Camy’s Guide To Discovering New Music
An occasional DJ's guide to entry level hyper fixating on music.
Hello There! I’m Carlos, also known as Camy, and this is my Pirate Blog. Why Pirate? It’s a reference to Pirate Radio. In this blog, I’ll be yapping about music, app development and whatever else floats my boat.
In this very first chapter of my Substack adventure, I want to talk about something very dear to my heart. How I actually find and discover new music. As an occasional radio host, I’ve thought about this more than most people probably should. This is actually a trimmed down and more approachable collection of ideas, believe it or not.
Gnoosic
I don’t actually use Gnoosic, but I think it’s a pretty cool idea and it eventually influenced how I built Setto (more on that later). The concept is simple. You tell the website a few artists you enjoy and it recommends similar ones you’re likely to vibe to. It’s pretty bare bones and minimal, but I think that’s charming in an era of algorithmic consumption. Like a super minimal music magazine that’s also personalized.
YouTube (In an Oddly Specific Way)
Don’t use your main YouTube account for music discovery. Make a second, curated account and let its algorithm develop purely around music.
I fell into this because I have a music production account where I release stuff, separate from my personal account. Over time, I noticed that since my music account is purely focused on DJ sets and playlists, the algorithm just got better. Meanwhile, my personal account’s algorithm is optimized for general consumption watch time and I can’t resist a good London Transit System video. (Fun fact, the word “metro” comes from the Metropolitan Line in the London Underground, which was the first subway. Shout out to Jago Hazzard.)
When the algorithm only has music to work with, it actually becomes a surprisingly good DJ. Since it has nothing else to hyper fixate on aside from generating banger music taste.
In case you’re curious about my aspiring high school music adventure, check out mugenrad.
I’m pretty sure my music is no longer there since DistroKid got too expensive, but my AMVs and playlists survived. Which is a perfect segue to the next section.
Community (Internet) Radio
Allegedly, video killed the radio star. However, I’m still alive and well, so that’s clearly a lie. Unless I’m not a radio star, in which case I’ll be very sad.
Over the past few years, I’ve DJed on BFF.fm, Leeds Student Radio and KJHK. All of these stations have some really lovely DJs who love music and spend an incredible amount of time curating their sets and track lists. If you’re a careful listener who wants depth over convenience, and a human touch then this is the method for you, my dear reader.
The only challenge with internet radio is that it’s a hard platform to explore. Listeners tend to already be part of the community, hence the term “community radio.” Organic discovery is tough unless you’re already in the know.
Although, once you’re in, you start noticing overlap. A DJ’s friend of a friend leads you somewhere new, if you pay attention. YouTube, SoundCloud and each station’s respective website are solid starting points.
I discovered Rinse FM through Kyle’s appearance on the My Analogue Journal YouTube, and the whole friend of a friend thing applies perfectly here. As MAJ, has a lot of guests playing vinyl, like a lot.
Same story with yunji and Seoul Community Radio, which actually has a fascinating origin story involving Itaewon and the London radio community. I might write a proper article on that one day.
Something really cool about community radio stations is that they’re usually open to the public and full of all sorts of trinkets. BFF.fm has an entire arcade with artwork from visiting Japanese artists. It’s at the Secret Alley in SF.
Same thing with SCR, I didn’t get to visit them when I was in Korea, but it’s top of my list for next time. And they’re open to the public on Thursday through Sunday.
Kyle X MAJ
Kyle’s YouTube
Yunji x Seoul Community Radio
My favorite Yunji mix is actually the “t𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐬 — 𝐨𝐥𝐝 & 𝐧𝐞𝐰 ·*₊ DJ set (jungle/dub/break)”
The Future of My Personal Music Discovery
In the introduction, I mentioned that I’m an app developer (I’ve got bills to pay, love), and recently I poured my music discovery frustrations into an app called Setto. Think of it as Tinder for music discovery. You start with a Gnoosic like setup, give it a couple of artists you like, but then it actually plays the music. The cool part is that you swipe left and right on songs to like or dislike them, and over time, the DJ adapts to your vibe.
What makes Setto different from just another recommendation engine is that it’s a conscious app. It isn’t designed to trap you in an infinite scroll. There’s no account to create, no data leaving your phone, and the AI runs entirely on device. It’s a bit like the old Spotify Stations or Pandora, but built for Apple Music and with a lot more going on under the hood from a math and ML perspective.
The most interesting part of building it was discovering that Spotify and other large companies share their recommendation research publicly at ACM conferences like RecSys. So if you’re curious, you can literally learn how your algorithm works and potentially guide it in the right direction.
If you have questions about Setto, music discovery, internet radio or anything in between, I’d love to hear from you.
Setto: AI DJ — Swipe-Based Music Discovery for Apple Music
In case I don’t see you again, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight.
A good album for your next adventure is Stoned Pirates Radio. It’s a really good cover / concept album by the Japanese Death Jazz band Soil & Pimp Session. Its setting is a radio show set in the year 2036.