New and Noteworthy Additions to US Spotify

New Particles, 2015-12-04
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/4LysCu9R2Qw1A8GEvBda1c

I've come to appreciate increasingly abstruse and obscure metal, but I haven't lost the visceral reaction of excitement to unapologetic joyful bombast, exemplified by the goofywonderful new Primal Fear song - https://open.spotify.com/track/0kah4G2d1mmocI8JOXWcdJ
Arguably the opposite extreme of metal is this sensuous, often near-ambient folk-post-metal meditation by Kauan - http://open.spotify.com/album/2vYSKNZsE3R7pBbCFZKrOd
Bombast without machismo was a pretty good innovation in metal, I think. German gothic operatic metal mainstays Coronatus change members but somehow keep the same sound and the same logo font - http://open.spotify.com/album/6drePay3XRsVG8vLBle9p1
Oh god, for a moment I thought "The Gift of Music" was going to be a Christmas song, but it's actually Dream Theater's answer to "Magic Power" - https://open.spotify.com/track/3QwqRd3vM8ya0PD5GYnwRA
Amoral make throaty progcore - https://open.spotify.com/track/12LlrN4kX4tAUXdpdeJZym
Maria Mena makes me think of Alanis Morissette with more Joni Mitchell, or Natalie Imbruglia with more Patty Larkin - http://open.spotify.com/album/72aZVqqvsyeUqm60hhVRZk
The new Geographer EP has a lavishly spare "Cloudbusting" cover - http://open.spotify.com/album/0UzRXveMru1ilDF5dsfoMF
The new Sunn 0))) noise-drone album is sadly not called "Cloudgrinder" - http://open.spotify.com/album/3RTGY3G7yQgsOiwOC6rC7S
I'm definitely warming to these springy, melodic new Baroness songs - https://open.spotify.com/track/3SeQQAbbkZ7e8Kt1pkxmst
Hegemon screetch, blast and swallow your head - http://open.spotify.com/album/71iBkE4FkaSs7ZWxuqIBIc
La Rappresentante di Lista sound to me like Shakira has joined Chairlift - http://open.spotify.com/album/6LYIQHEvh9Ch7BxjwAunBt
Pastilla make warm, surging Mexican/American alt-rock - http://open.spotify.com/album/4MRWu7VEiJD7atxkjtDdVG
Antonio Ferrari steps out of a time-machine from the 80s into an Italian piazza and everybody starts dancing - http://open.spotify.com/album/3qyl182kWPXUPS9AHOachm
Roxette once made the most Swedish-sounding Spanish album ever. Jesse & Joy are what this could have sounded like as a native idea - http://open.spotify.com/album/6pmTwCb5SeTjV9wdnkbDo3
Monica Naranjo has become a classical-crossover artist by crossing over from pop - https://open.spotify.com/track/00xRi2RcPki2OP7nAEuDr2
Astropol does lo-fi Swedish drum-machine pop like I imagine I would do if I could sing and play and write and produce better - http://open.spotify.com/album/0NltRSa1T253jVyNmimx4C
The Crookes blare and twangle - https://open.spotify.com/track/10lJS0rZgSZaUlLWq6QnqZ
Ki:Theory is like the indie version of AWOLNATION - http://open.spotify.com/album/7HHfj7Isj5DfE1F6ifE2BG
NateWantsToBattle does cheerful pop-punk anime covers - https://open.spotify.com/track/4cKPzfOUIZWXhu3GDnESjL
Troye Sivan would like to be an Australian Justin Bieber, please - http://open.spotify.com/album/5ouTDazE4LF9bVJPx1nlgW
Kill the Thrill do experimental atmospheric post-metal - http://open.spotify.com/album/5Avk207fmBW2WTcDZW0o1m
fakuta makes elegantly uncluttered Chilean indie gauze-pop - https://open.spotify.com/track/1lBrbMGrctZ92WpHPxyBbv
LCMDF are the Finnish Shampoo, and the Finnish Shampoo are sick of Finnish metal dudes - https://open.spotify.com/track/1pLfuwK5I7lGtQC1969X1k
Somos make pingy sigh-pop - https://open.spotify.com/track/00uCBJzIKZNNaH21VAMxzq
Punchline do jerky electro-emo - http://open.spotify.com/album/4okCZ13b9R931aCjP9Enpa
SikTh help indjent djent - http://open.spotify.com/album/00sWfXQ7GHMno4qrcgn8Y9
Page sound nostalgic for all past and future synthpop at once - https://open.spotify.com/track/2okZvnlNmIAvRjC5NUwAle
Matias Puumala will do your next apocalyptic cinemastep movie trailer - https://open.spotify.com/track/6fYSuTLBDGDsXXes8AeS7A

