Three Artists and One Genre to Keep Your Ears Open to New Music

Most people stop exploring new music around 30. If you want to be the exception, please check out Thalia Zedek, Jason Molina, DJ Koze and South African amapiano.

"Jason Molina (Magnolia Electric Co.)" by djenvert is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

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Also, please note that today’s column discusses alternative music with adult themes. Some of the lyrics might contain profanities. The music (and the videos) might not be suitable for small children or an office setting.

Research shows that the peak age for discovering to new music is around 24. Luckily for me, 1994, when I was 24, was the year that Massive Attack released the excellent album Protection! Why not just stop exploring new music?

Most people tend to stop listening to new music around the age of 30; and old music makes up a good 70% of the US music market in the streaming age. Of course, this is a general trend not a foregone conclusion. If you want to keep your ears open, you can easily train yourself do it.

I have been exploring new music with a group of mates for many years; and have come to appreciate many songs, albums, artists and styles since I turned 30 in 2000. If you want to join me on this journey, here are three artists and one genre that you might have flown under your radar.

Thalia Zedek Band

Thalia Zedek has been a singer and guitarist with noisy punk and hardcore bands, including Uzi, Live Skull and Come, since the late 1970s. None of them ever had any commercial success whatsoever, even though she has always sought ways of channeling powerful emotions within the noise.

Early in the 21st century, Zedek formed her own group, the Thalia Zedek Band, which has released seven studio albums on underground label Thrill Jockey. Her music is one of contrasts. She is clearly in the hardcore tradition, but the noisy guitars are often low in the mix and tempered by the raw emotions of the blues.

For most of this time, the band included a cellist - an unusual choice in indie music, despite the precedents of John Cale’s electric viola on the first two Velvet Underground albums, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) and White Heat/White Light (1968); or the cello on some of the tracks on Nirvana’s masterwork MTV Unplugged in New York (1994)**. The sweeping strings provide a moving contrast with Zedek’s gritty and battle-hardened voice.

Although the band remains untroubled by chart success, Zedek’s music is utterly compelling to my ears. It is raw, powerful, and troubled. You can listen to the albums many times without ever getting to the bottom of the music. My personal favourite is Trust Not in Those Without Some Touch of Madness (2004), which is named after a surprisingly deep message in a fortune cookie. The album is dedicated to a former girlfriend of Zedek’s, who had died a couple of years previously.

Zedek’s first solo album, Been Here and Gone (2001), is also excellent, although - honestly - you should go out and listen to all seven! If you want one song to ease your way in, you should start with her cover of Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me to the End of Love from Been Here and Gone. Expect goosebumps!

If you want to dig deeper into noisy music that connects emotionally, I would suggest going back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. Check out albums like Daydream Nation (1988) by Sonic Youth or Loveless (1991) by My Bloody Valentine (MBV), for example. MBV pioneered a genre called dream pop. For a more contemporary example, please have a listen to Once Twice Melody (2022) by Beach House, which strips away the noise, leaving a glossy surface behind.

Meanwhile, if you want to dig deeper into contemporary indie music, D.C. Fontaines of Ireland have married poetic lyrics with post-punk music. Start with Dogrel (2019). I also recommend Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) (2013) by Yves Tumor.

Jason Molina

Towards the end of last year, Zedek’s band released Hold on Magnolia, a cover of a song by Jason Molina (1973-2013) with a steel guitar instead of a viola. I must confess I had never heard of Molina at the time. When I dug into his back catalogue, it blew me away: he was a writer of powerful and intimate songs.

Molina died much too young of organ failure due to alcoholism. He had recorded sixteen albums over the course of his much-too-short lifetime under a number of different band names. Although he achieved critical acclaim and underground fame, he also never sold too many records.

Although all Molina’s albums are worth a listen, he achieved a rare run of three perfect albums as Songs: Ohia with Ghost Tropic (2000), Didn’t It Rain (2002) and his true masterwork, The Magnolia Electric Co. (2003). All were released on the Secretly Canadian label. The last album in the run, which closes with Hold on Magnolia, was so good that he renamed his band as The Magnolia Electric Co. Opinions differ about whether this was the last Songs: Ohia album; or the first album for the new band; or maybe a bit of both.

