Known Unknowns #4 - October 2024

A monthly playlist generated almost entirely by you, filled with all of the most criminally underrated artists.

Wanna skip my usual introductory ramblings and head straight to the playlist? No worries - just click here.

Part of the pleasure of running New Bands for Old Heads is putting a shine on talented, smaller artists.

Actually, I get the sense that many people think that’s all I do — trawl through the darkest recesses of the internet and maybe creepily loiter outside of college quads waiting to hear groups of three to five youths agree to form a band.

Not so! I am relatively agnostic to fame when it comes to my actual music listening.

I know there’s a strong contingent in the music writing community here who actively avoid popular music, and I may address that in some depth in a future post, but for now I’ll just say I’m not one of those people.

If I focus on smaller, unknown artists in my recommendations, it’s typically because I assume you don’t need me to recommend the famous acts to you. After all, you’ve probably already heard of them. So it’s true, I generally do stick to smaller bands. But it’s not a hard and fast rule.

This monthly playlist is a little more targeted than that.

Known Unknowns is meant to do three things:

1. Allow you, the reader to recommend your favorites for a change, because that opens up a whole new world of music for all of us;

2. Specifically limit those recommendations to small artists, generally those with fewer than 20,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and

3. Generate a playlist of those recommendations — you’ll always find a playlist of the artists you shared in the comments of last month’s post at the end of this month’s. Handy, right?

I keep toying with the idea of killing off this feature, to be honest, but every month my comments fill up with so much gold, that I can’t quite bring myself to do it.¹

In fact, there were so many recommendations on September’s Known Unknowns Playlist that the resulting playlist this month is made up entirely of reader suggestions, and didn’t need any of my usual added assistance.

What’s even cooler is that you guys were all clearly feeling the fall mood — I love when these playlists end up having an unintentional theme, and while I wouldn’t say there’s an overarching genre here, I am definitely feeling an autumnal vibe throughout.

As ever, I’ll give you a sneak peek into a few of my favorite tracks so you know what to expect before linking the full playlist.

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The Preview

1. Libertree

Imagine early ‘90s trip hop with a foundation of soul and R&B, but a little bit haunted, and you’ll start get a sense of Libertree.

2. Charity Kiss

If Alice in Chains played garage rock instead of grunge.

3. Aluminum

It’s shoegaze in that wall-of-sound way, but there’s so much chaotic energy here.

4. Little Low

Earnest, early 2000s-inspired pop punk/emo.

5. Babi

The kind of music I imagine plays inside a synesthete’s dollhouse.

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The Playlist

Here’s the entire playlist. Please enjoy, leave your new small artist recommendations below (any genre, please), and if I didn’t include your suggestion, remember to plug it again next month!

Also on: Tidal, Apple, YouTube, Amazon

1. Not yet, anyway.