Royal Pirates are my new favorite Korean-American indie-rock band - http://open.spotify.com/album/58yNxLCSLY6qZXmh5s1e04
Tkay Maidza suggests there should be a Zimbabwean/Australian version of grime - http://open.spotify.com/album/17P57CX6VfbjD0zmJ7MypQ
Mr Traumatik is already grime in Portsmouth - http://open.spotify.com/album/04Y9x121a5IBAS6AAWjTib
Västerbron is a bridge in Stockholm and a yearningly ragged Swedish post-punk band - https://open.spotify.com/track/0HWzP5M2EeziQef1RnYAQi
THCF does Serbian trap - https://open.spotify.com/track/6YDgnJPerKwoC5CRPSzKH6
Toygar Işıklı composed the excellent spaghetti-western/pan-celtic/epicore score for a Turkish TV show I don't know anything about and never expect to see - http://open.spotify.com/album/4g4jsUq6IsRUQM6kPBjucu
FUNKTIONSLUST show that FKA twigs is starting to have influence - http://open.spotify.com/album/0rgGU7VF58sbk44gdRRUwQ
Zero Call make a whole band out of the interstitial bits of M83 and Kraftwerk records - http://open.spotify.com/album/1GEMlpUqWFoT6uGuK4cbkk
Ultima Thule do Viking Oi, which is 90% electrifying and 10% like maybe you're being invited into a worryingly well-organized riot - http://open.spotify.com/album/5sqOfAZav87UXkKavP891V
Malrun are a Danish epic melodic hard-metalcore-rock band I keep forgetting aren't Spanish - http://open.spotify.com/album/6LcQrF5MJl8CgVhyqpTeCA
Intervals do calculated math-jazz prog-post-metal - http://open.spotify.com/album/4MYLm8Uxayy4UyqFHPHfBB
MY RED + BLUE dances into arena-pop spotlights - http://open.spotify.com/album/2eFDz0kTnueXYY5D8dU53A
Lucius snaps crisply amidst circus-wild kaleidoscopic chaos - https://open.spotify.com/track/7hLRO5yZXsQEXHN40f8pLC
Apparently the last two albums by The Cult were part of a thematic trilogy - https://open.spotify.com/track/36Tex5XGXQSE3ktUqNNWjE
Vorna make maniacally raspy Finnish blast-pagan prog-metal - http://open.spotify.com/album/4J3AWqcGI0z0xp3KuOCQva
I'm a sucker for the combination of rock power and near-Eastern warble, and this is Lena Papadopoulou's mesmerizing Greek version of this synthesis - https://open.spotify.com/track/15m2glm7Bnqwn3QUcUyHjK
Belako are a Basque indie-pop band going a bit trance-jam - https://open.spotify.com/track/6dVrwyB97laOY71gMYHlZ3
Odio París are actually a shimmery Catalan nu-gaze band - https://open.spotify.com/track/1SII3XITH31aBokESm8Vx8
Khymera are a majestically anachronistic melodic AOR glam-metal band - http://open.spotify.com/album/6FgAtE9RLGWomKxdwhYcP9
Middlepicker place Minneapolis–St. Paul somewhere in between Archers of Loaf and Tullycraft - http://open.spotify.com/album/3KhHa3R4HmCeit8Lbasgve
Alpha Consumer are also from Minneapolis, and remind me of Polara, who were also also from Minneapolis, but apparently they're different people - https://open.spotify.com/track/7tcFLYcrn2axoOVq6FNkCB
BNLX's most recent EP is from last year, but they are Ed Ackerson's post-Polara band, which I totally didn't know and maybe you didn't either so let's catch up - spotify:album:2JsHagfQCCbHbSvGhnjodM
I think Heloisa Rosa is historically a Portuguese CCM singer, but I don't speak Portuguese and so don't have to care, and this is a wildly magnificent Iberian-pop/arena-rock song - https://open.spotify.com/track/4j59xpRgNZafrlyZK8QuaF
If you only listen to American hip hop, you're missing a lot of astonishing stuff, like this cinematically menacing rant by Iranian-German rapper Kianush - https://open.spotify.com/track/1nIIghJZL1YKC7xOgGm13L
Gjan is Lithuania's answer to Kerli, and now I feel like I should know who I think is Latvia's - https://open.spotify.com/track/7mF3EDc1Npu13GLTZKZygf
James Tw does a brittle indie-r&b cover of "Torn" - https://open.spotify.com/track/3Uu8nwa9xA9bxCur5g3oJU
Shishamo are a female j-punk band somewhere on the path from Shonen Knife to Tricot - http://open.spotify.com/album/2fTYETl9PBoj4nrOmc7CyR
Der Dicke Polizist is a cheerfully snarly old-school German punk band - http://open.spotify.com/album/6exN53GNb43OkGnm40lIQN
Another of my countless weaknesses is indie gothic symphonic metal bands like Colorado Springs' Neverlight who, whether by choice or necessity, cast their epic musical ambitions in dry, un-epic production treatments - http://open.spotify.com/album/2FWdSsIkr0K4PEjBPf5m5k
Aedliga is me, and this is my new song, composed by both choice and logistical necessity in my usual studio aboard an Icelandair flight a few days ago, and sung in a stranger's apartment in Stockholm in a race to get usable tracks in few enough takes that the neighbors I don't know don't come over to introduce themselves and tell me what Max Martin would have done - https://open.spotify.com/track/6Bgr4XBEeAWNIHEcyA1TNg

New Particles, 2015-12-11
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/1HCugJ9toYbQFQRIJ7U2Ed

This was the week I suddenly and way-belatedly discovered that Ed Ackerson of Polara has been in a new band called BNLX for years - http://open.spotify.com/album/2JsHagfQCCbHbSvGhnjodM
Avantasia is what it's like to eat a giant slice of meat loaf without taking the aluminum foil off first - https://open.spotify.com/track/3xCX5PhMNHjubGkK1lLX4d
If Low's Christmas EP was too earnest for you, A Sunny Day In Glasgow have an alterative - http://open.spotify.com/album/6o2OMmmmNIoJin0LZAR2AE
Give me a few more bands like White Sea and I will declare Astral Soul's independence from Indie R&B - https://open.spotify.com/track/5cTw48zYsmOw496Slwb6op
Dry the River could be part of it, too - http://open.spotify.com/album/49TWgB9tGFH3Gm733kkivP
Raventale make gothic symphonic black metal - http://open.spotify.com/album/1m4J2c5YRikNyOFhsxJNF0
This is the part of the year when people indignantly demand to know what the hell "metropopolis" is, and this song by Cappa is some of it - https://open.spotify.com/track/6ipl7Aq0bA2Q8768FZRZo8
Grabbitz is kind of metrostep - http://open.spotify.com/album/2QdSSeakmxFA7e0QO5XfFA
If Black Sabbath started over today, they might sound like Bloodiest - https://open.spotify.com/track/248mXCu0401Xc1lQDBUgXK
Vessels do deep indietronic post-focus music - http://open.spotify.com/album/0XDMwXF5OHpK9IG2n3lEXG
The American Dollar do it more post-, less -tronic - http://open.spotify.com/album/2ytkZoVgs5yKkFEP9oZiut
Farewell Dear Ghost make soft-spoken, soft-shoed stomp-and-holler - https://open.spotify.com/track/2oFwrwH2Wu0UrmAJI0RBUW
Of course there is progressive djentcore, what else would a band called Lithium Dawn be? - http://open.spotify.com/album/52IFkHbpCWWJZURBHtpkQv
In Estonia, even a "pop-rock" band like HND sounds a little folk-metal - https://open.spotify.com/track/2g5GFXk7xg0f7gsYtcs6q8
Epicore is movie music that dispenses with the constraint of having a movie attached, although if Michael Maas makes a movie to go with this new album, I'd watch it - http://open.spotify.com/album/2h1zP186J907CFotmasvRn
There are too many artists called Said, but one of them is a great J-rock band, and I don't know anything else about them because you their EP is just called "Blue" and you try googling that - http://open.spotify.com/album/5gcYLebyRDHferNYoLUmai
Dimension could use a better name for their dark uplifting trancestep, too - http://open.spotify.com/album/3J9vurfJnDeKPPsvZ5EPsK
Finnish electro-rock band Sara have been recording since 1999, so I guess I should stop complaining about names - http://open.spotify.com/album/0MSxEoQJJkBCLLdf6sxzCC
Chelsea Grin do brutal symphonic technical headcrushcore - https://open.spotify.com/track/0IsUP9w5qgx4fPt9l11d8u
Graveshadow do beauty-and-the-beast mixed-vocal gothic symphonic metal - http://open.spotify.com/album/2s8G1PeaiiHA8JKZRDib3s
Escalane swap the symphonic middle of gothic symphonic metal out for some pop-punk surge - http://open.spotify.com/album/2Hdp7Sy10y551pSLK1rv1h
And Camaron Marvel Ochs is a perfectly tremendous name for what happened when a freak nuclear accident during the recording sessions for the Jewel/Dolly Parton duet resulted in them fusing into one, so if we all pretend she didn't decide to go by just Cam, maybe she won't - http://open.spotify.com/album/5KlzsMAsw5NujrJVQtjQAB