Fans of noisy music, like Zedek’s, will be excited to see that legendary hardcore musician and audio engineer Steve Albini (1962-2024) - the producer of Surfer Rosa (1988) by the Pixies*** and In Utero (1993) by Nirvana - recorded the last album in this run and was named in a song on the second one. However, Molina’s music is better seen as melancholy Midwest Americana, with touches of the blues****.

Fans of roots rock will draw parallels with Gram Parsons (1946-1973), who popularised “cosmic American music” (Americana or alt-country or country rock) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. If you have never heard Parson’s music, which brings together country and rock (an example of combinatorial creativity, which we discussed recently), I would start with the posthumous Grievous Angel (1974).

To my ears, Molina’s muse also seems very similar to Gene Clark’s (1944-1991). Clark is a singer who left the Byrds in 1966, just before Parsons briefly joined the band for its great country-rock album Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968). Although Clark’s solo work is fairly obscure, I discovered it when I slowly went through pretty much every album in Universe Publishing’s 1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2013 - the Spanish edition) over the course of a seriously long time. Start with Clark’s No Other (1974); and prepared to be amazed. And on a side note, if you ever take the trouble to listen to all 1,001 albums mentioned in any edition of the book, you will find that The Cure’s Disintegration (1989) really is the best album ever!

How did Molina get to be quite such a good songwriter? It is worth mentioning his serious work ethic. In an interview from 2006, he said: "I write about eight hours a day, and I throw away most of what I write.” That’s the secret right there! He kept going, writing songs, throwing most of them away, and once in a while keeping one that landed, despite never having much commercial success. When Molina finally recorded the perfect album at the age of 29, it was his seventh studio album.

Molina’s last album was released posthumously. It is unfinished and only one for the fans. However, it offers an intriguing glimpse into the direction his career could have taken - there are echoes of Talk Talk’s later work. Mark Hollis’ (1955-2019) band made one of the all-time great three-albums runs, spanning The Colour of Spring (1986), Spirit of Eden (1988) and Laughing Stock (1991).

The run started with experimental synth pop, but Hollis gradually removed elements and added space to the band’s sound, the same way that dub producers like Lee “Scratch” Perry (1936-2021) had added space to reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Hollis gradually created the new genre of post rock by stripping away elements that he saw as superflous. Molina seemed to be going in a similar direction before his untimely demise.

If you like Molina’s Americana (and Parsons and Clark), you should also check out Big Thief and Valerie June. Big Thief is an indie folk band led by Adrianne Lenker, who tells moving tales of female survival in a world of male violence. She has an amazing backstory, having begun life in a family that was in a cult; before ending up in the Berklee School of Music on a scholarship. I would start with the two albums the band released in 2019, U.F.O.F. and Two Hands, which includes the band’s noisiest number Not - it will appeal to people who enjoy Zedek’s work.

Meanwhile, June offers a unique West Tennessee take on psychedelic soul combined with roots music. Start with Pushin’ Against a Stone (2013). If you like electronic music please check out this Little Dragon remix of one of her numbers from 2021, which sets us up nicely for the next artist.

DJ Koze

Electronic dance music is often innovative, but it can punch under its weight when it comes to full albums. There are obvious exceptions, like house producers Masters at Work’s amazing Nuyorican Soul (1997) album, which we mentioned in a previous essay on music from Spain, Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world. However, hypnotic music aimed at the dancefloor doesn’t always work particularly well at home, even if it can be great on the motorway (my lovely wife had to ban me from listening to Leftfield’s 1995 techno album Leftism in the car, for obvious reasons.)

DJ Koze (Stefan Kozella), a techno producer, DJ and martial artist who lives and works in Hamburg and Cadaqués (on the Costa Brava), is aware of the limitations of the genre. He decided to do something about it by the time he hit his early 40s. The result is his own own three-album run on his Pampa Records label: Amygdala (2013), Knock Knock (2018) and Music Can Hear Us (2025).

Although more commercially successful than Zedek and Molina, Koze is not exactly a household name. His work is worth exploring for all fans of music that strives to move beyond established genres. He famously claimed that Amygdala was his version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), the album where the Beatles pivoted to psychedelic experimentation. I would say it is more like Talk Talk’s move from eighties synth pop to post-rock experimentation. Koze has added space to techno to let it breathe. If you forced me to describe it, I would say it is psychedelic post techno.

Koze explained his process to Beatport in 2023: “I try to make music which emotionally gets me, but it’s difficult because it’s the unknown that gets me – if I can’t comprehend it, if it’s a puzzle I can’t solve, that’s when music is interesting to me… If music is done properly, in a good way, I might like it or love it maybe; but it’s not magic – it’s only magical if I don’t know how it’s done.”

