19669A00719EFE7F
Bloom
Weirdly found out about this group from my mom who tagged me on one of their songs on Facebook one day. Never met another person who has ever heard of them, but I've listened to their Photosynthesis album more times than I can count.
Flummox they're broadly speaking a queercore band but they describe themselves as "genrefluid"
Really cool band that's got some great stuff if you're into heavy, unhinged, avant-garde craziness
The Books - (150K monthly listeners) - Positive and Optimistic collage of gathered sounds, samples, live instrumentation, often with amazing vocal work (with incredible audio engineering to boot). Their music has been profoundly impactful to my life in helping to be ok and content with the world around me :)
EVISBEATS Chillhop/Japanese Hiphop/ lo-fi 120K monthly listeners, don't think he's well known outside of Japan. Definitely suggest to check him out if you like Nujabes.
Fans of the Dark - (1,148 monthly listeners) They do some heavily 80's influenced hard rock, but with a different kind of flamboyance than I normally associate with that genre. The singer has a fantastic voice: Life Kills
Ad Infinitum - (125,865 monthly listeners - I know, this is pushing it but I really don't think they get the recognition they deserve) I'm not typically a fan of symphonic metal, but Ad Infinitum just nail it in my opinion. I had trouble picking one song to include because I love pretty much every song they've made, but here's one from their latest album: Eternal Rains
125k isn't really pushing it, that's still firmly in unknown territory. The old listentothis cutoff was at half a million, and we set that over a decade ago when music streaming was 'new' and there were only a fraction of the number of people streaming then that there are today. That number should really go up to around two million spotify followers just to compensate for the rise in streaming users. The best data I can find on spotify shows about 350 million active users total for the platform at present, so even a couple million followers is still a minuscule fraction of the total numbers on that platform.
You said the magic words! I can’t resist a good symphonic metal band, and I’ve started at the beginning of Ad Infinitum’s catalog.
Here I am, vibing with the music, when suddenly I get smashed out of nowhere with death growls from the lead singer! Beautifully integrated and she just belts it out and switches back to clean vocals effortlessly. 10/10 new favourite band!
For all the old fogies out there, I'll give some slightly older/probably-not-found-on-streaming-services options:
MC 900 Ft Jesus is some true old school underground hip hop! Adventures in Failure got me started with him, and still gets played several times a year with a smile.
Found some relatively unknown band called Rekevin way back in the early 2000s, love their song "A Peacock".
I'm not going to pretend no one has heard of them but Australian punk outfits Ausmuteants and Dennis Cometti have been a couple that I've been spinning regularly.
L.A. indie group Cheek face is probably better known than both of them but still also has been continually putting out some of the happiest depressing music I've listened to of late.
And, my latest Comedy music obsession has to be the YouTuber Value Select.
Elliot Brood. Saw them when they opened for The Dead South and are just amazing.
Motor City Josh
The Bobs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bobs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ere__wxSlJ4 Bong Water Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRTLtKemUkE Trash
Dead Man's Bones is Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields. They cranked out one record, toured a bit, then stopped. The album was recorded with the Silverlake Conservatory of Music's children's choir... and is an excellent poppy-end-of-darkwave record.
This isn't exactly a 'never heard of them' record, but it definitely isn't as popular as it should be (especially with 336k monthly listens.)
Slim Whitman was a 1950s US country folk singer who was actually more popular in Europe than the US. I love his music and wish this style was still around these days (if anyone knows of modern-day people like him let me know)
On the indie side of things, here's a couple:
Couch Dog, a band I randomly found in-person from San Luis Obispo, California. They are awesome
chokecherry is a new band with two songs. Their first song is pretty great and I look forward to their future stuff!
Red McAdam is a super fun country artist. Great to dance to
Good shoutout to Kadaver, OP, they're great! In the same vein, I'd like to mention Orchid,which is very Sabbath-esque.
I quite like shoegaze and post-rock for background listening when I'm working at a desk or trying to read on a commute.
Caspian's 2012 Waking Season is an uplifting post-rock listen, with warm, anthemic crescendos. Quick pick: "Gone in Bloom and Bough".
Tortoise's TNT is a more experimental post-rock album, with jazz and bossa nova influences. The songs are characterised by adding and removing percussive layers in an unobtrusive way, which has the benefit of keeping it an interesting listen without distracting me. Quick pick: "The Suspension Bridge at Iguazú Falls".
Lantlos' Melting Sun is a loud shoegaze album. Not really sure how to describe it, but it's dreamy. Quick pick: the first track, Melting Sun I.
Sleeping Pola, a Japanese math rock band with very high energy tracks similar to Marmalade butcher. Love them.
I like heavy and/or druggy stuff.
Foxtails - Sort of a blend of midwest emo, hardcore punk, and screamo, plus a violin player?
Ragana - Femme doom metal two-piece from Washington. Had a great split release with Thou a few years back.
Bosse-de-Nage - TIGHT post-black metal. One of my very favorite bands, and one of the very best drummers I've ever heard.
SubRosa - Salt Lake doom with electric violins and a woman doing a great job on vocal duty.
Colour Haze - Well-known in the stoner-psych rock sphere but unheard of outside of it. Groovy in every sense of the word.
Danava - Sort of retro-metal/prog? Fast stuff, talented guys.
Agriculture - SF-based "ecstatic" black metal, not dissimilar to Liturgy.
Mondo Drag - Psych/stoner rock. More bands should have an organ player.
Divide and Dissolve - Killer live show. Another doom two-piece, one drummer and one flute (I think) and guitar player.
Fange - French stoner sludge, monstrously heavy, underappreciated.
Big Business - Another two-piece, more of a rock/grunge vibe than metal but still loud, energetic, and groovy.
Just mentioned them in another thread. Aviations. Less than 10k subs on YouTube, but they have a legendary sound and composition. Highly recommend them.
Check out Coma. One of their best songs.
Heaps. Especially kpop/ jpop - been finding stuff by bands or artists who have disbanded or no longer with us ie Zard aka Izumi Sakai (R.I.P) (heck I didn't know she was the most popular female Japanese artist from the 90s)
Minusbaby, one of the founders of the 8bitpeoples label, a prolific chiptune record label has 76 unique listeners. His album Bias, comprised of two EPs (Left and Derecha IIRC) and an albulm (Algezebres A-Z) is a chiptune/lo-fi bass masterpiece, wnd the rest of his work is playful at worst, booty shaking at best.
Al Scorch made a couple of ripping bluegrass albums that are solid. he gets 420 listeners a month, but I recommend this to anybody interested in American folk or bluegrass
Isobutane, sort of the demo hands for hardware creator Polyend, is a great Slovakian musician who uses a plethora of synths to craft beautiful, generally laid back music that vibes like Boards of Canada, or more ambient Aphex Twin. He's sitting at around 296 monthly listeners.
I only posted numbers because I think it's interesting. I can't think of anybody else who is lower than 100k, but feel these folks need more love.