hey glenn, Purple is on spotify but for some reason not listed on the crow's nest. any idea why?

For some reason we have it as having been first available in August, so it got filtered out. This is obviously wrong, and I can't figure out where the date even came from. Will get it fixed.

New Particles, 2015-12-18
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/2eDKCXKrH2BTOfBad824Wa

Tau Cross - In which Rob Miller demonstrates that he's ready to carry on Lemmy's metal-vocal legacy.
June 1974 - Robot euphoria.
MOTHXR - Drifty, synthpoppy astral soul.
Kelsea Ballerini - Taylor? Doesn't ring any bells in this town, no.
TeraBrite - Hello from the pop-punk side.
楊凱琳 - Big Pop is thriving in Taiwan.
Secrets Of The Moon - Throaty, non-shrieky black doom.
Martriden - Gruff, soaring progressive death metal.
Cloak of Altering - Experimental scary metal noises and choking sounds.
Stielas Storhett - Russian experimental atmospheric black metal.
Sanzu - Perth Australian blast-grind.
Diiv - Chiming Brooklyn indie post-punk.
Primal Fear - Remember when metal sounded like Quiet Riot?
Serenity - Galloping prog-metal.
Cryonic Temple - Anthemic, mildly-cyber power-metal.
Ihsahn - Sprawling progressive-atmospheric-black-death-thrash-everything metal.
朱俐靜 - Taiwanese idol-pop with extra guitars? OK.
Modeselektor - Menacing atmospheric dance-proof post-step.
Laura Bono - Grand Italian arena-pop-rock.
Finley - Italian pop-rock Lego theme-music.
Elliphant - Hesitant, muttery indietronica.
Bucovina - Surging non-twiddly Romanian folk-metal.
Grimner - Surging non-non-twiddly Sweden viking folk-metal.

(part 2)

Carina Dahl - Mesmerizing Norwegian techno-dance-pop.
Baroness - This is the new state of the art in Hard Rock.
Rick Springfield - Still, in my opinion, one of the best pure pop songwriters alive.
Obscura - Technical death metal.
Exmortus - Shreddy-not-"technical" power/death metal.
Dan Bull - Languid non-Christmas Christmas grime.
NateWantsToBattle - Bouncy antiviral-pop-punk sort-of-Christmas anti-Christmas anthem.
CHVRCHES - Twitchy, plausible Goldroom remix of a song that didn't exactly have to be remixed.
East India Youth - Can Blanck Mass please handle all mixing of East India Youth songs from now on?
Dark The Suns - Propulsive, raspy gothic metal.
Leah Turner - Pealing country-pop power-balladry.
The Starting Line - Sturdy modern uplift.
Bocuma - 20-track "remix" album so mood-coherent that I suspect the remixers are imaginary.
Middlepicker - One of their several yearning old Minneapolis indie-punk records happily brought into the streaming era.
YOHIO - Sweden's best j-rock singer's 2014 album finally available elsewhere.
Opera Magna - Spanish symphonic hyper-power-metal.
The Dunwells - Quiet, emotive Leeds indie-folk-pop.
Varg - Epic pagan blast-metal.
vad fruttik - Dark, dense Hungarian rock.
Natasa Bekvalac - Portentous Servian turbo pop.
Modernistit - Jumpy Finnish indie rock.
Aikapommi - Ragged Finnish pop punk.
Rautalintu - Shouty Finnish punk rock.
Nelver - Russian ambient epicstep.
Rookiez Is Punkd - Terribly-named but fairly-great anthemic j-rock.

and my pick of the week:

Fesway - Elegant, intricate, arrestingly self-posessed Mexican atmospheric experimental indie-pop.

Beatles seem kinda noteworthy.

and new

i like the new linkable look glenn!

New Particles, 2015-12-25
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/2EaEgYFRl1THPs0KwpOlw8

FARRO - Springy, heroic arena-pop.
Bear Mountain - Fluttery Vancouver indie stomp-and-blip pop.
NateWantsToBattle - Minecraft-emo-core "Hello" cover.
TeraBrite - Crushcrunch pop-screamo Bieber cover.
Clare Dunn - Blaring country-rock shredding.
Samantha Crain - Heartbreaking, "1952 Vincent Black Lightning"-grade indie-folk storytelling.
ANOHNI - Clattery chamber-indie r&b-step collaboration between Antony Hegarty, Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never.
廖文強 - Expansive, earnest, guitar-lashed Taiwanese pop-rock.
Marnero - Italian progressive blackened punk.
Cotton Mather - Hyper-neo-trad power-pop.
Tokami - Soaring visual-kei dramatics.
Future World Music - The epicore musical-equivalent of a coffee-table book of stock landscape photography.
Ed Kuepper - Atmospheric haunted-folk abstract-poetic hymns.

Aedliga - And my own last frayed song for the year.

The images on the sorting hat and general cleanup is EXCELLENT!

Thanks!

