new (old) favourite formats of music & music discovery

cassettes

since quitting streaming platforms a year ago i've been a little stuck with not knowing where to access music from, i've recently fell into a format that i really love - analog cassettes. To seasoned music listeners this format might be really annoying since the audio quality of affordable cassette players aren't great, but I've learnt to listen past the audio technicalities and focus on the music that has been recorded. It feels great to put a physical media and press on a button, seeing the tape wheels move and the cellophane tapes run. Robert Hassan in his book Analog talks about this and explains why we feel more connected to analog technology like vinyl players, old radios than digital screens and streaming.

and because cassettes literally feel like mini zines to me except that when i'm buying them, i don't really know what music i'm going to get out of them until i head home and play them. i also love the idea that there aren't cue points in my player so i have to listen through the whole album without skipping a beat to find a song - it makes me discover so many things about how music was recorded before streaming and also little tasteful things about music writers and artists

new ways to discover

i've chanced upon a independent music discovery website that was built in the form of virtual geography - zigzag.com

it's a really interesting way to discover music as by artists all around the world - there are so many genres this platform includes and the way its filters work are in a way where we are forced to unlearn how we used to discover new music (scrolling through algorithmic playlists); there are no recommendations except for when users are able to favorite certain music and others can view what someone has just favorited. it's almost literally a sea of music and i love it - i've found so much music across the world from all sorts of artists and cultures