Episodes

This is the last new music episode before the end of year roundup, don't be sad. New releases are slowing to a trickle, best of year lists start coming out around Thanksgiving or just afterwards. This year my best of 2025 record list has 38 releases on it, which is historically high. As you may not know from my podcast commentary I'm a finicky mofo, my definition of a best record of the year involves the record being good, having some meaning and nutritional value to it, and music that bears re...

I freeball my podcast commentary and use these intro blurbs to correct things I wish I hadn't said. Towards the end of the second excerpt by feeo I say something like 'it's the best of what I heard' when I was trying to say that the opening track of that record was the best tune I heard on that record, not the best tune of this episode. On to the show where the same thing always happens: 6-7 bangers, 13 minutes, appreciating what musicians do, how they do it, listening together and learning abo...

I was short tunes for this episode so I went a diggin' in the interwebz and found mucho bangers! The more active you are as a listener (and as a person) the more great music you will have in your life. Of course, listening to The Magic Organ is a music hack to get there faster, but you should always listen for yourself. As usual we do the multi genre thing kicking off with some funky electronic, into some American/Ethiopian folk-jazz; hard to put a label on it, some wild ass metal, hip hop etc....

The Magic Organ doesn't ask for a lot of your time, the Magic Organ respects your time limits and we only ask for about 13 minutes of your attention every 10 days to 2 weeks. It's not a lot. Look at that bowling ball head Joe Rogan mofo, three hours a day, JFC! We usually throw up 6 excerpts from new releases, with commentary and celebration. We only put up a little over 2 minutes of a track, we never use a whole track, we're only offering snippets as part of fair use definitions to avoid copyr...

Hello America and fuq you to a giant chunk of you for your blind adherence to the status quo, we are an acquired taste here at The Magic Organ. This week's episode kicks off with an ambient banger from Abul Mogard, goes funky after that, goes punky after that, goes rootsy after that, goes heavy after that, and goes chill for the last track. Do you have any idea how much music I listen to? A lot, a lot of music, new and old. There is very little variation from episode to episode, the subject is ...

It has been a garbage can summer for pop music and mainstream hip hop, and while those are the most money making sectors of the recorded music business, there is plenty of action from other parts of our culture that is worthy of Song of the Summer status. That is what The Magic Organ is all about, pushing up quality regardless of commercial domination, fuq the music business. Song of the Summer can qualify as such for many different reasons, at least here at The Magic Organ it works that way. I...

It was a struggle but there will be a Best Songs of the Summer episode next week heads up on that, but not this week. This week is just more dancefloor bangers, weird ass indie music, and a rare pop track kicking off the episode that I actually think is pretty great. Circling back one has to wonder with the absence of a clear song of the summer and what I see as some more quality indie rock and left field hip hop hitting the earholes out there whether we are in the midst of some sort of cultural...

First off the mistakes. I try to use the mistakes I make during the spieling of an episode to give that musical outfit more space. In this episode I mistakenly said that Kin'Gongolo Kiniata is from Kenya (you know, all the Ks) when they hail from the Congo. The Congo and its people (often under slave labor type circumstances) power your phones with minerals and they provided the uranium for Uncle Sam to drop atomic bombs on Japan. Weird. Don't miss out on the documentary Soundtrack for a Coup D'...

Episode 107! Another slamming best of 2025 thus far episode celebrating the deluge of new music from the first half of this year. No need to listen to the new Miley Cyrus biscuit, or the Lorde snoozefest, or the narcissistic Kesha record, nevermind the latest Justin Bieber tragedy (oh how low can the IQ go? pretty low, apparently). There is so much shit to listen to. I mighta have gotten the band name and the song title backwards in the case of the fifth excerpt. The outfit is Bejuco, the album...

So much new music is released over the course of a year and because it is a constant struggle to push the super high quality music that has little to no marketing budget it makes perfect sense to do a best of 2025 thus far this year episode. With another one on the way pronto. As a listener across almost all of the genres I can say that 2025 has been super fruitful, a landslide of new music that I hope continues. The year end lists tend to be lopsided in favor of releases from the second half o...

Halfway through 2025, gotta couple of best of 2025 episodes coming out in the next two weeks, it's been a smoking year for new music, my best of year list candidates are many and they are righteous. This episode sports a pair of cumbia tracks and a pair of darker electronic tracks, hence the name the hard shit and the party shit. A lot of folks will get down with dancefloor banger electro but the more abstract electronic can be very satisfying to listen to as well. We do have some dancefloor ba...

Let's have our own parade and not one based on domination, violence and killing. The Magic Organ freak parade has variety, features people from all over the world, and values their cultures and contributions to humanity without collapsing into New Age bullshit. We do all the musics and it will get rough. We kick things off with a collaboration between a Romani Balkan brass band and a Canadian guitarist, things get shaggy with a spicy hip hop track called Roof Roof, heads into some Brazilian jaz...