New Particles, 2016-01-01
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/5c4Nv5XyD6VDEDBEiSGPgM

Rooxx - Swirling miniature electro-opera.
The Agonist - Churning/soaring progressive melodic death metal.
Oscar - Bastille with more of a Morrissey thing.
Ra Ra Riot - Bouyant, chirpy metropop.
Foxes - Halting, ethereal, fractured astral soul.
Yusuke Tsutsumi - Scorecore snap-crescendo.
Dioramic - Sharpened German alt-rock alt-post-metal.
Bright Light Bright Light - Stripped-down piano-voice versions of a lot of BLBL songs and Kate Bush's "Love and Anger".
Fabiola - Massive arena-pop-rock from a Guatemalan reality-show survivor.
Ephyra - Shimmery Russian synth-rock.
Wontolla - Progressive uplifting wobbletrancestep.
Sweetfire - Ringing hard-rock pop-punk.
Autumn Creatures - Twitchy, coruscating post-rock.
Ghosts of Pandora - Speed-bludgeoning thrashmetalcore.
We Have Castles - Grandly fluttery indietronic ping-pop.

New Particles, 2016-01-08
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/0cnRE1FBgUDPBLk77xLpWi

Some new, some catch-up...

Anaria - Punchy gothic rockish gothic metal.
Axxis - Bounding heavy power metal.
Lyriel - Gothic folk metal.
Weeping Silence - Gothic symphonic black metal.
Divine Ascension - Solid, crunchy progressive power metal.
Beach Slang - Glorious warmhearted old-Replacements-style punk rock.
Darlene Love - Jubillant neo-Motown pop-rock-soul.
Laura - I am now rooting for Estonia to win Eurovision.
The Sun - I mean, they did win it once before.
Cartoon - So it's not the craziest idea.
HOLYCHILD - Brash synth-rock dance-punk.
Hope Drone - Epicore post-rock black-post-metal.
Eight Bells - Splattery post-rock math-doom.
Dan Croll - Spiky satellite-transmission indie-pop.
Vaults - Twinkling, humming art-indie.
White Sea - Ambient-metropopolian actual-indie-movie soundtrack music.
Beseech - Dense, breathy, heavy shoegazecore.
Cloudscape - Epic power metalcore.
Shakira - If your idiotic animated-wisecracking-rodent movie comes with a new Shakira song, that's at least something.
Inverloch - Australian not-quite-funerial death-doom.
The Lion's Daughter - Howling St. Louis black-sludge misanthropy.
Sizzy Rocket - High-gloss dance-synth-pop.
Ylvis - A cappella a cappella parody (called "a capella").
Marit Larsen - Ringing Norwegian folk-pop.
Monica Naranjo - Epic, Spanish opera-crossover pop.
The Thermals - Thrashed, ragged, braying lo-fi catharsis.
Sunflower Bean - Airily twee NY nu-gaze indie-pop.
Cam - Spotify Session from my favorite new country singer.
Evans Blue - Menacing Canadian alt-rock.
Passion - Masterful, if evangelical, Christian progressive arena-rock.
Mayonnaise - Apparently I'd like the Foo Fighters more if they were Pinoy.
Danny Cocke - Relentlessly portentous epicore trailer music not (yet) from actual movies.
Exmortus - Cheerfully twiddly neo-thrash/power metal.

and my pick of the week, which I would have swapped in for Nightwish in my 2015 top 10 if I'd heard it in time:

Phantasma - Fantabulous hypermelodic neo-progressive concept-metal by Delain+Everon+Serenity members.

New Particles, 2016-01-15
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/1o203VtVTVnK7PXnYHd8HT

戴愛玲 - Shimmery Taiwanese arena-pop.
The Murder of My Sweet - Soaring pop gothic symphonic metal.
朱俐靜 - Ticking big-machine c-pop.
Wilde - Metropopolis swoon.
VHS Head - Compupunk.
張惠妹 - The 80s are alive and meticulously preserved in Taiwan.
Tanya Tagaq - Speaking in antimatter tongues.
Imperial Age - Heroic symphonic metal.
Basia Bulat - Chiming Canadian indie-folk-pop.
Tonight Alive - State-of-the-art high-gloss pop-punk.
Skunk Anansie - Remember rock bands?
Lucius - Swirly quirk-pop.
Shearwater - Shearwater is the greatest indie band in the world if their latest song is later than the Mountain Goats' latest.
Ed Tullett - Pixelated astral soul.
AURORA - Indietronic stomp-and-holler.
Santigold - Post-world arena-mixtape groove.
Catey Shaw - Pop-synth-funk strut.
Cardiknox - Serious retro-synthetic bounce.
Moenia - Even more-seriously-synthpop beep-pop.
Hello Seahorse! - If you aren't following Mexican indie, you're missing the "America" in North America.
Basement - Pop-punk neo-blur post-emo.
Bearings - Sparkly way-post-emo pop-punk.
Dressy Bessy - Post-twee punk-cultural art-rock.
Prince Rama - Whooshy dance-punk.
Elisa - Glorious Italian arena-pop.
The 69 Eyes - Glam-macho gothic rock.
Nina Nesbitt - Scottish/Swedish folk-pop singer goes full dance-pop.

(part 2)

Delain - Gothic pop-symphonic metal.
Triángulo de Amor Bizarro - Mexican popgaze.
Glint - There is a universe where Radiohead didn't go nihilist.
Primal Fear - There is a universe where we all walk around in armor.
LaFee - German arena-pop.
Escala - Epic electro-bow-pop.
Dr Peacock - Enyastep.
The Dunwells - Stomp and quaver.
Blossom - If Paramore was one too many Paramores for you, you probably don't want this, either.
Laura Mvula - Post-world plus Nile Rodgers.
Misun - Angular DC twee-punk.
Standing Egg - Korean indie-pop (not K-pop).
Ylona - I think they're gearing up for Eurovision in Finland, too.
Wintersleep - Dense, earnest Halifax indie-rock.
Bob Mould - Measured, pealing, Mould.
Varg - Folk-death.
Retropop - The best Finnish J-pop band I know.
Slutface - Norwegian chirp-punk.
Holy Esque - Hoarse Scottish cathartic guitar-indie.
Oscar - Sly, distantly post-new-wave Mancunian pop duet.
Ära Kra - German progressive black metal.
Bloodiest - Chicago post-rock/doom-metal.
Sweden - No, really, don't call your bouyant Norwegian power-pop band "Sweden".
Babe Rainbow - Vaporwave was a perfectly good idea.
Tribulation - Remix/demo epilogue to last year's many-poll-winning neo-trad metal album.
Khors - Remixed reissue of 2010 pagan black metal record.
Wyldr - Yearning big-sky indie-rock.
Odio París - Surging Spanish nu gaze.
Ани Лорак - Florid Russian dance-pop.
Belako - Echoey Spanish-indie synth-drum dance-rock.
School Of Seven Bells - Heartbreaking memorial dream-pop.

