Introducing UNDERPLAYS: exploring music from the depths of the Internet
Made-up languages, ambient jokers, lo-fi gems and more.
There’s too much music. Well, maybe not too much music, but too much for you and me to listen to all of it.
Sometimes I’ll just pull up the Bandcamp homepage and watch the “selling right now” section, with album after album I’ve never heard of scrolling by. It’s exciting. It’s also horrifying. How many times have I flipped through a record bin and passed over a masterpiece that I’d probably love? How many albums are on streaming services that will never get playlisted and find an audience?
If you’ve been following along the last couple of weeks, I’ve been fixated on this idea of under-heard music. In truth, it’s been a longtime obsession, but the fire is starting to get lit beneath me again.
I make a point to listen to a lot of music. I love huge triple-A artists and buzzworthy bands on the rise, but my favorite thing is to dig. There’s just something so gratifying about finding a new band or sound that few others have caught on to yet.
But the discovery is just half the fun. The other side is getting to then share this music with others. What’s the point of finding a great gem if you don’t let others know about it?
I begrudge myself often for not doing enough to share the great finds I come across. So that’s why I’m starting this new recurring series: Underplays.
The idea here is to focus on music that (at least to my perception) isn’t getting enough plays. With the streaming era, we have a weird amount of data thrust upon us about artists and their popularity. It can be disheartening finding something you love and seeing that it’s just literally not getting played much. This is a chance to rectify that, at least in a small way. Underplays is for spotlighting the underheard.
I’m not putting any strict “below x number of plays/listeners” rule on this, and some albums might not even be on streaming services at all. These might be albums that came out in recent weeks or maybe even years or decades ago. You can expect Underplays to show up monthly as a part of Another Thought, but not on any strict schedule. Keeping it loose is part of the fun.
There’s too much music. Underplays is an attempt to make a small dent in the pile. This first batch includes music without a language, lost ambient from the depths of YouTube, a lo-fi Filipino cult classic, and murky Memphis beats. I hope you dig them as much as I do.
2020 – (self-titled)
Sometimes you understand exactly why an artist isn’t more popular. Spanish band 2020’s music might be inaccessible sonically, but it’s also nearly un-Google-able. Even when I try to find it in my streaming library, searching “2020” brings up numerous pandemic playlists and takes me a minute to find. But something about this only makes me love 2020 more.
I came across 2020 only recently. During a trip to Seville, Spain last month, I walked into a record store called Sublima Tattoos y Discos purely on a whim. I’ve mentioned this a few times, but I’ve found seeking out record stores while traveling to be such a key to finding not just great music, but a gateway to local culture and a great way of finding parts of a city you might not have explored.
Uncharacteristically, I struck up a conversation with the shop’s co-owner Alfredo, asking for music recommendations. We talked for over an hour. He gave me an overview of all the great ambient in Seville and we played records back and forth. Then he pulled out this one. A very stark-looking black-and-white cover with a person hunched over a road case. The cover alone reminded me of Castle Face Records’ great Live in San Francisco series, so I was immediately intrigued. It turned out Alfredo and the shop actually put out the album.
Before he put it on, he explained to me that the album isn’t in Spanish or English or any other discernible language. It was all made up. He also tried to prepare me for how inaccessible it would be. But I was ready to take the record home with me before the needle even dropped.
The music is harsh. Maybe that’s an understatement. The guitars are heavy, veering into atonal mayhem. The drums are loud and raucous. If you have any taste for stuff like Swans or the darker sides of Sonic Youth, this will likely resonate. I’m not always in the headspace for this kind of music, but something about 2020 lands for me. I’m sure the circumstances of how I was introduced helped. But there’s also just something about it that I find so compelling. The made-up language doesn’t just feel like a gimmick. It feels like a means for pure expression. Nothing is overthought. It feels like a physical release.
2020 feels like the year (and era) for which it was named. Chaotic, impossible to understand, but also inescapable. Whenever I put this album on, I think it’s going to be “too much.” But within moments, I’m enraptured by this colorless world. It doesn’t require you to understand it. You just have to feel it.
George Garside – The Jester
Who doesn’t love a good musical mystery? I know very little about The Jester and its creator George Garside. I came across this album about a year ago on YouTube. YouTube continually proves to be a great source for rediscovering lost music from bygone eras. We’ve seen artists like Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Hiroshi Yoshimura suddenly become beloved thanks to rips making their way to the video site.