2025 has already been a banner year for new music, at least as far as I'm concerned, and we're not even at the halfway point. As I'm one of the only music critics listening to all the musics, I speak with knowledge that the continent of Africa, closely followed by Central and South America are the drivers of great music right now. It's a sad time for rock music and by default white people who make and listen to rock music. If you want white music I would refer you to heavy metal which works for ...

What makes people open their minds? Why are so many folks locked in to very definite categories/liefstyles that all come with their own soundtracks? These are the questions that I think about. For some folks it is a question of money but for a lot of folks it's something else cuz with streaming stores providing the immediate access to every small record I've suggested in the 100+ episodes of the Magic Organ it's not there aren't bangers out there, it's bangers galore. Could it be my picks aren'...

First off a coupla housekeeping items. I mentioned the song tile, Comet of End Times (track 4), but not the band, the band is Sarcator and it's a really good metal record and folks should check it. Secondly, Kombilesa Mi (track 6 excerpt) is from Palenque and they perform in Spanish and their indigenous Palenque language called Palenquero, a blend of Spanish, African languages, and other European languages. Yes, I googled that. Otherwise, 2025 continues to be a banner for new music thus far as ...

Episode 100! I will not spoil the incredible insights gathered during the effort expended to make 100 new music podcasts focusing on all genres of music. Needless to say the umbrella. under which all these conclusions fall involves the idea that this is absolutely a golden age of recorded music, there is so much great new music to listen to and powerful cultural and economic factors limit the number of people who reach the same conclusion. Of course, if you are reading this podcast blurb and yo...

New music thus far in 2025 has been crazy great. A great record is one that bears repeated listens, is interesting and creative in a unique way, and makes you feel something emotionally. Making people feel something through music is not as easy as it may sound. In a normal year I listen to well over 1,000 excerpts from new recordings and find maybe 20-25 recordings that fit my definition of a best of year recording. You can laugh at me for my nerdy approach to online new music scavenging but I ...

Need a little escape from dystopia? Hey, why not try some new music? Episode 98 consists of pieces of six tracks, opening up with a slyly psych cumbia track and closing out with an outer space ambient maybe improvised electronic. And in between the space sandwich is some British hip hop (love/hate!), a tune from Santrofi which blends Ghanaian highlife with funk and other influences, a rock track with an interesting arrangement and some old school Cuban music. You best check it out before anybo...

There are many awful things about the open American #fascism now culminating in the chaotic reign of President Orange Ballbag. Make no mistake this bullshit has been slowly growing for decades now. The cultural impact of maximum corporate power pushes people into survival mode where there's no time, energy or money to think, relax, explore, maybe even check out new music, poetry, be quiet by themselves and be human. It's fucking shameful. If you're listening thanks for listening. Excerpts fro...

In the first 4-5 weeks of 2025 I have found 4 albums certified banging accoring to the Magic Organ banging system, and we kickoff the episode today with a track from one of them. It is a collaboration between a Peruvian artist and an African guitarist and it's upbeat and joyous and it slaps. During the second track I might have used the word 'crock' instead of rawk. I meant rawk as in rock music. Otherwise it's more of the 13 minute new music podcast for your earholes. Otherwise, thanks for li...

The internet's most fiery 13 minute new music podcast returns with our first sure to make the best of year list, Vaodou Game's new record FINTOU. Their previous efforts are over the top funky and partyistic, pumped beyond belief but this one has slowed down the tempo, added some accordion and guest singers and I think it's a certified bag of bangers as there's more depth to what they're doing here. Plenty of funk is still on offer after these changes, check it out. Not to say that the other tra...

I spend most of January sifting through best of the year before music lists -- Pitchfork, bandcamp, other lifestyle outlets. The NY Times, no I don't take their music criticism seriously at all, blech. I am looking for records that I may have missed and there aren't many, just going up and down the Pitchfork top 50 I had listened to 30+ of the records they recommend. I think the most interesting track on this episode is the track from Still House Plants. It works as rock due to its reluctance t...

If you were to define the greatness of a music writer/podcaster as how closely their recommended picks line up with other music writers/podcasters, then I would most definitely be a shit ass music critic. If one were to have half a brain and define the greatness of a music writer/podcaster as working across as many genres as there are and the independence to pick music based on its quality and not on its marketability, well then I would be up there if not at the top of the pile. Happy 2025! Th...

Here we are just before the holidays and the digital town square is flooded with best of lists for music, films and books. Some of my choices occasionally pop up on a list but there are many that are unique to The Magic Organ. The Magic Organ is a music loving podcast, it is not a music pimping/PR podcast. Going against the grain, focusing on the actual music and not giving a flying fuq about brat summer and whatever other stupid identity nonsense is sprinkled all over listeners to make corpora...