And the record of the year so far, obviously:

David Bowie - You hear my voice, but I was already gone.

new baaba maal too!

extremely into everything oscar has released so far

New Particles, 2016-01-22
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/3wHipKzkgtGttQMhuSSyv9

Alexx Mack - Do you want to be a pop star YES YES?
Ignea - Ukrainian progressive melodic symphonic metal.
Blackthorn - Epic symphonic Russian monumental black death epicness.
Anna Meredith - Abstruse, redemptive-repetitive experimental fugue-pop.
St. Lucia - Indietronic singalong uplift.
Primal Fear - Sinewy, reverent neo-trad HEAVY metal.
Sia - In her secret lab, Sia has finally succeded in cross-breeding "Chandelier" with "Firework".
Borknagar - Norwegian black folk metal without so much Norwegian, black or folk in it.
Abbath - Norwegian black metal with as much Norwegian and black as technically and posthumanly possible.
Ulver - What the world sounds like after Norwegian black metal scrambles your brain but doesn't kill you.
Anette Olzon - The good thing about having your desire to make Nightwish into a pop-metal band temporarily quashed is that it's easier to make a new pop-metal solo band than it is to make another Nightwish.
L'endeví - Gritty Spanish gothic not-so-symphonic metal.
JMR - Twitchy astral soul.
Eric Prydz - Progressive uplifting transformative melodic trance pop.
Kleidosty - EDM in which the D is Drift.
Margaret Berger - Beepy, melancholic dream-pop.
Marit Larsen - Rich, fragile folk-pop.
Monica Naranjo - Balletic opera-metal-pop.
Perturbazione - Big, twittery Italian indie-pop-rock.
Álfheimr - Icelandic-sounding Australian Norse mythological electro-abstractica.
Muncie Girls - Magnificently unglossy twee punk.
Caroline Kole - Can you be a former child star if you're still only 18?
Latitudes - Chewy, textural instrumental-post-rock surges.
Maj Karma - Dense Finnish dark rock.
Girugamesh - Florid, shouty J-kei-core.
Infernal Tenebra - Croatian progressive melodic death metal.
Renate - Not the Estonian dubstep-dance-pop singer, but sweet German pop-schlager is good, too.
Peoplemover - Swoony, fuzzy LA indie-pop.
Royal Tusk - Soaring Alberta indie guitar-rock. Apparently there was one "Royal ____" name left after all.
Sleeping At Last - Lullaby for the bearded.
Xuso Jones - Spanish viral-pop heartthrob.

(part 2)

Fjørt - Barky German semi-post-screamo.
Simon Patterson - Progressive uplifting epic giant-hook trance pop.
Hannah - Understated dreamy California indie band understating themselves a little too much by picking a nearly search-proof name.
Belako - Neo-UK-post-punk. But actually from Spain.
K. Michelle - Ultrasmooth trap&r&b.
Ayse Hatun Onal - Fluttery Turkish dance-pop.
Fallulah - Grand, swoopy metropop.
Timoteij - Airy Swedish synth-dance-pop.
Tender - Distracted, simmery, halting indietronica.
WTCHCRFT - Evasive post-vaporwave synth chatter.
Claudia De Breij - Twangy Dutch country-pop.
BiSH - It wasn't a genre with just BABYMETAL, but it definitely is now.
Daniel Haaksman - Spare, lilting post-world idiophonics.
Kianush - Stentorian German epicore/hip-hop.
Savages - Pummeling post-rock post-punk.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - A long song, but a short essay. There are many ways to be brave, but this is one.
Eric Prydz - Unhurried anthemic trance pop.
Eric Prydz - You only have to take a little trance out of the EDM to get back to New Wave.
La Ley - Earnest Chilean pop-rock.
Annika Aakjær - The Dutch Frida Sundemo?
Cheap Trick - Celebrate Hall of Fame induction with a song that could easily be a museum exhibit for "Rock and Roll Music".
The Jezabels - Measured, meditative Australian indie rock.
Rose Noire - Surreal Japanese crossover-as-evasion baroque chamber-metal.
麥振鴻 - Chinese TV-drama epicore.
Fruitcake - Too Much Joy as a British neo-post-punk band?

and my picks of the week:

Roly Porter - Ambient epicore universe-unbounding noise-catharsis.
John Cale - 34 years later, Cale confronts Music for a New Society and tries again.
Shearwater - The band from which I now retroactively re-survey the significance and extent of "indie rock".

Thanks, glenn. Annoying that almost nothing by Marit Larsen is available on Spotify here and her records have only ever been available on import. Not sure what she has got against the UK.

Margaret Berger bringing the potty mouth this time! Good song though.

New Particles, 2016-01-29
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/2uwsUGP5DaGUdTvDyaBayj

