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What are your best Bandcamp buys?
What are your favorite albums/bands available through Bandcamp?
I've used the platform a bit but certainly not to its full extent, and as Google Play Music is slowly winding down, I'm thinking I'd like to get more into a platform that better supports artists. It also helps that I'm kind of sick of my music library, as I've been listening to the same stuff for years now.
Give recommendations for any genre, as I don't want this thread to be useful to just me but to anyone who's interested in new music.
EDIT: All of these recommendations are so good! Thank you everyone, and feel free to keep them coming! I've already bought a couple of these, but I'm waiting on the next Bandcamp Friday to really go on a shopping spree.
I've been building a list of artists to watch over there for the better part of a decade. I usually just buy the FLACs, because if I start collecting Vinyl, I am doomed. I will end up broke and with a house collapse from the weight. Every single one of these albums has spent some time in heavy rotation and I still put them on occasionally. I could make a list ten times this size but these ones are the cream for me. People familiar with the l2t bestofs will recognize some of them. Lots of listening here to keep your ears happy.
If you guys want more I can dig up some from further back, this list was already pretty time consuming to make. :)
Thanks for taking the time to type this all out! I made a bookmark folder for all the albums in this thread so I can listen through them, and it just got a lot fuller with all of your recommendations. :)
Bandcamp is worth supporting. They are the only music streaming service that's always been in the black, and the artists get a great cut of the revenue plus full access to their own metrics. Every other service that exists underpays the artists and has never (and likely will never) make a profit. Bandcamp won the music streaming wars a decade ago in my book. I'll also tip the hat to CDBaby for making it dirt simple to get your music on all services and sell CDs without labels long before Bandcamp came along.
Oh definitely! I didn't mean to give the impression I wasn't going to buy anything (I've already bought several from this thread alone). I just like to try before I buy because not everything clicks with me.
I also agree that CDBaby is amazing. They got a LOT of business from me back in the 00s.
I wanna do a Tildes best of 2020 thread sometime around November. :D
Awesome! I'll start my research
nowright after I finish your list!Even though I don't have a lot to recommend, I'll give shoutouts to my two favorites:
She is my favorite recording artist of all time, and she does absolutely amazing things with her melodies, composition, and lyrics. The best introduction I can give to her depth of quality is "The Hymn of Acxiom". It is a song about modern data-gathering practices creating personalized consumerism (no joke -- Acxiom is a marketing company). It's reminiscent of Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" and is both genuinely beautiful and subtly unsettling.
Big Giant Circles writes chiptune soundtracks for videogames, and Impostor Nostalgia is a collection of songs he's made that aren't from soundtracks: videogamey music that isn't actually from videogames (hence the "Impostor" part of the title). The absolute standout, and one of my favorite tracks of all time, is "HappiNESs". It's a collaboration with Disasterpeace (who's another amazing chiptune artist), and is an absolutely amazing mood-lift. The song starts simple and builds in complexity as it goes, making for a compellingly rich, layered, and satisfying finish.
For anyone who likes this, he has a follow-up album, The Glory Days, which is also excellent.
Impostor Nostalgia is a great album. You'd probably also like _ensnare_ - Fakebit Til U Makebit for more "chiptune meant to emulate specific video game styles". All of _ensnare_'s other music is really good too though, You Know My Heart from the "Tech Switch" album is probably my favorite track overall.
He also releases more "normal" electronic music under the name nervous_testpilot, and it's all really good too. He did the soundtracks for the Frozen Synapse games, if you've played those.
I am always down for electronic recommendations in general and chiptune recommendations specifically! I think growing up on 8- and 16- bit consoles hardwired me to love the genre unconditionally.
I listened through Fakebit and, predictably, think it's fantastic and well worth the purchase. In fact, I think I'm going to regret making this thread simply because, by the time it's over and done, I anticipate I'll have spent far more than I was intending to!
Nevertheless, thanks for the pointers. I'm excited to dig into his other releases as well.
I’m listening to the Vienna Teng album you recommended and I’m really enjoying it. I will probably buy it when I’m done listening, thanks for the recommendation!
This is wonderful to hear! It makes me inordinately happy whenever anyone else connects with her music. :)
I'll also mention that the rest of her studio albums (unfortunately not available on Bandcamp) are also all amazing in their own right, so if you're really digging Aims there is plenty more of her work to explore!
Yeah! I was already vaguely familiar with her. I really like the song “Blue Caravan” and most of the other songs on that album, but I haven’t explored her discography in depth yet.
Her sound is associated closely in my head to Ira Wolf. If you haven’t heard her stuff I recommend the album “The Closest Thing to Home”.
"Blue Caravan" was my introduction to her! That album holds a very special place in my heart, and not just because "City Hall" is my wedding song. :)
Also it looks like we traded recommendations, as I'm listening to Ira Wolf now and I, too, am probably buying this album when I'm done listening.
It sounds like we've got some good overlap in music taste! I love rooting around in other peoples' collections. Would you be willing to share your bandcamp profile (here or in DM) so I can take a look? I'll share my profile link in a DM if you're interested (there's not much there yet though).
