I'm really struggling with reasons to stay with Spotify. Yes, I've known for ages that they treat their artists poorly with low, unsustainable payouts but I was able to ignore that, or to rationalize it away. "Sure, that sucks and I wish it were different, but that's something for the artists and the platform to work out amongst themselves." Also, everyone else is getting all this content for next to nothing, why shouldn't I?

People have complained about how Spotify selects the artists it promotes in playlists, but I have never relied on Spotify playlists for new music recommendations. Okay, except maybe for the "Release Radar," which is but one of several sources I monitor for new releases. I've always created my own playlists and curate them to my own personal interests and satisfaction.   

But the more you learn, the worse it gets. Spotify apparently uses a pro-rate system to pay artists based on the "market share" of total streams rather than a fixed price per stream, leading to some very low payments for many artists. Worse, there are allegations that bots have been used to inflate the number of listens for popular artists, padding their payout while diluting the payments to others. 

Then there's the use of AI generated music in playlists to create product for which Spotify doesn't have to pay anyone, and some artists even claim that AI generated tracks have appeared on Spotify under their names, although they had nothing to do with creating the music and don't receive any money.     

As if all that weren't bad enough, Spotify's CEO has reportedly invested the company's profits in developing AI for military applications, so that the money getting diverted away from the musicians is being used to fund the global military complex. 

A lot of artists that I like but frankly don't listen to all that much have pulled their music off of Spotify, such as King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Sylvan Esso, Deerhoof, and Xiu Xiu.

I could live with that, but some of my absolute favorite artists have moved off the platform too, including The Necks, Thor Harris, Jim O'Rourke, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. And today I learned that John Zorn has removed the entire massive Tzadik catalogue, which he had only put up there just a few years ago (2022?). Notice that the "play" buttons don't work anymore on the post just below this one.  

Do I really want to subscribe to a platform that treats its talent like shit and uses its profits in ways I find morally abhorrent, but also that doesn't even have some of my absolute favorite artists anymore? 

When put like that, it sounds like an easy, slam-dunk decision, but there's still a lot of music on there that I do like, and it's one of the easiest and most reliable ways for checking out new recordings and new musicians I haven't yet heard. And at only around $10 per month, it's still a relative bargain. I've had my cursor hovering over the "End Subscription" button several times already, but every time I back away without cancelling.

For whatever it's worth, I also enjoy exploring and listening to new music on NTS radio, and I can always use YouTube and Bandcamp to check out new releases or access other streaming services. I have about 850 MBs of digital music stored on an external hard drive and have a literal closet full of more CDs than I could possibly listen to in a lifetime, including both store-bought discs I've been accumulating since 1990, as well as tracks I've burned from sources like Napster and UseNet which are even more ethically questionable than Spotify.

To help goad me ointo leaving, today I purchased the brilliant three-disc, three-hour-long new album, Disquiet, by the long-running Australian band, The Necks, through Bandcamp. It cost $20, cheaper than three separate CDs although still more than whatever micro-fraction of my monthly Spotify bill it would have been, but I have the added satisfaction of knowing that I'm financially supporting the artists. 

And not funding the AI war machine.

Nocturnes

In April 2019, bassist Trevor Dunn released the LP, Nocturnes, which included Six Nocturnes, which he described as "an early piece from 1989 for bass and string quartet, and a dynamic trio for piano, violin, and bass featuring the remarkable Carla Kihlstedt and Vicky Chow."

This month, John Zorn released his Nocturnes, eight compositions performed by Brian Marsella on piano, with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Chas Smith. 

Two suites of piano nocturnes by two different but associated artists released on the same label.

Tim Berne

Here's a randomly selected video of a performance by Tim Berne because why not? FYI, that's Gregg Belisle-Chi on guitar, Ralph Alessi on trumpet, Trevor Dunn on bass, and Tim Angulo on the drums. 