The Algorithm - Djentronica.
Best of Dream Catalogue, 2814-2815 - Vaporwave is neither imaginary nor dead.
Betablock3r - In 1988 this is what I bought 12" New Wave singles hoping to find on the back.
St. Lucia - This is the chvrch where we dance.
Sivik - Is it still a trap if you curl up cozily inside?
Avantasia - (Bat Out of Hell + Rage for Eden + Frozen) * power metal.
Primal Fear - Yes, somebody still makes Heavy Metal records.
Serenity - Power-metal show-tunes.
Amon Amarth - Leathery Viking-metal timelessness.
Dream Theater - The opposite of leathery, and at over 2 hours also nearly the opposite of timeless, this is basically Dream Theater's version of 2112 and Endless Forms Most Beautiful and maybe a few episodes of Star Wars. I'm going to at least try to listen to it.
School Of Seven Bells - Beautiful and heartbreaking and hopeful and beyond hope.
POP ETC - I'm surprised there aren't more bands trying to capitalize on AWOLNATION's formula.
Foxes - Big, Sia-ish epic pop.
Suuns - Fractured post-punk twang-math.
The Joy Formidable - Possibly there is now going to be blues-gaze.
Spektr - Cryptic distended distempered avant-garde corrosive-atmospheric black metal.
Sia - This is what Adele would sound like if she were afraid of people but not technology or anything else.
Anja Nissen - Danish-Australian Voice-winning Eurovision-aspirant.
Joba - Italian pop-rock sounding more Latin than usual.
The Old Wind - Strangled, staggering black doom.
Black Tusk - Hammering black thrash.
Marit Larsen - Chiming Norwegian indie-folk-pop.
Monica Naranjo - Spanish pop-opera concept-epic.
Tancred - Springy, neo-Blake-Babies-ish lo-fi jangle-punk.
Secret Stuff - Straining post-emo math-pop.
Brand X Music - Hypothetical theatrical.
The Crookes - Wiry, anxious Brit-indie guitar-rock.
Puppet - Wistful, yearning indie-pop shelled in game-core/cat-step body-armor.
Vinterblot - Pounding Italian pagan black/death metal.
The Sound Bee HD - Cybergothic visual kei.
Walking On Cars - Stompy Irish pop-rock like Little Green Cars imagining dragons.
SKIES - Beepy UK alt-synth-rock.
Dismissed - Gothenburg jazz-punk like a lost Joe Jackson glam era.
New Arcades - Retro-synth aurora-shimmer.
Sebastián Yepes - Ex-singer of Colombian Latin-rock band Sanalejo goes full arena-pop.
Raubtier - Stentorian, German-sounding Swedish industrial rock.
Turbostaat - Pungent German indie post-punk.
Gamze - Mech-shiny Turkish crossover dance-pop.
Пропаганда - Coy Russian t.A.T.u./Shampoo doll-pop trio (whose name translates as Propaganda, which isn't going to help anything).
Teksti-TV 666 - Bleary Finnish street-punk.

And my pick of the week:

Runrig - The 14th and likely final album by the greatest ever rock band from the Isle of Skye.

New Particles, 2016-02-05
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/7cSBs3L2JE7aFfsawA4CMR

Chthe'ilist - Totemic Montreal groaning-obelisk metal.
Marcin Przybyłowicz - Gripping Polish/Celtic folk-metal-epicore soundtrack from a video game I don't expect to ever play.
Fatherson - Scottish heartbroken grandeur.
Deftones - Genre-skimming pings across post-punk nu-gaze this time.
Amoral - Dense post-prog melodic death-metal.
Inverloch - Even denser funereal Australian doom.
Döria - Shiny, earnest Spanish heavy metal.
Erik Ekholm - Spectral metal-edged epicore.
Flor - Boundingly anthemic indietronic pop.
Blondfire - Galloping indie pop-rock.
Monakr - Burbling astral synth-pop EP expanding on last year's great "Diamonds".
Florio - Modern indietronic channeling of old disco-pop/freestyle energies.
Little Green Cars - Dark, welling Irish folk-pop.
Allie X - The alternate-universe synthpop Charli XCX.
Eric Prydz - EDM's simplified progressive electro-house further simplified, ingeniously, by hammering it into an old, misshaped rock-album mold without scraping some leftover Vangelis out of it first.
The Cult - Unexpectedly mature and confident modern melodic-post-punk guitar-rock from another band that could have given up decades ago.
Love of Lesbian - Alternately murky and sparkling Catalonian indie rock.
Anesthesia - Lucid, unhurried ambient-atmospheric post-post-rock.
Full Of Keys - Towering Swedish hyperpop.
Saxon - Deathless old-guard heavy metal.
Dilana - Blustery glam-rock squall.
Mass Gothic - Crisp, punchy, synth-dance-rock solo rebirth by the guy from Hooray for Earth.
Eagulls - The new Chamleons.
September Girls - Fraying, blurry Irish noise-pop.

(part 2)

Chase Rice - Scrape the twangy singing and the few stray bits of banjo off this totally undeniable country song and what's left could be pretty much anything.
Justin Chain - But refurbished garage-sale album-rock is cheaper and works just as well.
Obscura - Archetypal tempomorphing technical death-metal.
Fleshgod Apocalypse - Gothic industrial death-metal verging on epicore extravagance.
Maj Karma - Djent complexity multifolded back into dark blades.
Agonizer - Melodic Finnish semicore metal.
Violet Cold - Transcendental Azerbaijan experimental melodic post-black metal.
Hellberg - Elegant catstep-derived trance-pop.
Wontolla - Frantic, twitchy EDM-rock.
Yokozuna - Bracing Mexico City experimental noise-rock.
Prince Rama - Coruscating, lilting art-pop.
Lonely The Brave - Haunting, surging Brit-guitar-rock.
High Tides - Shiny, eager, math-nostalgic pop-emo.
Nina Nesbitt - Stark, glossy-duotoned Scottish-is-the-new-Swedish art-dance-pop.
Chelsea Effect - Measured, ominous transliteration of Adele-ish drama into muted Eurovision tones.
Shallou - Silky, murmuring indie-r&b-ish gauze-pop.
Marionette - Pagan post-black post-rock.
Marcus Warner - Jubillant, shimmery folk-epicore.
Sabina Ddumba - Poised, earnest, Tasmin-Archer-reminiscent pop-r&b.
The Animal In Me - Melanie Martinez's drifty "Soap" as shouty, crunchy pop-emo-punk.
Morphinist - Grindingly raw black cathartic metal not nearly as nihilistic as it pretends.
Ember Island - Elegiac Swedish atmopop.
Kashuks - Textural Latvian solo-producer's episodic ambient/post-rock/dubstep assembly.
Christian Reindl - Crashing trance/epicore pop.
Susanna - Norwegian experimental compositor goes This Mortal Coil.
Tombs - Progressive black metal pushing (or distending) into Boris-esque noise-rock.

Oh, and the long-awaited and painfully bittersweet reissue of one of the greatest cryptic power-pop albums of all time:

Game Theory - Lolita Nation.

Field Music - Commontime

Why "painfully bittersweet"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Miller_(pop_musician)

Listening now. Thanks for the rec. Although actually I started listening earlier due to tipsy mothra rave review elsewhere.