My bandcamp profile is identifying for me, so I'm not comfortable sharing it, but I can basically give you a guided tour! Like you, I haven't acquired too much there yet. I will say that much of this veers from Vienna Teng's style, so it's not necessarily all in line with that.
Also, some of my favorites that aren't on Bandcamp:
Feel free to drop some links of your own or PM me your Bandcamp profile if you like. I'd love to explore some of your preferences as well!
Thanks for taking the time to write this up! I'll PM you the link to my profile!
The Beths new album is soooooooo good. I can't get enough of it.
I started from the bottom of your list with The Beths (not due to any musical preference but just because I have a quirk where I often work my way up lists instead of down), and I'm loving them already! I'm also already familiar with Russian Circles, so I'm excited to make my way through the rest of your recommendations since you already hit the mark for me on two of them. Thanks for these!
Mushroom Lake - Live at Regional Theatre - "Ambient / Psychedelic / Post Rock"
My first Bandcamp purchase and still one of my favorites.
This is my last few purchases on Bandcamp
Ears Hear Spears - Insight & Damu The Fudgemunk - Hiphop/Rap
The Uncanny Valley - PERTURBATOR - 80s inspired electro/synth stuff (NSFW album art)
From the Mire - Bog Wizard - Doom/sludge metal
Body of Light - King Witch - Black Sabbath-era heavy metal kind of?
Really digging The Uncanny Valley. It's robust and dark. Thanks for the recommendation!
Besides having nice music, Benoît Pioulard really takes care in packaging his music. Releases often come with a unique Polaroid, a print of some sort, and/or even a flower/plant picked from his yard.
I've been looking for some new music to fall asleep to, and this just might do the trick. Do you have a particular favorite album of his? He's quite prolific.
I'd definitely have to give it to Sonnet. I've read many a page to that album. Feels like the warmth of the sun on closed eyes. Or something.
If you're looking for more music to drift off to, give Celer a look. A lot of it is "barely there" music and field recordings. His output is pretty staggering, so I wouldn't at all be able to point you in a particular direction. Just pick an album cover you like and give it a go.
Restricting myself to three of my favorite purchases overall that continue getting a lot of plays over the long run:
Magdalena Bay - A Little Rhythm and a Wicked Feeling - Dancey, retro-ish synthpop. I love everything these two put out, and their music videos are all amazing and hilarious too. They deserve so much more attention than they seem to get.
Night Verses - From the Gallery of Sleep - Instrumental progressive metal/hard-rock, some Tool-like flavor to it. Probably my overall favorite album from the last couple of years.
Boucle Infinie - 直線移動 - Hard to categorize this one, his own description is:
It's an alternate alias for Rémi Gallego, who releases most of his music under "The Algorithm", but that music is much heavier than this. I love this album though, one of my favorites for both "work music" and just sitting and listening to. I really hope he puts out more albums as Boucle Infinie eventually.
Can highly recommend that Boucle Infinie one, gorgeous sounds
Listened through the Magdalena Bay album and it gave me serious Carly Rae Jepsen energy in places (this is a great thing).
Eveyrthing from White Lung Post-Punk. Unfortunatley they've been quiet for 4 years no with no word of a new album.
[USA] - Anamanaguchi - Electronic/Chiptune/Pop. Their entire discography is great, but this album is particularly fantastic in my eyes.
Odyssey - Home Electronic/Experimental This album is fantastic. Other albums from this artist don't hit the same high for me.
Binding of Isaac: Antibirth OST
A group of fans and modders came together and made a Mod for the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, and a newcomer named mudeth was the one who made a sound track to it. IMO, it was an absolutely necessary part of the experience and I can't wait for the finished product once the final DLC comes out.
Runner up would be the Crypt of the Necrodancer OST and all of it's various iterations and incarnations.
Ragana- you take nothing
https://ragana.bandcamp.com/album/you-take-nothing-2
Transparency by Translippers - Just listen to the awesomeness that is Cat's Whiskers.
I was going to post when this thread came up, but kept overthinking it, I'll limit it to a couple standouts:
Bias by Minusbaby. It consist primarily of two EPs that got new mixes/masters, Left [Tracks 1-7], Derecha [Tracks 7-14] and Bias, the last few tracks. I was getting into some chiptune stuff at the time anyway (I think shortly after Left came out), and Minusbaby is probably one of the best to ever do it. These albums have also shaped my approach to music significantly, I really like how he lets the bass run everything, but the rest of the sound cuts through it. With good headphones you feel it as much as you hear it.
Thumbs by Busdriver. He is probably my favorite rapper of all time, and was the first rapper I ever liked. I damn near cried when I went to see him open for Brother Ali (I went for Driver, stayed for Ali). Any rapper I listen to has probably worked with him at one point or another (in a couple cases, I found artists who would later work with him). He's very political, often absurd, but never quite abstract. A couple tracks that stand out is Ministry of the Torture Couch and Species of Property