It seems like I’m somewhat late to the party on this one, at least in comparison to the top YouTube sleuths out there. I was compelled by seeing the thumbnail of a joker playing card with new music tags. I’d also been playing a lot of the poker-based video game Balatro, so maybe I was uniquely primed for this. What I wasn’t prepared for was how deeply emotive and moving the music is almost right off the bat.
This is all instrumental synthesizer music. I couldn’t tell you what synth he’s using or really much else. Fans aren’t even sure if Garside is still with us. What little information there is out there comes from this Blogspot page that is somehow connected with the artist who designed the cover (that Blogspot also is a treasure trove of other rarities if you’re so inclined to dig).
With records like this, I’m also torn between wanting to dig deeper to figure out the story and letting the mystery lie. There’s something really special about lost music like this from a bygone era. It excites my imagination, allows me to paint a picture in my mind of who this person is and where they came from. Still, it’s the music itself that’s so compelling.
Despite the joker theme, the music feels deeply personal and serious. Yet that added jester dimension only adds more intrigue. Finding albums like this makes me want to keep digging further. Not just making my way through the current deluge of new music, but looking back further and finding the things we all missed.
Outside Source – Fools Don’t Have to Introduce Themselves (Retail Version)
A couple weeks ago I mentioned my love for the label Harsh Riddims and their excellent compilations. Each compilation is always packed with a bunch of names I don’t recognize, giving so many jumping-off points for discovery. I was really enamored with the opening track to Harsh Riddims 5, penned by Outside Source. It was an easy leap from there to finding Outside Source’s 2022 album, Fools Don’t Have to Introduce Themselves (Retail Version).
Outside Source is the moniker of Quinton JeVon Lee, based out of Memphis, Tenn. He’s done a lot of work with rapper/producer Cities Aviv (whose music I recently became acquainted with while working on illustrations for this piece from Emily White). Though I’ve only begun to dip my toes into this world, I can already see myself falling deep into it.
Fools Don’t Have to Introduce Themselves has this murky, hazy aesthetic to the production that I’m just such a sucker for. It feels like finding a lost tape—maybe one left jammed into the deck of a used car, packed with incredible jams. The spastic drums and swooning synth hum of “Mobile Suit (Test Run)” feel like they would’ve been perfect for a Toonami commercial bumper in the early 2000s (a mood and feeling I’m always chasing). The minimalist beat and jazzy chords of “Some Damn Basketball Game” are hypnotizing. His voice meanders as the chords plop in and out over sparse drums.
Outside Source is excellent at leaning into an aesthetic that feels haphazard and lo-fi but is actually masterfully creating a mood. There are moments when his voice carries a Prince-like affectation. Something about the haziness makes me want to lean in more. At just over 21 minutes, I find myself looping this one often.
Eggboy – 98–05
Over the last few years, I’ve really loved digging into music from the Philippines. I married into a Filipino family and have been really blessed to get to experience so much of the culture. So whenever we go visit family in the Philippines, I’m always trying to track down a bunch of records and deep cuts to bring home. But this one is my white whale.
Eggboy seems to have something of a cult following. The project is the moniker of Diego Mapa, who now plays in the great electronic duo Tarsius. Eggboy feels like quintessential bedroom indie pop. Mapa recorded the songs at home between 1998 and 2005 (hence the title) on a 4-track recorder, singing in both English and Tagalog. Every song is packed with hook after hook, his voice wavering and reverbed against the makeshift production.
I’m a sucker for a great lo-fi indie rock record. If the melodies are decadent and the recording equipment is shot, I’m there. And this record hits all the marks. Truly, if you like stuff like Sharp Pins, Guided By Voices, or even early Death Cab for Cutie, then I can’t see any reason you wouldn’t fall in love with Eggboy.
I find myself routinely coming back to 98–05, the songs sticking in my head for days. Something about the production just adds to the feeling of sincerity. These are heartfelt, slacker jams that hold up. If it weren’t for the title, you could easily convince me these songs either came out 30 years ago or just yesterday.
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2020 reminded me of very early Voivod from Canada. They might even be a bit more restrained than Voivod, esp if you’ve heard the “RRROOOAAARRR” album.
Thanks for highlighting your favorite new music for us. The other aspect of the "too much music" issue is old music. I would listen to all 197 of Sonny Rollins' albums if I had the time.