New Particles, 2016-02-12
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/5wyztAAXdfyXJI281cKYLb

TeraBrite - It doesn't even matter whose songs they're covering.
Little Jinder - Sparklyshimmering Swedish poptronica.
Kitten - Ringing, crashing widescreen giant-chorus pop.
Cardiknox - Brash, whirring-gear hyperpop.
Mint Julep - Pulsing, lyrical gauze-pop.
Pinkshinyultrablast - Either the first or second most self-explanatorily-named band in the world. It's them or Bolt Thrower.
Ihsahn - Symphonic Norwegian everything-metal.
Rotting Christ - This is what it sounds like when your forgotten monuments wake up and crush you.
Cirith Gorgor - Mordor hates tourists.
Germ - Roaring Australian blackgaze.
CHINAH - Stark, glassy vapor soul.
Maya Payne - Slow, defiant synth-pop cross between "Die Young" and "Fight Song".
nrwy - In addition the Seed Vault, they remember how to make big British indie guitar rock in Norway.
Electric City - Maybe there's a lion on the cover because they just like lions. Maybe he sings like that because he's just straining earnestly to hit the notes. Maybe there's a terrible "rap" in the middle of one of these over-earnest Hinder-like too-alt-to-be-actually-alternative song as a bit of self-deprecating irony. Or maybe this is a crowd-funded, cartoonishly stereotype-fulfilling Christian "hard"-rock band that I will be the only atheist to ever play, much less put on a playlist with a band called Love of Lesbian.
Love of Lesbian - Gruff, exuberant Spanish indie punk. I don't think they're singing about the inner glow of God's great love, but it's not like I actually translated the Spanish, so it's hard to claim it matters.
Río Roma - Glorious Mexican pop/trad boy-band duo.
Algora - Blocky, almost chip-tuned Madrid indie-pop.
Twin River - Vancouver jangle-gaze.
Mogwai - A couple slight, soundtracky ambient meditations.
Dear Jack - Magnificent Italian arena-pop-rock.
Chiara Dello Iacovo - Apparently in Italy even TV talent-shows are used to identify disconcertingly talented singer-songwriters.
Adiam - My favorite, as far as I know, Eritrean/Swedish singer returns sounding a little like FKA Twigs crossed with Rihanna.
Postiljonen - Dreamy Swedish synth-pop.
Nord & Syd - Portentous Swedish orch-pop.
Kerridge - Shaped, but relentless, but conscious, but abrasively unwelcoming pulsebeat noise-art.
Kid Antoine - Instrumental nightbus future-footwork post-grime sound-designer thing.
Omnium Gatherum - Blasting Finnish death metal. I'm still mad at myself for not overcoming jet-lag to go see the triple-um bill of Omnium Gatherum, Insomnium and Enisferum when I had the chance last year.
The Resistance - Swedish melodic-death-metal veterans re-group to take death metal back to an elemental near-hardcore intensity.

(part 2)

Sivik - Sultry indietronic r&b.
Beshken - 808s and pitch-shifters.
LANco - It's only a matter of time until Nashville finishes sneakily reconstructing pre-Zooropa with click-tracks and a slight twang and calling it "country music".
Exclusion - Chirpy trance-step.
Waylander - The new death-metal Motörhead.
Pity Sex - Somehow post-punk, post-Sarah and neo-shoegaze all at once.
sund4ra Karma - Interpol + The Killers. There are worse ideas.
Nothing but Thieves - Radiohead was once going to be a rock band.
Only Shadows - But you can always tell when a band is a ROCK BAND in their own hearts.
D=OUT - Stylistically-peripatetic visual-kei-as-avant-garde-metal.
9mm Parabellum Bullet - Similarly circus-bright nervous-energy j-rock.
The Mirraz - Quasi-industrial cartoon j-dance/rock even rainbow-stranger than the other two.
Journalism - Shimmery Brooklyn indie-post-rock.
Instinct - Rousing Slovak pop-rock. Such a terrible name-choice. Were there no Slovakian words left?
Sara - Also badly named: excellent Finnish retro-synthpop-ists.
Farewell Dear Ghost - Breathy, soaring Viennese indie-rock.
Alexi Lalas - Soccer commentator, never-surrender writer of mild-mannered power-pop songs.
The Bergamot - Painfully-Brooklyn artisanal husband-wife stomp-and-pourover duo.
Palestra - Creedence Clearwater Robotics.
Mia Dyson - Ragged Australian roots-punk.
Bunnydeth♥ - Cosmic gamecore weirdness.
Lacey Sturm - Former singer of Flyleaf. God likes guitars.
Steph - Germans also like guitars.
Michael Neil - Ambient epicore.
Takashi Suzuki - Ambient ambientcore.

and the album of the week, for me:

The Jezabels - Exciting indie band short-circuits normal developmental path and jumps straight to giant astonishing, unapologetic rock maybe-masterpiece.

PS: Aedliga, which is still me. Arguably even more me than usual.

New Particles, 2016-02-19
https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/4a9ZhN8yjg2fAj60QZaVla

Eliza Shaddad - Tense, moody, guitar-roar+ethereality anthemic anti-anthem.
Ehnahre - Black metal as avant-garde chamber music (and occasionally black metal).
Esmerine - Avant-garde chamber music as indie-pop.
Allie X - Regina Spektor via CHVRCHES.
Big Thief - Ragged, twee, thumpy, vaguely alt-country Brooklyn noise-dirge.
Delain - More teasers from the upcoming pop-gothic-symphonic-metal album.
Vök - Drifty Icelandic etherpop with faint wisps of Tears for Fears or something.
Sivik - Sinuous, constructedly-intimate indie-poptimist twitch-r&b.
Ra Ra Riot - Coy, florid synth-pop dance-punk.
Tacocat - Murky, defiant neo-riot-grrrl surge.
Wintersleep - Canadian indie-rock plus suprise Geddy Lee bass line.
Frightened Rabbit - Rock music as daylight's daily apology for whatever happened while it was away.
Todtgelichter - Abrasive, roiling German indie-post-rock.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - It's not always clear whether it makes sense to call this hip-hop or not, but as a socio-political, musically-illuminated podcast, M&RL is pretty interesting.
Kerli - Gorgeous Estonian ice-arena dubstep-balladry.
MUNA - Ticking, big-hearted, vocoder-lined indietronic pop.
New Arcades - Whooshy neo-synth-pop instrumental. With enough synth-drums who needs singing?
KOLAJ - LA chart-style non-chart pop is the new Brooklyn indie-folk.
Aluk Todolo - Deuterium drone-metal.
Illum Sphere - Robot goth.
FKA twigs - Spectral smoke-labyrinth architectural seduction.
Clark - Ambient future-bass texturalism.
Miss Caffeina - Echoey Spanish post-punk.
Postiljonen - Pingy astral Swedish synth-pop.
Stephen Wesley - Arena-sunset U2 reverie as lift-kit country-rock.
Tyler Dial - Slow-core melancholy as trucker-cap-removed country-rock earnestness.
Stam1na - Crushing Finnish progressive-metal/metalcore indecision.