The producer was influenced by hip hop, reggae and German dub techno label Basic Channel in his youth. When he began his mature work, he experimented with making club-inspired music without banging beats, while leaving what other producers might see as “mistakes" in the mix. He likes to leave rough edges and randomness. It creates music of great depth, that ebbs and flows; and bears repeated listens. I personally have some of his CDs in the car. It is the perfect soundtrack for long drives along the motorway, like from Barcelona to the Costa Brava.

If you like Koze’s work, other artists to explore include James Holden. Try Imagine This Is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities (2023). Another British producer, Samuel Shepherd, has a PdD in neuroscience, but makes amazing music as Floating Points. Try Cascade (2024).

If you want a more downtempo experience, look into Promises (2021), Floating Points’ collaboration with legendary jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders (1940-2022) and the London Symphony Orchestra. At the risk of going slightly off-topic, if you want to explore more experiments with jazz and modern music, Ghostface Killah from the Wu-Tang Clan released a deep collaboration with BADBADNOTGOOD called Sour Soul (2015). Also, check out Dawn Chorus (2017) from the wonderful Hidden Orchestra.

Amapiano

The centre of gravity for electronic music seems to be shifting south from Berlin, Ibiza and London towards Johannesburg in South Africa. A new genre, called amapiano (“pianos” in IsiZulu), has been brewing since the 2010s. It is basically a slow-burning and smooth blend of deep house, jazz and lounge music; and it is gradually conquering the whole of Africa, with the rest of the world firmly in its sights.

One of the main innovations in amapiano is called the log drum. It refers to a percussive bassline that was developed by a producer called MDU aka TRP, when he discovered a synth plug-in that was meant to echo a traditional African instrument. Please have a listen to one of his tracks from 2020 to hear what I am talking about.

As an editor who likes to use instrumental music to access flow states, I find that amapiano can be the perfect soundtrack for deep work. If you want to explore the style, the YouTube channel of Major League DJz is a good starting place. Their Amapiano Balcony Mix features the twin brothers playing back-to-back with other stars of the scene. Their channel also features original music, such as this recent collaboration with British soul singer Jorja Smith.

One of the most exciting artists in the scene is called Kelvin Momo. He calls his ultra-smooth and spiritual blend “private school amapiano.” I would start with Ivy League (2021), but any of his five studio albums or DJ mixes are worth listening to.

Amapiano is also spawning a bewildering range of subgenres. It also has sister styles like Afro house, popularised by the likes of Black Coffee and the Keinemusik label and project in Germany; and Afro tcch, which is promoted by the producers like Culoe De Song.

There are also several interesting recent albums that seek a connection between African and Western music. I would start with The Solution is Restless (2021) by Joan as Police Woman, Tony Allen and Dave Okumu; and also check out Keleketla! (2020) by Coldcut and Keleketla. Happy exploring! The comments are open. See you next week!

*Three-album runs are a big theme in this week’s essay. Protection is the middle point of Massive Attack’s incredible run, which began with Blue Lines (1991) and ended with Mezzanine (1998). The band found its way again with Heliogland (2010) after a disappointing fourth album.

**I hate to brag, but you need to know that I saw Nirvana open for Tad in the back room of pub in Leeds with my mate Richard in 1989. I always used to claim to have seen seen the band as a support act, but another mate, Duncan (who saw another gig on the same tour), always corrects me to say that it was a double-headliner act, with both acts taking turns to open. He is right, of course, and it slightly ruins my story. Please check out Duncan's radio show!

***Once again, I hate to brag, but I saw the Pixies as a support act to Throwing Muses in Norwich in 1988. The band was so unexpectedly good that my mate Steven persuaded me to go backstage afterwards and say “hello” - the only time in my life I ever did this. I still have the ticket that the singer, who was then known as Black Francis at the time, signed with a burnt match. It is somewhere in my Mum’s attic.

****When the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame offered honours to awesome country singer-songwriter Dolly Parton, she said she would have to record a rock album first in order to deserve it. Albini immediately asked her if she liked analogue recordings. Sadly, nothing ever came of this question, and he died a couple of years later.

Previously on Sharpen Your Axe

Combinatorial creativity

Post on Spanish music and music in Spanish

Further Reading

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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