New Music Friday

And here, if you wanted it or not, is my list of notable new music released last Friday, October 17:

Anna von Hausswolff - Struggle with the Beast (single, with Stardust, Facing Atlas, and The Whole Woman)  

John Zorn - Nocturnes (Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder, and Ches Smith)

Animal Collective - FEELSLive 04/05 and Feels (20th Anniversary)

Evan Ziporyn & ContaQt - Art Decade 

sunn 0))) - Eternity's Pillars (single, with Raise the Chalice and Reverential) 

bar italia - Some Like It Hot  

Sam Wilkes - Public Records Performance 

Clarice Jensen - In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness 

Jakob Bro, Wadada Leo Smith & Marcus Gilmore - Murasaki 

If you've not heard of all these artists, I encourage you to check them out - I'm sure you'll find something you'll dislike. 

It took three weeks but it finally happened - I had my first Big Ears "oh my god, this musician is fantastic - where have they been all my life?" discovery moment of 2025. 

Lubomyr Melnyk is a Ukranian composer and pianist noted for his continuous-music piano technique featuring extremely rapid notes and complex note-series, usually with the sustain pedal held down to generate harmonic overtones and sympathetic resonances.  "This is a completely different piano universe from everything that has existed before," according to Melnyk.

He will be appearing at Big Ears 2026 and it was so easy to overlook his name in the lineup announcements. But when I finally got around to listening to him, omg, it really was a completely different piano universe from everything that had existed before. 

While he doesn't employ minimalism techniques in his compositions, his music will undoubtedly appeal to fans of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and most especially Terry Riley. His presence at Big Ears 2026 will fit right in with fellow 2026 performers Charlemagne Palestine and Hania Rani. 

I can't wait to see all of them at Big Ears next year. 

New Music Friday

I thought it was me and my oddball left-field tastes, but it seems like New Music Fridays have had pretty few offerings as of late. Maybe it's a seasonal thing - music companies don't want to release albums in late summer and were waiting for the back-to-school month of September to drop new music. Or maybe it's just that no one produces the kind of music I like anymore.

Well, here we are on the second Friday of September, and great googly moogly, just look at all these great new jazz, rock, ambient, and experimental releases:

• Dave Douglas - Alloy
• Rafiq Bhatia - Environments
• Tomas Fujiwara - Dream Up
• John Foxx - Wherever You Are
• Fruit Bats - Baby Man
• Guerilla Toss - You're Weird Now
• Brad Mehldau - Ride Into the Sun
• Jens Lekman - Songs for Other People's Weddings
• Maruja - Pain to Power
• Kara-Lis Coverdale - A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever
• Oren Ambarchi & Fredrik Rasten -- Dragon's Return
• Nurse with Wound - Healsgebedda Budgerigar  

That's more today than in the last month combined!

Of course, yes, I've prepared a playlist of these new releases, as well as other new shit going back to last June for your review and listening pleasure. Enjoy!

Big Ears 2026

As celebrated over on the main site, the Big Ears festival has released its 2026 lineup. Best Big Ears lineup ever? Best festival lineup ever, any genre, any century, ever in the history of music? 

God, I love hyperbole.

I've already bought my big-bucks, VIP Sonic Explorer four-day, all-access pass, and already have my four-day downtown hotel reservation secured and paid for. Next March, all that I'll need to pay for is the gas to get up there and food during my stay, and of course, a beer or two at Clancy's. 

  

Many people are understandably excited about David Byrne and others are pinching themselves over the possibility of seeing Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant. We're all excited about seeing John Zorn return. All are worthy additions to the lineup. but I encourage those of you who like diverse forms of music to not sleep on Brain Marsella's aptly named Imaginarium. 

Their album, Medietas, was a major, three-CD odyssey through musical history, sounding at times like various forms of jazz, at times like blues and rock, at times like some forgotten movie soundtrack, and at times like some Frank Zappa fever dream. In ways, this one set could summarize all of the diverse musical programming at the Big Ears festival. I hope the festival allots him more than the standard 60 minutes to perform this three-hour long opus, although I'll gladly take whatever they can offer.

I made a Spotify playlist of the most recent or the most representative album by each and every Big Ears 2026 performer. The playlist is over 120 hours long and contains over 1,500 tracks. Yesterday, I took a ten-mile hike through the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area listening to the playlist on random shuffle through Bluetooth headphones. It was a blissful and at times transcendental experience and I look forward to taking that trip again. You doing anything tomorrow?