Sound Signal is Third Bridge Creative’s curated guide to the best music writing on the internet, published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at soundsignal.fm. Below is an excerpt of that content.
It’s always tempting to look at the news of the week and declare that “everything is horrible.” And there’s certainly evidence to back that up. Wars rage on unabated, and gas prices are surging; last week, those of us on the East Coast found ourselves enmeshed in a cloud of Canadian wildfire smoke; and AI fatigue is, as always, pervasive and utterly exhausting. And this isn’t even to mention the monstrosity of that FIFA halftime show.
But, in our little corner of the world, there are signs of life and inspiration, and this week’s top articles uncover those little glimmers. There’s a new Charli album out today, and another Phoebe Bridgers one on the way. There’s a rising tide of resistance to our post-digital world in the form of a UK zine resurgence. Ricardo Villalobos (!) is overseeing a new Sun Ra (!!) “rework compilation.” And, every week and even every day, new sounds, genres, and stars are being minted. The world soldiers on, despite itself.
Check out a sample of this week’s best music writing below, and then head to soundsignal.fm for the full report.
A simple repeating melodic figure sits over a house-inspired beat while Trickz (last seen on Charli XCX’s Brat remix album) delivers verses on the recklessness of youth: “Young and wild / I haven’t slept, and it’s a Tuesday.” Jake Schreier’s video moves her through minimalist white space into racing gear before the room erupts in fireworks. A preview of Blanco’s fourth album, Hermoso.
Fairyland! · Ella Dorn
Everyone loves to claim the 2020s have no defined aesthetic, but Fairyland makes the case that a coherent “giallobrutalist” is dominant. The sensibility is rooted Italian gialli cinema, a subgenre of surreal, stylish and bloody crime films, but also takes nods from 1930s glamour to channel anxieties about surveillance state anxiety. Bonus points for linking this to a two-decades old Mark Fisher essay!
The New Yorker · Amanda Petrusich
Amanda Petrusich takes in the spectacle of Madonna, the Muppets, Chris Martin, et al. clasping hands to declare that all you need is love and leaves feeling existentially unsettled. Sure, there was nothing technically wrong with FIFA’s halftime show, but the piece lands on something harder to name: that starpower abundance without risk or vulnerability produces something cheap and spiritually hollow. In the end, it conjures the Mad Men moment with Don Draper declares, “What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.”
The Guardian · Claire Biddles
In the post-internet, post-social, post-AI world, tangible objects are both rare and sacrosaint. So the Guardian positions the cut-and-paste photocopy aesthetic of the UK fanzine revival as an act of resistance against algorithm fatigue and AI slop. Fifty years after Sniffin’ Glue, this piece makes the case that low, handmade documentation builds community (and scenes) in ways scrolling never can.
Chartmetric · Chartmetric / Splice
Chartmetric’s data team teamed up with Splice for a sharp-eyed dissection of how genres are made. They do this by pairing listener charts with what producers are actually downloading. The nut is the answer to a question you’ve felt but couldn’t prove (at least not this quantitatively): producer activity spikes before a genre hits the charts, and Corridos tumbados, amapiano, hyperpop, afro house all tells the same story. If you’re looking at streaming numbers to chase the next sound, you’re looking in the wrong place (and probably already late). Watch the sample packs the producers use.
The Substack Post · Chris Best
Substack CEO Chris Best diagnosed what he sees as the problem with AI writing on Substack by coining a new term, “Claudefishing.” Roughly, this translates to when a publication lures in its readers without revealing that there’s no human on the other side. His fix is to partner with Pangram on a product feature that scans notes, comments, and posts for AI-generated text, and provide a “How I make this” statement for creators. The bet is that as generation gets better, provenance matters more and not less.
Track Ten · Eric
Long before she was a household name, charli was setting the pace for how pop artists can navigate a soul-sucking industry. This essay examines the blueprint that Charli XCX’s 2017 mixtapes No. 1 Angel and Pop 2 established for pop music success by prioritizing vision and community (over chasing commercial hits).
Resident Advisor · Oli Warwick
On the heels of the historic Sun Ra reimagining When There Is No Sun, Resident Advisor spends nearly eight hours in Berlin studio of the masterful Ricardo Villalobos. This is how the prince of the afters built his cosmos: from Pinochet-era exile and Frankfurt’s Dorian Gray to Alcachofa’s crossover, Ibiza’s roll-through era, and the womb recordings and modular jams that have kept him on the freaky margins.
Crritic! · Carl Wilson
Wilson once opened a book with tales of Elliott Smith’s Oscar-night awkwardness, and here he uses Phoebe Bridgers’ “Lost Boys” TV performance to dive into how the song’s themes of masculine immaturity, Wilson has been weary of Bridgers’ crossover fame, but finds the performative twists pulling him back toward the music.
The New Yorker · Kelefa Sanneh
Country music has long been obsessed with staying rooted in your home town, but it also accommodates for the occasional beach excursion. The New Yorker explores this contradiction, tracing the tropical trope from Buffett through Chesney’s “No Shoes Nation” and Alan Jackson’s “Five O’Clock.” In the end, these sun-and-sand hits are secretly wistful, and the vacation is a euphemism for excusable day-drinking, a paradise somewhere you’re not.
the andre gee newsletter · andrejgee
Andre Gee is one of Substack’s most honest and talented writers, and this essay offers his reflections on the recent deaths of Atlanta rapper Alley Boy and Jacksonville DJ Bigga Rankin, exploring themes of Black mortality, substance abuse in hip-hop culture, and how economic pressures and existential anxiety drive self-medication and unhealthy coping mechanisms.
→ Read more of this week's best articles here
Live in New York, August 1981. The Velvet Underground’s icy chanteuse had spent a decade stripping her sound down to harmonium drones and that cavernous voice, and here she is back in the city that first made her a myth, outlasting the scene that once treated her as ornament.
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