The collapse of big tunes in the platform era
In the post-algorithmic age, are club anthems an endangered species?
Microplastics
A newsletter of essays about music and the ripples it creates.
Live Last read · last published · next check
Latest posts
What comes after Techno Twitter?
The power that online activists once held over institutions and artists is fading – with strange consequences.
"Perfection" and the ennui of milennial taste
Vincenzo Latronico's Berlin expats are paralysed by algorithmic abundance. Could a fictional Scottish post-punk band show them a better way to live?
Last night a writer saved my life
What would you play to rescue a dance floor? Eight music journalists cue up the platters that matter
When club culture sells out to private equity
Grassroots campaigns against big finance highlight the moral maze in which dance music has lost itself.
Did trance ruin the "special" music of Goa?
A global scene that began in India gave birth to some of dance music's trippiest records—and a few of its worst.
The durian scheme, or what's wrong with "experimental" music
What could today's avant-garde learn from a notoriously smelly fruit?
Wiping the moistness from music criticism
Music journalism is in crisis, again. Can it be rescued from its wet, deferential present?
Surfing the Inglish channel
The sound of public space is getting worse. What's at stake if we decide to ignore it?
Introducing Microplastics
Your new, all-consuming obsession