In the interest of time, I’m just going to jump right in. As always, if you like any of this stuff, definitely check out the full releases the songs are from; almost all of the songs are standing in for recommendations of the full album or EP. And maybe also consider supporting the artists in some way; a lot of them are small acts with Bandcamp pages, the platform that already gives the best compensation to artists (and Bandcamp Fridays, days where the site gives their cut to artists as well, will return in 2025 starting in March). Now for the YouTube and Spotify embeds:
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Notes: As usual, not everything is on every list. Alpha’s music isn’t on either platform, but it is on their Soundcloud for those who want a non-Bandcamp option. The Spotify list is also missing iZme’s “Vivid” and the Live Session version of Knower’s “Overtime” (although I did substitute the studio version there). The YouTube list is missing two of the songs from SYM1 and one from The Only Humans, plus the Cheem song was only available as part of the full EP, so I left that one out too.
The Best Stuff:
Jamie Paige: Jamie Paige’s last album ‘Bittersweet’ was one of the earlier things I found when I started regularly browsing Bandcamp a few years ago, and I wound up listening to it a lot, as well as her follow-up singles and backlog. Several years later, and she’s finally released her next full album, ‘Constant Companions’, and it feels like it lived up to expectations. More of what I liked, but also new in ways that differentiate it so it feels fresh. She’s on a bit more of a kick with vocal synths here than on ‘Bittersweet’, but even that feels like a natural evolution, and she does some fun things with them.
There’s something about her songwriting style that just naturally draws me in, bursting with joyful energy and electric hooks, full of layers of synths and instrumentation, with recurring motifs and callbacks that can feel like their own ideas, and lyrics that lean can lean on big feelings but also a sense of humor, plus hint of sci-fi and fantasy ideas that can lend themselves to the idea of a bigger text and differentiate themselves from a lot of other songs, which can draw out emotion in fun, unexpected ways. Even stuff like the opener, "Dyad", about her desire to do both stuff like her last album and playing around with more Vocaloid songs, gets recast in both a more fantastic (a conversation between a person and a digital singer) and mundane (it’s literally recast as separation from someone you love and wanting connect with them), and that sort of layers are fun to think through and make it so easy to relate with.