(part 2)

Rick Springfield - Rick Springfield and Rod Stewart seem to be converging.
Inon Zur - Game-soundtrack Enya-isms.
Julien-K - Orgy-side-project neo-retro New Wave.
Prince Rama - Secular St. Vincent.
The Starting Line - Uncomplicated emo-pop guitar warmth.
All Tvvins - Indie r&b/pop with extra-boomy rhythm and basically no blues, which I'm starting to think is what "indie" means in the indie-r&b context.
Train To Spain - Reverent Gothenburg sequencer-and-drum-machine neo New Wave.
Västerbron - Fast melodic Swedish-bridge punk.
Felin - Punk as pop + art-school.
Red Mecca - Swedish atmospheric indietronica.
BTOB - K-pop boy-band goes epicore.
Bossk - Screamy, doomy, dreamy Kent post-metal.
Annika Aakjær - Arty Danish siren-aerie dreampop.
Tiemo Hauer - Patient, controlled German pop-rock.
Max Giesinger - German The-Voice-cultivated arena-pop.
Jarbird - Abstracted London astral soul.
NateWantsToBattle - Minecraft pop-punk.
amenoto - Lush j-post-rock-pop.
The Gospel Youth - Grand sing-along pop-punk.
The Magnettes - Coiled, elegiac Swedish synth-pop-punk.
Szabyest - Charming Hungarian emo-Bieber.
IKI - Avant-garde Nordic improvisational voice-ensemble.
Leila Capri - Bouyant, glittery independent-not-indie pop.
Bantug - Airy, reverberent Nashville dreampop.
Kostrok - Spanish DJ-rock duo.
Ті, що падають вгору - Entrancing Ukrainian acoustic-folk-metal.
Jim-E Stack - Björk via Blade Runner via dubstep.

I notice that Spotify posted an advertisement here for Rick Springfield back in December, but the ad link seems to have expired. Was that for the same album that Spotify is advertising in February? The ad copy is fairly different (pop genius vs. Rod Stewart, neither of which accurately describe Rick's new album) so I can't tell if it's a duplicate or not.

OK, what did I do to piss you off?

Also, looking back, my December mention was for Rick's song "Down" as an advance single, and that link still works for me. But it's on the album, too.

If you have some other way you would describe Rick's music, you could type it here, and then we'd be having a discussion about music!

Broken link for me. As long as I'm not missing anything...

Although I'm having fun imagining that Spotify would "advertise" by plugging Ukrainian semi-metal bands and TeraBrite covers on ILM. Thankfully my job at Spotify is not predicated on the commercial prescience of my personal musical tastes.

I don't mind advertisements, and I do in fact use and recommend Spotify to all of my friends as the product best suited for meeting their musical needs.

Glenn, while I'm never going to listen to either the Rick Springfield album or single and I have various issues with Spotify, I hope these dumb comments don't dissuade you from continuing with this thread. Every week you end up pointing me to something cool I wouldn't have noticed otherwise and I appreciate it a bunch.

Everything on this thread (which I didn't start) is an "advertisement" by loose definition, I guess. But my posts here are no more "by Spotify" than anybody else's.

Not only do I enjoy this thread (except when it posts dead links to artists I like) but I hope that other Spotify employees might be encouraged to join in as well, as I think the thread could only benefit by more input from Spotify employees. I often hope that Spotify will introduce a feature by which its employees can recommend great new music to Spotify subscribers directly via Spotify, but until that day comes this thread seems like the next best thing.

Although, now that I think of it, doesn't Spotify have some sort of automated process by which they can check the songs I listen to and use some sort of data analysis to suggest the best songs for me?

Yes. For you it suggests this: https://open.spotify.com/album/2JB8eHnU3NbQEHp9NDjKL6

I didn't look yet, but it had better be The Lovely Eggs.

And I am in fact kind of interested in how the recommendations here differ from the automatically generated ones in Spotify, which are supposedly individually tailored. Is this just a thread of personal preferences (in which case it should really be retitled "glenn mcdonald's favorite new albums that are available on Spotify" or is it a curated list by Spotify, or what? The thread title is "New and Noteworthy on Spotify." I'm kind of curious as to what this thread really contains. And also, if Spotify isn't providing the same info, why not? And if it is, what's the direct link? I guess the operative question is: we have a thread that's essentially a fairly prominent Spotify employee providing weekly links to Spotify streams of music that is supposed to be new and noteworthy. Why is it here, and not on Spotify itself? And along those lines, since we assume that even within ILM there's an unmanageably wide variety of musical taste, who is this new and noteworthy for and why isn't it being generated on an individual basis by Spotify?

And yes, I know glenn vaguely and vice/versa, and literally the only thing I hold against him is a certain Zeppet Store album that I foolishly bought years and years ago, and for that I can really only blame myself.

I didn't create the thread, and it doesn't have any elaborate stated philosophy beyond its title. The things I post are just my own personal lists, they are not produced or endorsed by Spotify and have nothing to do with any Spotify recommendation function*. Anybody is welcome to contribute their own finds and recommendations, and I wish more people would.

*Except that I happen to work on personalized recommendations and new-release categorization at Spotify, so sometimes I know about particular individual things because my tools found them for me.

I think we agree that more people should contribute here. I have enjoyed threads based on one person's preferences before (Bimble, etc.) but they've always been identified as such. This one is definitely a strange case...

I -did- create the thread and i am deeply pleased glenn is using it for the purpose it was intended: to share stuff he likes.